User’s Manual Glossary-9
Glossary
J
jumper: A small clip or wire that allows you to change the hardware
characteristics by electrically connecting two points of a circuit.
K
K: Taken from the Greek word kilo, meaning 1000; often used as
equivalent to 1024, or 2 raised to the 10th power. See also byte and
kilobyte.
KB: See kilobyte.
keyboard: An input device containing switches that are activated by
manually pressing marked keys. Each keystroke activates a switch
that transmits a specific code to the computer. For each key, the
transmitted code is, in turn, representative of the (ASCII) character
marked on the key.
kilobyte (KB): A unit of data storage equal to 1024 bytes. See also byte
and megabyte.
L
level 2 cache: See cache.
Light Emitting Diode (LED): A semiconductor device that emits light
when a current is applied.
Liquid Crystal Display (LCD): Liquid crystal sealed between two sheets
of glass coated with transparent conducting material. The viewing-
side coating is etched into character forming segments with leads
that extend to the edge of the glass. Applying a voltage between the
glass sheets alters the brightness of the liquid crystal.
LSI: Large Scale Integration.
1) A technology that allows the inclusion of up to 100,000 simple
logic gates on a single chip.
2) An integrated circuit that uses large scale integration.
M
main board: See motherboard.
megabyte (MB): A unit of data storage equal to 1024 kilobytes. See also
kilobyte.
megahertz: A unit of wave frequency that equals 1 million cycles per
second. See also hertz.
menu: A software interface that displays a list of options on the screen.
Also called a screen.
microprocessor: A hardware component contained in a single integrated
circuit that carries out instructions. Also called the central
processing unit (CPU), one of the main parts of the computer.