S2060 Tomcat i815e
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Form factor
is an industry term for the size, shape, power supply type, and external
connector type of the PCB (personal computer board) or motherboard. The standard
form factors are the AT and ATX, although TYAN also makes some Baby-AT boards.
A
Global timer
is an onboard hardware timer, such as the Real Time Clock.
Handshaking
is a form of encryption. One system, typically the server, sends an
encryption scheme to another agent, typically a client. Thus, the client’s data is
protected during transmittal to the server.
HDD
stands for
H
ard
D
isk
D
rive.
H-SYNC
controls the horizontal properties of the monitor.
IC
(
I
ntegrated
C
ircuit) is the formal name for the computer chip.
IDE
I
ntegrated
D
evice (or Drive)
E
lectronics is a simple, self-contained hard drive
interface. It can handle drives up to 8.4GB in size. Almost all IDEs sold now are in fact
Enhanced IDEs (EIDEs).
IDE INT
(
IDE
Int
errupt) is a hardware interrupt signal that goes to the IDE.
I/O
(
I
nput/
O
utput) is the connection between your computer and another piece of
hardware (mouse, keyboard, etc.).
IRQ
An Interrupt Request is an electronic request that runs from a hardware device to
the CPU. The interrupt controller assigns priorities to incoming requests and delivers
them to the CPU. It is important that there is only one device hooked up to each IRQ
line; doubling up devices on IRQ lines can lock up your system. Happily, Plug and
Play operating systems take care of these details for you.
ISA
(
I
ndustry
S
tandard
A
rchitecture) is a slower 8- or 16-bit bus (data pathway).
Latency
is the amount of time that one part of a system spends waiting for another
part to catch up. This is most common when the system sends data out to a peripheral
device, and is waiting for the peripheral to send some data back (peripherals tend to be
slower than onboard system components).
NVRAM
ROM and EEPROM are both examples of
N
on-
V
olatile
RAM
, memory that
holds its data without power. DRAM, in contrast, is volatile.
OEMs
(
O
riginal
E
quipment
M
anufacturers) like Compaq or IBM package other
companies’ motherboards and hardware inside their case and sell them.
The
parallel port
transmits the bits of a byte on eight different wires at the same time
(that is, in parallel form, eight bits at the same time).
PCI
(
P
eripheral
C
omponent
I
nterconnect) is a 32-bit local bus (data pathway) which
is faster than the ISA bus. Local buses are those which operate within a single system
(as opposed to a network bus, which connects multiple systems).
GLOSSAR
Y
