Cyclone System Board Manual
NS
- An acronym for Nanosecond. One
billionth of a second. Measure of the
access time of RAM.
Parallel Port
- A connection for a
printer or similar peripheral. Generally,
parallel ports are output only. See Bi-
directional Parallel Port and ECP.
Parity
- Logic that detects the presence
of an error in memory. Generally, a
single parity bit is used for each byte (8
bits) of data. The most commonly used
forms of parity are even parity, odd par-
ity and checksums.
PCI
- An acronym for Peripheral Com-
ponent Interconnect. A high perfor-
mance 32-bit or 64-bit bus developed
by Intel Corporation. PCI is
designed to be independent of the hard-
ware architecture to ensure compatibil-
ity with future computer systems. See
VESA Local Bus and ISA.
Pentium
- A high performance 64-bit
CISC processor designed and manufac-
tured by Intel Corporation.
Pipeline
- In DRAMs and SRAMs, a
method for increasing the performance
using multistage circuitry to stack or
save data while new data is being ac-
cessed.
Plug and Play
- A standard developed
to ensure easy installation of peripher-
als. Theoretically, a newly installed card
will automatically configure itself and
work properly without requiring jumper
configuration or device drivers.
POST
- An acronym for Power On Self
Test. A diagnostic program that is run
whenever the system is cold booted.
RAM
- An acronym for Random
Access Memory. A type of memory that
is used as the “working memory” of a
computer system. See DRAM and
SRAM.
ROM
- An acronym for Read Only
Memory. A type of memory that retains
its data without requiring power. Once
written, it cannot be modified. See
EPROM and Flash ROM.
Serial Port
- A communications port
used to connect peripherals such as
modems and mice.
Setup
- A program that allows you to
make changes to the system configura-
tion.
Shadow RAM
- A technique used to
load a duplicate copy of BIOS from
slower ROM into faster RAM. This
enhances system performance because
it provides higher access speed to the
BIOS.
SIMM -
An acronym for Standard
Inline Memory Module. A small printed
circuit board containing memory chips.
SDRAM
- An acronym for Synchro-
nous Dynamic Random Access
Memory or Synchronous DRAM. A
DRAM designed to deliver bursts of
data at very high speed using automatic
addressing, multiple page interleaving
and a synchronous (or clocked) inter-
face.
SRAM
- An acronym for Static Ran-
dom Access Memory. A type of memory
that can retain data without requiring
Glossary
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