Glossary

P

peripheral device . A product used in conjunction with a computer, that is physically separate but that is under the computer’s control. It is usually connected to the computer by cables or wires. Printers, disk drives, scanners, libraries, and modems are examples of peripheral devices.

picker. See transport mechanism.

R

rack. A cabinet-like product used to house one or more computer peripherals. Computer peripherals are mounted to special brackets or rack slides which allow the peripherals to be installed into the rack.

rack slides. Expandable mechanical devices that are mounted to a computer peripheral and allow the peripheral to be installed into a rack which can house multiple computer peripheral devices. The rack slides allow the peripheral to be extended out of the rack for service.

rails. The vertical slotted metal pieces at the front and back of a rack used to mount the rack slides to the rack.

S

SCSI. An acronym for the Small Computer Systems Interface.

slides. See rack slides.

storage slot. An area of the magazine that holds cartridges when the cartridges are not in the drive.

swap. A motion that occurs when the transport mechanism replaces one tape cartridge in the drive with another, returning the first to its storage slot.

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