Glossary 1
*ORVVDU\
The following list d efines or iden tifies
technical terms, abbreviations, and
acronyms used in Dell® user documen ts.
NOTE: Unless otherwise specified,
these definitions may apply only to the
Microsoft
®
Windows
®
95 and
Windows NT
®
operating system s.
Abbreviation for ampere(s).
Abbreviation for alterna ting current.
Abbrevia tion for Adv anced Con figurati on
and Power Interface. ACPI enables
operatin g-s ys tem -di rec ted pow er
management rather than system BIOS-
directed power management. In addition,
it prov ides a gen eric syst em event mech-
anism for Plug and Play and an interfa ce
for configuration control.
An expansion card that plugs into an
expansion-card connector on the comput-
er’s system board. An adapter ca rd adds
some s pecialize d functio n to the com put-
er by providing an interface between the
expansion bus and a peripheral device. Ex-
amples of adapter c ards incl ude network
cards, sound cards, and SCSI adapters.
Abbreviation for Autodesk Device
Interface.
Abbreviati on for accel era ted gra phi cs
port. AGP is a dedicated graphics port that
provides a faster interface between the
video subsystem and system memory
than a PCI graphics device and allows
conventio nal memory to be used for
video-related tasks. The improved inter-
face enables AGP to deliver a smooth,
true-color video image.
Software, such as a sp readsheet or word
processo r, designe d to help you perform
a specific task or series of tasks. Applica-
tion programs run from the operating
system.
Acronym for American Standard Code for
Information Interchange. A text file con-
taining only characters from the ASCII
chara ct e r set (usu al ly created with a text
editor, such as Notepad in Windows), is
called an ASCII file.
Acronym for application-specific integrat-
ed circuit.
Advanced SCSI programming interface.
An individ ual code assigned to a co mpu t-
er, usually by a system administrator, for
security or tracking purposes.