ERRWDEOH￿GLVNHWWH

A diskette that can boot your computer to the operating system in the event that the computer will not boot from the hard-disk drive.

ESL

Abbreviation for bits per inch.

ESV

Abbreviation for bits per second.

%78

Abbreviation for British thermal unit.

EXV

An information pathway between the components of a computer. Your comput- er contains an expansion bus that allows the microprocessor to communicate with controllers for all the various peripheral devices connected to the computer. Your computer also contains an address bus and a data bus for communications be- tween the microprocessor and RAM.

E\WH

Eight contiguous bits of information, the basic data unit used by your computer.

&

Abbreviation for Celsius.

FDFKH

A fast storage area that keeps a copy of data or instructions for quicker data re- trieval. For example, your computer’s BIOS may cache ROM code in faster RAM. Or, a disk-cache utility may reserve RAM in which to store frequently access- ed information from your computer’s disk drives; when a program makes a request to a disk drive for data that is in the cache, the disk-cache utility can retrieve the data from RAM faster than from the disk drive.

FDUG￿HGJH￿FRQQHFWRU

The metal-contact section on the bottom of an expansion card that plugs into an expansion-card connector.

&'￿520

Abbreviation for compact disc read-only memory. CD-ROM drives use optical technology to read data from CDs. CDs are read-only storage devices; you cannot write new data to a CD with standard CD-ROM drives.

FP

Abbreviation for centimeter(s).

&026

Acronym for complementary metal-oxide semiconductor. In computers, CMOS memory chips are often used for NVRAM storage.

&20Q

The device names for the first through fourth serial ports on your computer are COM1, COM2, COM3, and COM4. The default interrupt for COM1 and COM3 is IRQ4, and the default interrupt for COM2 and COM4 is IRQ3. Therefore, you must be careful when configuring software that runs a serial device so that you don’t cre- ate an interrupt conflict.

FRPSRQHQW

As they relate to DMI, manageable components are operating systems, computer systems, expansion cards, or peripherals that are compatible with DMI. Each component is made up of groups and attributes that are defined as relevant to that component.

FRQILJ￿V\V￿ILOH

The config.sys file (Windows 95 and MS-DOS only) is executed when you boot your computer (before running any commands in the autoexec.bat file). This start-up file contains commands that specify which devices to install and which drivers to use. This file also contains com- mands that determine how the operating system uses memory and controls files.

FRQWUROOHU

A chip that controls the transfer of data between the microprocessor and memo- ry or between the microprocessor and a peripheral device such as a disk drive or the keyboard.

Glossary 3

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