bits per second — The speed at which your computer
receives or sends data to a device such as a modem or
serial printer.
boot — To start your computer; also called start-up and
power-up.
bps — See bits per second.
brightness control — A control that allows you to adjust the
brightness of the display.
buffer — A portion of the computer’s memory that
temporarily holds information used by a program; for
example, the portion of a document you are working on
while using a word processor.
bug — An error in the hardware or software of your
computer that causes an operation to perform incorrectly.
byte — A grouping of eight binary digits (bits) that your
computer treats as one unit; usually represents one character.
cache — A software device that accumulates copies of
recently used disk sectors in RAM. The application program
can then read these copies without accessing the disk,
thereby increasing performance.
central processing unit (CPU) — The electronic circuits in
your computer where most processing of information takes
place.
Glossary
Glossary 3