Glossary
This section defines or identifies technical terms, abbreviations, and acronyms used in your system documents.
A— Ampere(s).
AC — Alternating current.
ACPI — Advanced Configuration and Power Interface. A standard interface for enabling the operating system to direct configuration and power management.
ambient temperature — The temperature of the area or room where the system is located.
ANSI — American National Standards Institute. The primary organization for developing technology standards in the U.S.
application — Software designed to help you perform a specific task or series of tasks. Applications run from the operating system.
ASCII — American Standard Code for Information Interchange.
asset tag — An individual code assigned to a system, usually by an administrator, for security or tracking purposes.
backup — A copy of a program or data file. As a precaution, back up your system’s hard drive on a regular basis. Before making a change to the configuration of your system, back up important
backup battery — A battery that maintains system configuration, date, and time information in a special section of memory when the system is turned off.
beep code — A diagnostic message in the form of a pattern of beeps from your system’s speaker. For example, one beep, followed by a second beep, and then a burst of three beeps is beep code
BIOS — Basic input/output system. Your system’s BIOS contains programs stored on a flash memory chip. The BIOS controls the following:
•Communications between the processor and peripheral devices
•Miscellaneous functions, such as system messages
bit — The smallest unit of information interpreted by your system.
blade — A module that contains a processor, memory, and a hard drive. The modules are mounted into a chassis that includes power supplies and fans.
BMC — Baseboard management controller.
boot routine — A program that clears all memory, initializes devices, and loads the operating system when you start your system. Unless the operating system fails to respond, you can reboot (also called warm boot) your system by pressing <Ctrl><Alt><Del>. Otherwise, you must restart the system by pressing the reset button or by turning the system off and then back on.
bootable diskette — A diskette that is used to start your system if the system will not boot from the hard drive.
BTU — British thermal unit.
bus — An information pathway between the components of a system. Your system contains an expansion bus that allows the processor to communicate with controllers for the peripheral devices connected to the system. Your system also contains an address bus and a data bus for communications between the processor and RAM.
C — Celsius.
cache — A fast storage area that keeps a copy of data or instructions for quick data retrieval. When a program makes a request to a disk drive for data that is in the cache, the
CD — Compact disc. CD drives use optical technology to read data from CDs.
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