31. Glossary

Accelerated Graphics Port. A bus interconnect mechanism designed to improve performance of 3D graphics applications. AGP is a dedicated bus from the graphics subsystem to the core-logic chipset. here

AT Attachment Packet Interface. A new protocol for controlling mass storage devices similar to SCSI protocols. It builds on the ATA (AT Attachment) interface, the official ANSI Standard name for the IDE interface developed for hard disk drives. ATAPI is commonly used for hard disks, CD-ROM drives, tape drives, and other devices.

Asynchronous Transfer Mode

Compact Disk Digital Audio. Capability of CD-ROM/Writer to read out audio tracks.

Direct Memory Access

Enhanced Graphics Adapter

Enhanced IDE

Extended Industry System Architecture

Fiber Distributed Data Interface. High-speed ring local area network.

Integrated Drive Electronics. Each drive has a built-in controller.

Industry System Architecture

Integrated Services Digital Network

MicroChannel Architecture

Modified Frequency Modulation

Multimedia Extensions. Extra instructions meant to speed multimedia.

Pheripheral Component Interconnect. 32-bit bus designed by Intel. Information can be found here.

Redudant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks. The basic idea of RAID is to combine multiple small, inexpensive disk drives into an array of disk drives which yields performance exceeding that of a single large expensive drive. There are five types of redundant array Architectures; RAID-1 through RAID-5. A non-redudant array of disk drives is referred to as RAID-0. Some RAID systems can mix formats. (more info)

Printing Performance Architecture. Protocol developed by Hewlett Packard for their series of Deskjet printers. In essence, the protocol moves the low-level processing of the data to the host computer rather than the printer. This allows for a low-cost printer with a small amount of memory and computing power and a flexible driver. However, this comes at the price of compatibility. HP's decision was to develop drivers only for Windows 95 for this printer.

Run Length Limited

Serial ATA. Basically IDE over a much smaller cable. See SerialATA.Org for more information.

Small Computer Systems Interface. A standerd interface defined for all devices in a computer. It make it possible to use a single adapter for all devices. (more info)

Super Video Graphics Adapter

Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter

Universal Serial Bus.

Video Graphics Adapter

VESA Local Bus. Used in some 486 PC's.

Write Once Read Many