CPT

Source: HYPER
A browser is a HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view” program used to browse the HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WWW/view” web. Some common browsers include HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/FreeSoftware/Netscape/view” Netscape, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/FreeSoftware/MSIE/view” MSIE (Microsoft Internet Explorer), HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/FreeSoftware/Safari/view” Safari, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/FreeSoftware/Lynx/view” Lynx, Mosaic, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/FreeSoftware/Amaya/view” Amaya, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/FreeSoftware/Arena/view” Arena, Chimera, Opera, Cyberdog, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/FreeSoftware/HotJava/view” HotJava, etc.
bug
A bug is a mistake in the design of something, especially HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view” software. A really severe bug can cause something to HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/crash/view” crash.
chat
Chatting is like HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/e-mail/view” e-mail, only it is done instantaneously and can directly involve multiple people at once. While e-mail now relies on one more or less standard HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/protocol/view” protocol, chatting still has a couple competing ones. Of particular note are HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/IRC/view” IRC and HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/IM/view” Instant Messenger. One step beyond chatting is called HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MUD/view” MUDding.
click
To press a HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/mouse/view” mouse button. When done twice in rapid succession, it is referred to as a double-click.
cursor
A point of attention on the computer screen, often marked with a flashing line or block. Text typed into the computer will usually appear at the cursor.
database
A database is a collection of data, typically organized to make common retrievals easy and efficient. Some common database programs include Oracle, Sybase, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/FreeSoftware/PostgreSQL/view” Postgres, Informix, Filemaker, Adabas, etc.
desktop
A desktop system is a computer designed to sit in one position on a desk somewhere and not move around. Most general purpose computers are desktop systems. Calling a system a desktop implies nothing about its platform. The fastest desktop system at any given time is typically either an HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Alpha/view” Alpha or HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view” PowerPC based system, but the HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SPARC/view” SPARC and HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PA-RISC/view” PA-RISC based systems are also often in the running. Industrial strength desktops are typically called HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/workstation/view” workstations.
directory
Also called “folder”, a directory is a collection of HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/file/view” files typically created for organizational purposes. Note that a directory is itself a file, so a directory can generally contain other directories. It differs in this way from a HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/partition/view” partition.
disk
A disk is a physical object used for storing data. It will not forget its data when it loses power. It is always used in conjunction with a HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/drive/view” disk drive. Some disks can be removed from their drives, some cannot. Generally it is possible to write new information to a disk in addition to reading data from it, but this is not always the case.
drive
A device for storing and/or retrieving data. Some drives (such as disk drives, zip drives, and tape drives) are typically capable of having new data written to them, but some others (like CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs) are not. Some drives have HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/randomaccess/view” random access (like disk drives, zip drives, CD-ROMs, and DVD-ROMs), while others only have HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/sequentialaccess/view” sequential access (like tape drives).
e-book
The concept behind an e-book is that it should provide all the functionality of an ordinary book but in a manner that is (overall) less expensive and more environmentally friendly. The actual term e-book is somewhat confusingly used to refer to a variety of things: custom HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view” software to play e-book titles, dedicated HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/hardware/view” hardware to play e-book titles, and the e-book titles themselves. Individual e-book titles can be free or commercial (but will always be less expensive than their printed counterparts) and have to be loaded into a player to be read. Players vary wildly in capability level. Basic ones allow simple reading and bookmarking; better ones include various features like HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/hypertext/view” hypertext, illustrations, audio, and even limited video. Other optional features allow the user to mark-up sections of text, leave notes, circle or diagram things, highlight passages, program or customize settings, and even use HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/IF/view” interactive fiction. There are many types of e-book; a couple popular ones include the HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Newtonbook/view” Newton book and HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PalmDOC/view” Palm DOC.
e-mail
E-mail is short for electronic mail. It allows for the transfer of information from one computer to another, provided that they are hooked up via some sort of HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/network/view” network (often the HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view” Internet. E-mail works similarly to FAXing, but its contents typically get printed out on the other end only on demand, not immediately and automatically as with FAX. A machine receiving e-mail will also not reject other incoming mail messages as a busy FAX machine will; rather they will instead be HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/queue/view” queued up to be received after the current batch has been completed. E-mail is only seven- HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bit/view” bit clean, meaning that you should not expect anything other than HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ASCII/view” ASCII data to go through uncorrupted without prior conversion via something like HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/uucode/view” uucode or HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bcode/view” bcode. Some mailers will do some conversion automatically, but unless you know your mailer is one of them, you may want to do the encoding manually.
file
A file is a unit of (usually named) information stored on a computer.
firmware
Sort of in-between HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/hardware/view” hardware and HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view” software, firmware consists of modifiable HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view” programs HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/embedded/view” embedded in hardware. Firmware updates should be treated with care since they can literally destroy the underlying hardare if done improperly. There are also cases where neglecting to apply a firmware update can destroy the underlying hardware, so HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/user/view” user beware.
floppy
An extremely common type of removable HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/disk/view” disk. Floppies do not hold too much data, but most computers are capable of reading them. Note though that there are different competing HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/format/view” format used for floppies, so that a floppy written by one type of computer might not directly work on another. Also sometimes called “diskette”.
format
The manner in which data is stored; its organization. For example, VHS, SVHS, and Beta are three different formats of video tape. They are not 100% compatible with each other, but information can be transferred from one to the other with the proper equipment (but not always without loss; SVHS contains more information than either of the other two). Computer information can be stored in literally hundreds of different formats, and can represent text, sounds, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/graphics/view” graphics, animations, etc. Computer information can be exchanged via different computer types provided both computers can interpret the format used.
function keys
On a computer HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/keyboard/view” keyboard, the keys that start with an “F” that are usually (but not always) found on the top row. They are meant to perform user-defined tasks.
graphics
Anything visually displayed on a computer that is not text.
hardware
The physical portion of the computer.
hypertext
A hypertext document is like a text document with the ability to contain pointers to other regions of (possibly other) hypertext documents.
Internet
The Internet is the world-wide HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/network/view” network of computers. There is only one Internet, and thus it is typically capitalized (although it is sometimes referred to as “the ‘net”). It is different from an intranet.
keyboard
A keyboard on a computer is almost identical to a keyboard on a typewriter. Computer keyboards will typically have extra keys, however. Some of these keys (common examples include Control, Alt, and Meta) are meant to be used in conjunction with other keys just like shift on a regular typewriter. Other keys (common examples include Insert, Delete, Home, End, Help, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/functionkeys/view” function keys,etc.) are meant to be used independently and often perform editing tasks. Keyboards on different HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view” platforms will often look slightly different and have somewhat different collections of keys. Some keyboards even have independent shift lock and caps lock keys. Smaller keyboards with only math-related keys are typically called “keypads”.
language
Computer HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view” programs can be written in a variety of different languages. Different languages are optimized for different tasks. Common languages include HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Java/view” Java, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/C/view” C, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CPlusPlus/view” C++, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ForTran/view” ForTran, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Pascal/view” Pascal, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Lisp/view” Lisp, and HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/BASIC/view” BASIC. Some people classify languages into two categories, higher-level and lower-level. These people would consider HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/assemblylanguage/view” assembly language and HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/machinelanguage/view” machine language lower-level languages and all other languages higher-level. In general, higher-level languages can be either HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/interpreted/view” interpreted or HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/compiled/view” compiled; many languages allow both, but some are restricted to one or the other. Many people do not consider machine language and assembly language at all when talking about programming languages.
laptop
A laptop is any computer designed to do pretty much anything a HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/desktop/view” desktop system can do but run for a short time (usually two to five hours) on batteries. They are designed to be carried around but are not particularly convenient to carry around. They are significantly more expensive than desktop systems and have far worse battery life than HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PDA/view” PDAs. Calling a system a laptop implies nothing about its platform. By far the fastest laptops are the HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view” PowerPC based HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Mac/view” Macintoshes.
memory
Computer memory is used to temporarily store data. In reality, computer memory is only capable of remembering sequences of zeros and ones, but by utilizing the HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/binary/view” binary number system it is possible to produce arbitrary rational numbers and through clever HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/format/view” formatting all manner of representations of pictures, sounds, and animations. The most common types of memory are HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RAM/view” RAM, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ROM/view” ROM, and HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/flash/view” flash.
modem
A modem allows two computers to communicate over ordinary phone lines. It derives its name from modulate / demodulate, the process by which it converts digital computer data back and forth for use with an analog phone line.
monitor
The screen for viewing computer information is called a monitor.
mouse
In computer parlance a mouse can be both the physical object moved around to control a pointer on the screen, and the pointer itself. Unlike the animal, the proper plural of computer mouse is “mouses”.
multimedia
This originally indicated a capability to work with and integrate various types of things including audio, still HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/graphics/view” graphics, and especially video. Now it is more of a marketing term and has little real meaning. Historically the HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Amiga/view” Amiga was the first multimedia machine. Today in addition to HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/AmigaOS/view” AmigaOS, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/IRIX/view” IRIX and HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Solaris/view” Solaris are popular choices for high-end multimedia work.
NC
The term network computer refers to any (usually HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/desktop/view” desktop) computer system that is designed to work as part of a HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/network/view” network rather than as a stand-alone machine. This saves money on HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/hardware/view” hardware, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view” software, and maintenance by taking advantage of facilities already available on the network. The term “Internet appliance” is often used interchangeably with NC.
network
A network (as applied to computers) typically means a group of computers working together. It can also refer to the physical wire etc. connecting the computers.
notebook
A notebook is a small HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/laptop/view” laptop with similar price, performance, and battery life.
organizer
An organizer is a tiny computer used primarily to store names, addresses, phone numbers, and date book information. They usually have some ability to exchange information with HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/desktop/view” desktop systems. They boast even better battery life than HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PDA/view” PDAs but are far less capable. They are extremely inexpensive but are typically incapable of HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/run/view” running any special purpose HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/application/view” applications and are thus of limited use.
OS
The operating system is the HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view” program that manages a computer’s resources. Common OSes include HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win95/view” Windows ‘95, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MacOS/view” MacOS, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Linux/view” Linux, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Solaris/view” Solaris, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/AmigaOS/view” AmigaOS, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/AIX/view” AIX, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinNT/view” Windows NT, etc.
PC
The term personal computer properly refers to any HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/desktop/view” desktop, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/laptop/view” laptop, or HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/notebook/view” notebook computer system. Its use is inconsistent, though, and some use it to specifically refer to HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view” x86 based systems running HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-DOS/view” MS-DOS, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-Windows/view” MS-Windows, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GEOS/view” GEOS, or HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS2/view” OS/2. This latter use is similar to what is meant by a HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinTel/view” WinTel system.
PDA
A personal digital assistant is a small battery-powered computer intended to be carried around by the HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/user/view” user rather than left on a desk. This means that the HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view” processor used ought to be power-efficient as well as fast, and the HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view” OS ought to be optimized for hand-held use. PDAs typically have an instant-on feature (they would be useless without it) and most are grayscale rather than color because of battery life issues. Most have a pen interface and come with a detachable stylus. None use HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/mouse/view” mouses. All have some ability to exchange data with HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/desktop/view” desktop systems. In terms of raw capabilities, a PDA is more capable than an HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/organizer/view” organizer and less capable than a HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/laptop/view” laptop (although some high-end PDAs beat out some low-end laptops). By far the most popular PDA is the HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PalmPilot/view” Pilot, but other common types include HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Newton/view” Newtons, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Psion/view” Psions, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Zaurus/view” Zauri, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Zoomer/view” Zoomers, and HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinCE/view” Windows CE hand-helds. By far the fastest current PDA is the Newton (based around a HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ARM/view” StrongARM HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RISC/view” RISC HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view” processor). Other PDAs are optimized for other tasks; few computers are as personal as PDAs and care must be taken in their purchase. HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/PDA/” Feneric’s PDA / Handheld Comparison Page is perhaps the most detailed comparison of PDAs and handheld computers to be found anywhere on the web.
platform
Roughly speaking, a platform represents a computer’s family. It is defined by both the HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view” processor type on the HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/hardware/view” hardware side and the HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view” OS type on the HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view” software side. Computers belonging to different platforms cannot typically HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/run/view” run each other’s HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view” programs (unless the programs are written in a HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view” language like HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Java/view” Java).
portable
If something is portable it can be easily moved from one type of computer to another. The verb “to port” indicates the moving itself.
printer
A printer is a piece of HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/hardware/view” hardware that will print computer information onto paper.
processor
The processor (also called central processing unit, or CPU) is the part of the computer that actually works with the data and HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/run/view” runs the HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view” programs. There are two main processor types in common usage today: HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CISC/view” CISC and HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RISC/view” RISC. Some computers have more than one processor and are thus called “multiprocessor”. This is distinct from HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/multitasking/view” multitasking. Advertisers often use HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/megahertz/view” megahertz numbers as a means of showing a processor’s speed. This is often extremely misleading; megahertz numbers are more or less meaningless when compared across different types of processors.
program
A program is a series of instructions for a computer, telling it what to do or how to behave. The terms ” HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/application/view” application” and ” HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/application/view” app” mean almost the same thing (albeit applications generally have HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GUI/view” GUIs). It is however different from an HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/applet/view” applet. Program is also the verb that means to create a program, and a programmer is one who programs.
run
Running a HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view” program is how it is made to do something. The term “execute” means the same thing.
software
The non-physical portion of the computer; the part that exists only as data; the HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view” programs. Another term meaning much the same is “code”.
spreadsheet
An HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view” program used to perform various calculations. It is especially popular for financial applications. Some common spreadsheets include Lotus 123, Excel, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/FreeSoftware/OpenOffice/view” OpenOffice Spreadsheet, Octave, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/FreeSoftware/Gnumeric/view” Gnumeric, AppleWorks Spreadsheet, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/FreeSoftware/Oleo/view” Oleo, and GeoCalc.
user
The operator of a computer.
word processor
A HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view” program designed to help with the production of textual documents, like letters and memos. Heavier duty work can be done with a HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/desktoppublisher/view” desktop publisher. Some common word processors include MS-Word, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/FreeSoftware/OpenOffice/view” OpenOffice Write, WordPerfect, HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/FreeSoftware/AbiWord/view” AbiWord, AppleWorks Write, and GeoWrite.
www
The World-Wide-Web refers more or less to all the publically accessable documents on the HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view” Internet. It is used quite loosely, and sometimes indicates only HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/HTML/view” HTML HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/file/view” files and sometimes HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/FTP/view” FTP and HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/gopher/view” Gopher files, too. It is also sometimes just referred to as “the web”.
Reference
65xx
The 65xx series of HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view” processors includes the 6502, 65C02, 6510, 8502, 65C816, 65C816S, etc. It is a HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CISC/view” CISC design and is not being used in too many new stand-alone computer systems, but is still being used in HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/embedded/view” embedded systems, game systems (such as the Super NES), and HYPERLINK “http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view” processor enhancement add-ons for older systems. It was originally designed by MOS Technologies, but is now produced by The Western Design Center, Inc. It was the primary processor for many extremely popular systems no longer being produced, including the Commodore 64, the Commodore 128, and all the Apple ][ series machines.
68xx
The 68xx series of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processors includes the 6800, 6805, 6809, 68000, 68020, 68030, 68040, 68060, etc. It is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CISC/view" CISC design and is not being used in too many new stand-alone computer systems, but is still being used heavily in HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/embedded/view" embedded systems. It was originally designed by Motorola and was the primary processor for older generations of many current machines, including HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Mac/view" Macintoshes, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Amiga/view" Amigas, Sun workstations, HP workstations, etc. and the primary processor for many systems no longer being produced, such as the TRS-80. The HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view" PowerPC was designed in part to be its replacement.
a11y
Commonly used to abbreviate the word "accessibility". There are eleven letters between the "a" and the "y".
ADA
An HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OO/view" object-oriented HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language at one point popular for military and some academic HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software. Lately HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CPlusPlus/view" C++ and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Java/view" Java have been getting more attention.
AI
Artificial intelligence is the concept of making computers do tasks once considered to require thinking. AI makes computers play chess, recognize handwriting and speech, helps suggest prescriptions to doctors for patients based on imput symptoms, and many other tasks, both mundane and not.
AIX
The industrial strength HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS designed by IBM to run on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view" PowerPC and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86 based machines. It is a variant of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX and is meant to provide more power than HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS2/view" OS/2.
AJaX
AJaX is a little like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/DHTML/view" DHTML, but it adds asynchronous communication between the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/browser/view" browser and Web site via either HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XML/view" XML or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/JSON/view" JSON to achieve performance that often rivals desktop HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/application/view" applications.
Alpha
An Alpha is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RISC/view" RISC HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processor invented by Digital and currently produced by Digital/Compaq and Samsung. A few different HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OSes run on Alpha based machines including Digital UNIX, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinNT/view" Windows NT, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Linux/view" Linux, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/NetBSD/view" NetBSD, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/AmigaOS/view" AmigaOS. Historically, at any given time, the fastest processor in the world has usually been either an Alpha or a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view" PowerPC (with sometimes HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SPARC/view" SPARCs and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PA-RISC/view" PA-RISCs making the list), but Compaq has recently announced that there will be no further development of this superb processor instead banking on the release of the somewhat suspect HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Merced/view" Merced.
AltiVec
AltiVec (also called the "Velocity Engine") is a special extension built into some HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view" PowerPC HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" CPUs to provide better performance for certain operations, most notably HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/graphics/view" graphics and sound. It is similar to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MMX/view" MMX on the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86 CPUs. Like MMX, it requires special HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software for full performance benefits to be realized.
Amiga
A platform originally created and only produced by Commodore, but now owned by Gateway 2000 and produced by it and a few smaller companies. It was historically the first HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/multimedia/view" multimedia machine and gave the world of computing many innovations. It is now primarily used for audio / video applications; in fact, a decent Amiga system is less expensive than a less capable video editing system. Many music videos were created on Amigas, and a few television series and movies had their special effects generated on Amigas. Also, Amigas can be readily synchronized with video cameras, so typically when a computer screen appears on television or in a movie and it is not flickering wildly, it is probably an Amiga in disguise. Furthermore, many coin-operated arcade games are really Amigas packaged in stand-up boxes. Amigas have HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/AmigaOS/view" AmigaOS for their HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS. New Amigas have either a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view" PowerPC or an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Alpha/view" Alpha for their main HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processor and a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/68xx/view" 68xx processor dedicated to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/graphics/view" graphics manipulation. Older (and low end) Amigas do everything with just a 68xx processor.
AmigaOS
The HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS used by HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Amiga/view" Amigas. AmigaOS combines the functionality of an OS and a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/windowmanager/view" window manager and is fully HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/multitasking/view" multitasking. AmigaOS boasts a pretty good selection of games (many arcade games are in fact written on Amigas) but has limited HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/driver/view" driver support. AmigaOS will run on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/68xx/view" 68xx, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Alpha/view" Alpha, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view" PowerPC based machines.
Apple ][
The Apple ][ computer sold millions of units and is generally considered to have been the first home computer with a 1977 release date. It is based on the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/65xx/view" 65xx family of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processors. The earlier Apple I was only available as a build-it-yourself kit.
AppleScript
A HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/script/view" scripting HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MacOS/view" Mac OS computers.
applet
An applet differs from an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/application/view" application in that is not meant to be HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/run/view" run stand-alone but rather with the assistance of another program, usually a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/browser/view" browser.
AppleTalk
AppleTalk is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/protocol/view" protocol for computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/network/view" networks. It is arguably inferior to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/TCPIP/view" TCP/IP.
Aqua
The default HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/windowmanager/view" window manager for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MacOSX/view" Mac OS X.
Archie
Archie is a system for searching through HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/FTP/view" FTP archives for particular files. It tends not to be used too much anymore as more general modern search engines are significantly more capable.
ARM
An ARM is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RISC/view" RISC HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processor invented by Advanced RISC Machines, currently owned by Intel, and currently produced by both the above and Digital/Compaq. ARMs are different from most other processors in that they were not designed to maximize speed but rather to maximize speed per power consumed. Thus ARMs find most of their use on hand-held machines and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PDA/view" PDAs. A few different HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OSes run on ARM based machines including HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Newton/view" Newton OS, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Java/view" JavaOS, and (soon) HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinCE/view" Windows CE and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Linux/view" Linux. The StrongARM is a more recent design of the original ARM, and it is both faster and more power efficient than the original.
ASCII
The ASCII HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/characterset/view" character set is the most popular one in common use. People will often refer to a bare text file without complicated embedded format instructions as an ASCII file, and such files can usually be transferred from one computer system to another with relative ease. Unfortunately there are a few minor variations of it that pop up here and there, and if you receive a text file that seems subtly messed up with punctuation marks altered or upper and lower case reversed, you are probably encountering one of the ASCII variants. It is usually fairly straightforward to translate from one ASCII variant to another, though. The ASCII character set is seven HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bit/view" bit while pure HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/binary/view" binary is usually eight bit, so transferring a binary file through ASCII channels will result in corruption and loss of data. Note also that the ASCII character set is a subset of the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Unicode/view" Unicode character set.
ASK
A HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/protocol/view" protocol for an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/infraredcommunications/view" infrared communications port on a device. It predates the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/IrDA/view" IrDA compliant infrared communications protocol and is not compatible with it. Many devices with infrared communications support both, but some only support one or the other.
assembly language
Assembly language is essentially HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/machinelanguage/view" machine language that has had some of the numbers replaced by somewhat easier to remember mnemonics in an attempt to make it more human-readable. The HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program that converts assembly language to machine language is called an assembler. While assembly language predates HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ForTran/view" FORTRAN, it is not typically what people think of when they discuss HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" computer languages.
Atom
Atom is an intended replacement for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RSS/view" RSS and like it is used for syndicating a web site's content. It is currently not nearly as popular or well-supported by software HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/application/view" applications, however.
authoring system
Any HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GUI/view" GUIs method of designing new HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software can be called an authoring system. Any computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language name with the word "visual" in front of it is probably a version of that language built with some authoring system capabilities. It appears that the first serious effort to produce a commercial quality authoring system took place in the mid eighties for the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Amiga/view" Amiga.
AWK
AWK is an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/interpreted/view" interpreted HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language developed in 1977 by Aho, Weinberger, & Kernighan. It gets its name from its creators' initials. It is not particularly fast, but it was designed for creating small throwaway HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programs rather than full-blown HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/application/view" applications -- it is designed to make the writing of the program fast, not the program itself. It is quite HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/portable/view" portable with versions existing for numerous HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platforms, including a free HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GNU/view" GNU version. Plus, virtually every version of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX in the world comes with AWK built-in.
BASIC
The Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code is a computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language developed by Kemeny & Kurtz in 1964. Although it is traditionally HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/interpreted/view" interpreted, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/compiled/view" compilers exist for many HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platforms. While the interpreted form is typically fairly slow, the compiled form is often quite fast, usually faster than HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Pascal/view" Pascal. The biggest problem with BASIC is HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/portable/view" portability; versions for different machines are often completely unlike each other; HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Amiga/view" Amiga BASIC at first glance looks more like Pascal, for example. Portability problems actually go beyond even the cross platform level; in fact, most machines have multiple versions of incompatible BASICs available for use. The most popular version of BASIC today is called Visual BASIC. Like all BASICs it has portability issues, but it has some of the advantages of an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/authoringsystem/view" authoring system so it is relatively easy to use.
baud
A measure of communications speed, used typically for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/modem/view" modems indicating how many HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bit/view" bits per second can be transmitted.
BBS
A bulletin board system is a computer that can be directly connected to via HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/modem/view" modem and provides various services like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/e-mail/view" e-mail, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/chat/view" chatting, newsgroups, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/file/view" file HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/download/view" downloading. BBSs have waned in popularity as more and more people are instead connecting to the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view" Internet, but they are still used for product support and local area access. Most current BBSs provide some sort of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/gateway/view" gateway connection to the Internet.
bcode
Identical in intent to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/uucode/view" uucode, bcode is slightly more efficient and more HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/portable/view" portable across different computer types. It is the preferred method used by HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MIME/view" MIME.
BeOS
A HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/lightweight/view" lightweight HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS available for both HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view" PowerPC and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86 based machines. It is often referred to simply as "Be".
beta
A beta version of something is not yet ready for prime time but still possibly useful to related developers and other interested parties. Expect beta HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/crash/view" crash more than properly released software does. Traditionally beta versions (of commercial software) are distributed only to selected testers who are often then given a discount on the proper version after its release in exchange for their testing work. Beta versions of non-commercial software are more often freely available to anyone who has an interest.
binary
There are two meanings for binary in common computer usage. The first is the name of the number system in which there are only zeros and ones. This is important to computers because all computer data is ultimately a series of zeros and ones, and thus can be represented by binary numbers. The second is an offshoot of the first; data that is not meant to be intepreted through a common HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/characterset/view" character set (like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ASCII/view" ASCII) is typically referred to as binary data. Pure binary data is typically eight HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bit/view" bit data, and transferring a binary file through ASCII channels without prior modification will result in corruption and loss of data. Binary data can be turned into ASCII data via HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/uucode/view" uucoding or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bcode/view" bcoding.
bit
A bit can either be on or off; one or zero. All computer data can ultimately be reduced to a series of bits. The term is also used as a (very rough) measure of sound quality, color quality, and even HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" procesor capability by considering the fact that series of bits can represent binary numbers. For example (without getting too technical), an eight bit image can contain at most 256 distinct colors while a sixteen bit image can contain at most 65,536 distinct colors.
bitmap
A bitmap is a simplistic representation of an image on a computer, simply indicating whether or not HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/pixel/view" pixels are on or off, and sometimes indicating their color. Often HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/font/view" fonts are represented as bitmaps. The term "pixmap" is sometimes used similarly; typically when a distinction is made, pixmap refers to color images and bitmap refers to monochrome images.
blog
Short for web log, a blog (or weblog, or less commonly, 'blog) is a web site containing periodic (usually frequent) posts. Blogs are usually syndicated via either some type of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RSS/view" RSS or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Atom/view" Atom and often supports HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/TrackBack/view" TrackBacks. It is not uncommon for blogs to function much like newspaper columns. A blogger is someone who writes for and maintains a blog.
boolean
Boolean algebra is the mathematics of base two numbers. Since base two numbers have only two values, zero and one, there is a good analogy between base two numbers and the logical values "true" & "false". In common usage, booleans are therefore considered to be simple logical values like true & false and the operations that relate them, most typically "and", "or" and "not". Since everyone has a basic understanding of the concepts of true & false and basic conjunctions, everyone also has a basic understanding of boolean concepts -- they just may not realize it.
byte
A byte is a grouping of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bit/view" bits. It is typically eight bits, but there are those who use non-standard byte sizes. Bytes are usually measured in large groups, and the term "kilobyte" (often abbreviated as K) means one-thousand twenty-four (1024) bytes; the term "megabyte" (often abbreviated as M) means one-thousand twenty-four (1024) K; the term gigabyte (often abbreviated as G) means one-thousand twenty-four (1024) M; and the term "terabyte" (often abbreviated as T) means one-thousand twenty-four (1024) G. HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/memory/view" Memory is typically measured in kilobytes or megabytes, and disk space is typically measured in megabytes or gigabytes. Note that the multipliers here are 1024 instead of the more common 1000 as would be used in the metric system. This is to make it easier to work with the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/binary/view" binary number system. Note also that some HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/hardware/view" hardware manufacturers will use the smaller 1000 multiplier on M & G quantities to make their disk drives seem larger than they really are; buyer beware.
bytecode
Sometimes computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" languages that are said to be either HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/interpreted/view" interpreted or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/compiled/view" compiled are in fact neither and are more accurately said to be somewhere in between. Such languages are compiled into bytecode which is then interpreted on the target system. Bytecode tends to be HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/binary/view" binary but will work on any machine with the appropriate HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/environment/view" runtime environment (or virtual machine) for it.
C
C is one of the most popular computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" languages in the world, and quite possibly the most popular. It is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/compiled/view" compiled langauge widely supported on many HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platforms. It tends to be more HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/portable/view" portable than HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ForTran/view" FORTRAN but less portable than HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Java/view" Java; it has been standardized by ANSI as "ANSI C" -- older versions are called either "K&R C" or "Kernighan and Ritchie C" (in honor of C's creators), or sometimes just "classic C". Fast and simple, it can be applied to all manner of general purpose tasks. C compilers are made by several companies, but the free HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GNU/view" GNU version (gcc) is still considered one of the best. Newer C-like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OO/view" object-oriented languages include both Java and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CPlusPlus/view" C++.
C#
C# is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/compiled/view" compiled HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OO/view" object-oriented HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language based heavily on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CPlusPlus/view" C++ with some HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Java/view" Java features.
C++
C++ is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/compiled/view" compiled HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OO/view" object-oriented HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language. Based heavily on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/C/view" C, C++ is nearly as fast and can often be thought of as being just C with added features. It is currently probably the second most popular object-oriented language, but it has the drawback of being fairly complex -- the much simpler but somewhat slower HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Java/view" Java is probably the most popular object-oriented language. Note that C++ was developed independently of the somewhat similar HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ObjC/view" Objective-C; it is however related to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ObjCPlusPlus/view" Objective-C++.
C64/128
The Commodore 64 computer to this day holds the record for being the most successful model of computer ever made with even the lowest estimates being in the tens of millions. Its big brother, the Commodore 128, was not quite as popular but still sold several million units. Both units sported HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ROM/view" ROM-based HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/BASIC/view" BASIC and used it as a default " HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS". The C128 also came with HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CPM/view" CP/M (it was a not-often-exercized option on the C64). In their later days they were also packaged with HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GEOS/view" GEOS. Both are based on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/65xx/view" 65xx family HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processors. They are still in use today and boast a friendly and surprisingly active HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/user/view" user community. There is even a current effort to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/portable/view" port HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Linux/view" Linux to the C64 and C128 machines.
CDE
The common desktop environment is a popular commercial HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/windowmanager/view" window manager (and much more -- as its name touts, it is more of a desktop environment) that runs under HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/X/view" X-Windows. Free work-alike versions are also available.
chain
Some computer devices support chaining, the ability to string multiple devices in a sequence plugged into just one computer port. Often, but not always, such a chain will require some sort of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/terminator/view" terminator to mark the end. For an example, a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SCSI/view" SCSI HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/scanner/view" scanner may be plugged into a SCSI CD-ROM HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/drive/view" drive that is plugged into a SCSI hard drive that is in turn plugged into the main computer. For all these components to work properly, the scanner would also have to have a proper terminator in use. Device chaining has been around a long time, and it is interesting to note that HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/C64-128/view" C64/128 HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/serial/view" serial devices supported it from the very beginning. Today the most common low-cost chainable devices in use support HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/USB/view" USB while the fastest low-cost chainable devices in use support HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/FireWire/view" FireWire.
character set
Since in reality all a computer can store are series of zeros and ones, representing common things like text takes a little work. The solution is to view the series of zeros and ones instead as a sequence of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/byte/view" bytes, and map each one to a particular letter, number, or symbol. The full mapping is called a character set. The most popular character set is commonly referred to as HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ASCII/view" ASCII. The second most popular character set these days is HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Unicode/view" Unicode (and it will probably eventually surpass ASCII). Other fairly common character sets include HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/EDBIC/view" EBCDIC and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PETSCII/view" PETSCII. They are generally quite different from one another; HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programs exist to convert between them on most HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platforms, though. Usually EBCDIC is only found on really old machines.
CISC
Complex instruction set computing is one of the two main types of processor design in use today. It is slowly losing popularity to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RISC/view" RISC designs; currently all the fastest processors in the world are RISC. The most popular current CISC processor is the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86, but there are also still some HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/68xx/view" 68xx, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/65xx/view" 65xx, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Z80/view" Z80s in use.
CLI
A command-line interface is a text-based means of communicating with a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program, especially an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS. This is the sort of interface used by HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-DOS/view" MS-DOS, or a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/shell/view" shell window.
COBOL
The Common Business Oriented Language is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language developed back in 1959 and still used by some businesses. While it is relatively HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/portable/view" portable, it is still disliked by many professional programmers simply because COBOL HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programs tend to be physically longer than equivalent programs written in almost any other language in common use.
compiled
If a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program is compiled, its original human-readable source has been converted into a form more easily used by a computer prior to it being HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/run/view" run. Such programs will generally run more quickly than HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/interpreted/view" interpreted programs, because time was pre-spent in the compilation phase. A program that compiles other programs is called a compiler.
compression
It is often possible to remove redundant information or capitalize on patterns in data to make a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/file/view" file smaller. Usually when a file has been compressed, it cannot be used until it is uncompressed. Image files are common exceptions, though, as many popular image file HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/format/view" formats have compression built-in.
cookie
A cookie is a small HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/file/view" file that a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WWW/view" web page on another machine writes to your personal machine's HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/disk/view" disk to store various bits of information. Many people strongly detest cookies and the whole idea of them, and most HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/browser/view" browsers allow the reception of cookies to be disabled or at least selectively disabled, but it should be noted that both Netscape and MSIE have silent cookie reception enabled by default. Sites that maintain shopping carts or remember a reader's last position have legitimate uses for cookies. Sites without such functionality that still spew cookies with distant (or worse, non-existent) expiration dates should perhaps be treated with a little caution.
CP/M
An early HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/DOS/view" DOS for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/desktop/view" desktops, CP/M runs on both HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Z80/view" Z80 and the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86 based machines. CP/M provides only a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CLI/view" CLI and there really is not any standard way to get a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/windowmanager/view" window manager to run on top of it. It is fairly complex and tricky to use. In spite of all this, CP/M was once the most popular DOS and is still in use today.
crash
If a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bug/view" bug in a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program is severe enough, it can cause that program to crash, or to become inoperable without being restarted. On machines that are not HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/multitasking/view" multitasking, the entire machine will crash and have to be HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/boot/view" rebooted. On machines that are only partially multitasking the entire machine will sometimes crash and have to be rebooted. On machines that are fully multitasking, the machine should never crash and require a reboot.
Cray
A Cray is a high-end computer used for research and frequently heavy-duty HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/graphics/view" graphics applications. Modern Crays typically have HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Solaris/view" Solaris for their HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS and sport sixty-four HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RISC/view" RISC HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processors; older ones had various other configurations. Current top-of-the-line Crays can have over 2000 processors.
crippleware
Crippleware is a variant of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/shareware/view" shareware that will either self-destruct after its trial period or has built-in limitations to its functionality that get removed after its purchase.
CSS
Cascading style sheets are used in conjunction with HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/HTML/view" HTML and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XHTML/view" XHTML to define the layout of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WWW/view" web pages. While CSS is how current web pages declare how they should be displayed, it tends not to be supported well (if at all) by ancient HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/browser/view" browsers. HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XSL/view" XSL performs this same function more generally.
desktop publisher
A HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program for creating newspapers, magazines, books, etc. Some common desktop publishing programs include FrameMaker, PageMaker, InDesign, and GeoPublish.
DHTML
Dynamic HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/HTML/view" HTML is simply the combined use of both HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CSS/view" CSS and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/JavaScript/view" JavaScript together in the same document; a more extreme form is called HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/AJaX/view" AJaX. Note that DHTML is quite different from the similarly named HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/DTML/view" DTML.
dict
A HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/protocol/view" protocol used for looking up definitions across a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/network/view" network (in particular the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view" Internet).
digital camera
A digital camera looks and behaves like a regular camera, except instead of using film, it stores the image it sees in HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/memory/view" memory as a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/file/view" file for later transfer to a computer. Many digital cameras offer additional storage besides their own internal memory; a few sport some sort of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/disk/view" disk but the majority utilize some sort of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/flash/view" flash card. Digital cameras currently lack the resolution and color palette of real cameras, but are usually much more convenient for computer applications. Another related device is called a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/scanner/view" scanner.
DIMM
A physical component used to add HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RAM/view" RAM to a computer. Similar to, but incompatible with, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SIMM/view" SIMMs.
DNS
Domain name service is the means by which a name (like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/" www.saugus.net or HYPERLINK "ftp://ftp.saugus.net/" ftp.saugus.net) gets converted into a real HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view" Internet address that points to a particular machine.
DoS
In a denial of service attack, many individual (usually compromised) computers are used to try and simultaneously access the same public resource with the intent of overburdening it so that it will not be able to adequately serve its normal users.
DOS
A disk operating system manages HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/disk/view" disks and other system resources. Sort of a subset of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OSes, sort of an archaic term for the same. HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-DOS/view" MS-DOS is the most popular HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program currently calling itself a DOS. HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CPM/view" CP/M was the most popular prior to MS-DOS.
download
To download a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/file/view" file is to copy it from a remote computer to your own. The opposite is HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/upload/view" upload.
DR-DOS
The HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/DOS/view" DOS currently produced by Caldera (originally produced by Design Research as a successor to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CPM/view" CP/M) designed to work like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-DOS/view" MS-DOS. While similar to CP/M in many ways, it utilizes simpler commands. It provides only a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CLI/view" CLI, but either HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win3.1/view" Windows 3.1 or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GEOS/view" GEOS may be run on top of it to provide a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GUI/view" GUI. It only runs on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86 based machines.
driver
A driver is a piece of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software that works with the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS to control a particular piece of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/hardware/view" hardware, like a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/printer/view" printer or a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/scanner/view" scanner or a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/mouse/view" mouse or whatever.
DRM
Depending upon whom you ask, DRM can stand for either Digital Rights Management or Digital Restrictions Management. In either case, DRM is used to place restrictions upon the usage of digital media ranging from software to music to video.
DTML
The Document Template Mark-up Language is a subset of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SGML/view" SGML and a superset of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/HTML/view" HTML used for creating documents that dynamically adapt to external conditions using its own custom tags and a little bit of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Python/view" Python. Note that it is quite different from the similarly named HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/DHTML/view" DHTML.
EDBIC
The EDBIC HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/characterset/view" character set is similar to (but less popular than) the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ASCII/view" ASCII character set in concept, but is significantly different in layout. It tends to be found only on old machines..
emacs
Emacs is both one of the most powerful and one of the most popular text editing HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programs in existence. Versions can be found for most HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platforms, and in fact multiple companies make versions, so for a given platform there might even be a choice. There is even a free HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GNU/view" GNU version available. The drawback with emacs is that it is not in the least bit HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/lightweight/view" lightweight. In fact, it goes so far in the other direction that even its advocates will occasionally joke about it. It is however extremely capable. Almost anything that one would need to relating to text can be done with emacs and is probably built-in. Even if one manages to find something that emacs was not built to do, emacs has a built-in HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Lisp/view" Lisp HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/interpreted/view" interpreter capable of not only extending its text editing capabilities, but even of being used as a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/script/view" scripting HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language in its own right.
embedded
An embedded system is a computer that lives inside another device and acts as a component of that device. For example, current cars have an embedded computer under the hood that helps regulate much of their day to day operation.An embedded file is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/file/view" file that lives inside another and acts as a portion of that file. This is frequently seen with HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/HTML/view" HTML files having embedded audio files; audio files often embedded in HTML include HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Extensions/au/view" AU files, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Extensions/midi/view" MIDI files, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Extensions/sid/view" SID files, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Extensions/wav/view" WAV files, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Extensions/aiff/view" AIFF files, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Extensions/mod/view" MOD files. Most HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/browser/view" browsers will ignore these files unless an appropriate HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/plug-in/view" plug-in is present.
emulator
An emulator is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program that allows one computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platform to mimic another for the purposes of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/run/view" running its software. Typically (but not always) running a program through an emulator will not be quite as pleasent an experience as running it on the real system.
endian
A HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processor will be either "big endian" or "little endian" based upon the manner in which it encodes multiple HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/byte/view" byte values. There is no difference in performance between the two encoding methods, but it is one of the sources of difficulty when reading HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/binary/view" binary data on different HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platforms.
environment
An environment (sometimes also called a runtime environment) is a collection of external variable items or parameters that a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program can access when HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/run/view" run. Information about the computer's HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/hardware/view" hardware and the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/user/view" user can often be found in the environment.
EPOC
EPOC is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/lightweight/view" lightweight HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS. It is most commonly found on the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Psion/view" Psion HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PDA/view" PDA.
extension
Filename extensions originate back in the days of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CPM/view" CP/M and basically allow a very rough grouping of different HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/file/view" file types by putting a tag at the end of the name. To further complicate matters, the tag is sometimes separated by the name proper by a period "." and sometimes by a tab. While extensions are semi-enforced on CP/M, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-DOS/view" MS-DOS, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-Windows/view" MS-Windows, they have no real meaning aside from convention on other HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platforms and are only optional.
FAQ
A frequently asked questions HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/file/view" file attempts to provide answers for all commonly asked questions related to a given topic.
FireWire
An incredibly fast type of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/serial/view" serial port that offers many of the best features of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SCSI/view" SCSI at a lower price. Faster than most types of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/parallel/view" parallel port, a single FireWire port is capable of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/chain/view" chaining many devices without the need of a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/terminator/view" terminator. FireWire is similar in many respects to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/USB/view" USB but is significantly faster and somewhat more expensive. It is heavily used for connecting audio/video devices to computers, but is also used for connecting storage devices like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/drive/view" drives and other assorted devices like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/printer/view" printers and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/scanner/view" scanners.
fixed width
As applied to a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/font/view" font, fixed width means that every character takes up the same amount of space. That is, an "i" will be just as wide as an "m" with empty space being used for padding. The opposite is HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/variablewidth/view" variable width. The most common fixed width font is Courier.
flash
Flash memory is similar to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RAM/view" RAM. It has one significant advantage: it does not lose its contents when power is lost; it has two main disadvantages: it is slower, and it eventually wears out. Flash memory is frequently found in HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PCMCIA/view" PCMCIA cards.
font
In a simplistic sense, a font can be thought of as the physical description of a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/characterset/view" character set. While the character set will define what sets of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bit/view" bits map to what letters, numbers, and other symbols, the font will define what each letter, number, and other symbol looks like. Fonts can be either HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/fixedwidth/view" fixed width or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/variablewidth/view" variable width and independently, either HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bitmap/view" bitmapped or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/vector/view" vectored. The size of the large characters in a font is typically measured in HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/point/view" points.
Forth
A HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language developed in 1970 by Moore. Forth is fairly HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/portable/view" portable and has versions on many different HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platforms. While it is no longer an very popular language, many of its ideas and concepts have been carried into other computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programs. In particular, some programs for doing heavy-duty mathematical and engineering work use Forth-like interfaces.
FORTRAN
FORTRAN stands for formula translation and is the oldest computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language in the world. It is typically HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/compiled/view" compiled and is quite fast. Its primary drawbacks are HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/portable/view" portability and ease-of-use -- often different FORTRAN compilers on different HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platforms behave quite differently in spite of standardization efforts in 1966 (FORTRAN 66 or FORTRAN IV), 1978 (FORTRAN 77), and 1991 (FORTRAN 90). Today languages like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/C/view" C and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Java/view" Java are more popular, but FORTRAN is still heavily used in military HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software. It is somewhat amusing to note that when FORTRAN was first released back in 1958 its advocates thought that it would mean the end of software HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bug/view" bugs. In truth of course by making the creation of more complex software practical, computer languages have merely created new types of software bugs.
FreeBSD
A free variant of Berkeley HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX available for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Alpha/view" Alpha and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86 based machines. It is not as popular as HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Linux/view" Linux.
freeware
Freeware is HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software that is available for free with no strings attached. The quality is often superb as the authors are also generally HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/user/view" users.
FTP
The file transfer protocol is one of the most commonly used methods of copying HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/file/view" files across the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view" Internet. It has its origins on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX machines, but has been adapted to almost every type of computer in existence and is built into many HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/browser/view" browsers. Most FTP programs have two modes of operation, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ASCII/view" ASCII, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/binary/view" binary. Transmitting an ASCII file via the ASCII mode of operation is more efficient and cleaner. Transmitting a binary file via the ASCII mode of operation will result in a broken binary file. Thus the FTP programs that do not support both modes of operation will typically only do the binary mode, as binary transfers are capable of transferring both kinds of data without corruption.
gateway
A gateway connects otherwise separate computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/network/view" networks.
GEOS
The graphic environment operating system is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/lightweight/view" lightweight HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS with a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GUI/view" GUI. It runs on several different processors, including the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/65xx/view" 65xx (different versions for different machines -- there are versions for the C64, the C128, and the Apple ][, each utilizing the relevant custom chip sets), the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86 (although the x86 version is made to run on top of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-DOS/view" MS-DOS (or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PC-DOS/view" PC-DOS or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/DR-DOS/view" DR-DOS) and is not strictly a full OS or a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/windowmanager/view" window manager, rather it is somewhat in between, like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win3.1/view" Windows 3.1) and numerous different HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PDA/view" PDAs, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/embedded/view" embedded devices, and hand-held machines. It was originally designed by Berkeley Softworks (no real relation to the Berkeley of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX fame) but is currently in a more interesting state: the company GeoWorks develops and promotes development of GEOS for hand-held devices, PDAs, & and embedded devices and owns (but has ceased further development on) the x86 version. The other versions are owned (and possibly still being developed) by the company CMD.
Glulx
A HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/virtualmachine/view" virtual machine optimized for running HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/IF/view" interactive fiction, interactive tutorials, and other interactive things of a primarily textual nature. Glulx has been HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/portable/view" ported to several HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platforms, and in in many ways an upgrade to the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Z-Machine/view" Z-machine.
GNOME
The GNU network object model environment is a popular free HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/windowmanager/view" window manager (and much more -- as its name touts, it is more of a desktop environment) that runs under HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/X/view" X-Windows. It is a part of the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GNU/view" GNU project.
GNU
GNU stands for GNU's not UNIX and is thus a recursive acronym (and unlike the animal name, the "G" here is pronounced). At any rate, the GNU project is an effort by the Free Software Foundation ( HYPERLINK "http://www.fsf.org/" FSF) to make all of the traditional HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX utilities free for whoever wants them. The Free Software Foundation programmers know their stuff, and the quality of the GNU HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software is on par with the best produced commercially, and often better. All of the GNU software can be HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/download/view" downloaded for free or obtained on CD-ROM for a small service fee. Documentation for all GNU software can be downloaded for free or obtained in book form for a small service fee. The Free Software Foundation pays its bills from the collection of service fees and the sale of T-shirts, and exists mostly through volunteer effort. It is based in Cambridge, MA.
gopher
Though not as popular as HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/FTP/view" FTP or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/HTTP/view" http, the gopher HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/protocol/view" protocol is implemented by many HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/browser/view" browsers and numerous other HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programs and allows the transfer of files across HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/network/view" networks. In some respects it can be thought of as a hybrid between FTP and http, although it tends not to be as good at raw file transfer as FTP and is not as flexible as http. The collection of documents available through gopher is often called "gopherspace", and it should be noted that gopherspace is older than the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WWW/view" web. It should also be noted that gopher is not getting as much attention as it once did, and surfing through gopherspace is a little like exploring a ghost town, but there is an interesting HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/VR/view" VR interface available for it, and some things in gopherspace still have not been copied onto the web.
GUI
A graphical user interface is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/graphics/view" graphics-based means of communicating with a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program, especially an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/windowmanager/view" window manager. In fact, a window manager can be thought of as a GUI for a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CLI/view" CLI OS.
HP-UX
HP-UX is the version of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX designed by Hewlett-Packard to work with their HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PA-RISC/view" PA-RISC and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/68xx/view" 68xx based machines.
HTML
The Hypertext Mark-up Language is the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language currently most frequently used to express HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WWW/view" web pages (although it is rapidly being replaced by HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XHTML/view" XHTML). Every HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/browser/view" browser has the built-in ability to understand HTML. Some browsers can additionally understand HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Java/view" Java and browse HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/FTP/view" FTP areas. HTML is a proper subset of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SGML/view" SGML.
http
The hypertext transfer protocol is the native HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/protocol/view" protocol of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/browser/view" browsers and is most typically used to transfer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/HTML/view" HTML formatted files. The secure version is called "https".
Hurd
The Hurd is the official HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GNU/view" GNU HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS. It is still in development and is not yet supported on too many different HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processors, but promises to be the most powerful OS available. It (like all the GNU HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software) is free.
i18n
Commonly used to abbreviate the word "internationalization". There are eighteen letters between the "i" and the "n". Similar to (and often used along with) HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/i18n/view" i18n.
iCalendar
The iCalendar standard refers to the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/format/view" format used to store calendar type information (including events, to-do items, and journal entries) on the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view" Internet. iCalendar data can be found on some HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WWW/view" World-Wide-Web pages or attached to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/e-mail/view" e-mail messages.
icon
A small HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/graphics/view" graphical display representing an object, action, or modifier of some sort.
IDE
Loosely speaking, a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/disk/view" disk HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/format/view" format sometimes used by HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-Windows/view" MS-Windows, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MacOS/view" Mac OS, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/AmigaOS/view" AmigaOS, and (rarely) HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX. EIDE is enhanced IDE; it is much faster. Generally IDE is inferior (but less expensive) to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SCSI/view" SCSI, but it varies somewhat with system HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/load/view" load and the individual IDE and SCSI components themselves. The quick rundown is that: SCSI-I and SCSI-II will almost always outperform IDE; EIDE will almost always outperform SCSI-I and SCSI-II; SCSI-III and UltraSCSI will almost always outperform EIDE; and heavy system loads give an advantage to SCSI. Note that although loosely speaking it is just a format difference, it is deep down a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/hardware/view" hardware difference.
Inform
A HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/compiled/view" compiled, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OO/view" object-oriented HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language optimized for creating HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/IF/view" interactive fiction.
infrared communications
A device with an infrared port can communicate with other devices at a distance by beaming infrared light signals. Two incompatible HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/protocol/view" protocols are used for infrared communications: HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/IrDA/view" IrDA and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ASK/view" ASK. Many devices support both.
Instant Messenger
AOL's Instant Messenger is is a means of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/chat/view" chatting over the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view" Internet in HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/real-time/view" real-time. It allows both open group discussions and private conversations. Instant Messenger uses a different, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/proprietary/view" proprietary HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/protocol/view" protocol from the more standard HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/IRC/view" IRC, and is not supported on as many HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platforms.
interactive fiction
Interactive fiction (often abbreviated "IF" or "I-F") is a form of literature unique to the computer. While the reader cannot influence the direction of a typical story, the reader plays a more active role in an interactive fiction story and completely controls its direction. Interactive fiction works come in all the sizes and genres available to standard fiction, and in fact are not always even fiction per se (interactive tutorials exist and are slowly becoming more common).
interpreted
If a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program is interpreted, its actual human-readable source is read as it is HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/run/view" run by the computer. This is generally a slower process than if the program being run has already been HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/compiled/view" compiled.
intranet
An intranet is a private HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/network/view" network. There are many intranets scattered all over the world. Some are connected to the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view" Internet via HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/gateway/view" gateways.
IP
IP is the family of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/protocol/view" protocols that makes up the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view" Internet. The two most common flavors are HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/TCPIP/view" TCP/IP and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UDPIP/view" UDP/IP.
IRC
Internet relay chat is a means of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/chat/view" chatting over the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view" Internet in HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/real-time/view" real-time. It allows both open group discussions and private conversations. IRC HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programs are provided by many different companies and will work on many different HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platforms. AOL's HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/IM/view" Instant Messenger utilizes a separate incompatible HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/protocol/view" protocol but is otherwise very similar.
IrDA
The Infrared Data Association ( HYPERLINK "http://www.irda.org/" IrDA) is a voluntary organization of various manufacturers working together to ensure that the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/infraredcommunications/view" infrared communications between different computers, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PDA/view" PDAs, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/printer/view" printers, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/digitalcamera/view" digital cameras, remote controls, etc. are all compatible with each other regardless of brand. The term is also often used to designate an IrDA compliant infrared communications port on a device. Informally, a device able to communicate via IrDA compliant infrared is sometimes simply said to "have IrDA". There is also an earlier, incompatible, and usually slower type of infrared communications still in use called HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ASK/view" ASK.
IRI
An Internationalized Resource Identifier is just a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/URI/view" URI with HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/i18n/view" i18n.
IRIX
The variant of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX designed by Silicon Graphics, Inc. IRIX machines are known for their HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/graphics/view" graphics capabilities and were initially optimized for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/multimedia/view" multimedia applications.
ISDN
An integrated service digital network line can be simply looked at as a digital phone line. ISDN connections to the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view" Internet can be four times faster than the fastest regular phone connection, and because it is a digital connection a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/modem/view" modem is not needed. Any computer hooked up to ISDN will typically require other special equipment in lieu of the modem, however. Also, both phone companies and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ISP/view" ISPs charge more for ISDN connections than regular modem connections.
ISP
An Internet service provider is a company that provides HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view" Internet support for other entities. AOL (America Online) is a well-known ISP.
Java
A computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language designed to be both fairly HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/lightweight/view" lightweight and extremely HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/portable/view" portable. It is tightly bound to the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WWW/view" web as it is the primary language for web HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/applet/view" applets. There has also been an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS based on Java for use on small HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PDA/view" hand-held, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/embedded/view" embedded, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/NC/view" network computers. It is called JavaOS. Java can be either HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/interpreted/view" interpreted or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/compiled/view" compiled. For web applet use it is almost always interpreted. While its interpreted form tends not to be very fast, its compiled form can often rival languages like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CPlusPlus/view" C++ for speed. It is important to note however that speed is not Java's primary purpose -- raw speed is considered secondary to portabilty and ease of use.
JavaScript
JavaScript (in spite of its name) has nothing whatsoever to do with HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Java/view" Java (in fact, it's arguably more like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/NewtonScript/view" Newton Script than Java). JavaScript is an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/interpreted/view" interpreted HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language built into a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/browser/view" browser to provide a relatively simple means of adding interactivity to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WWW/view" web pages. It is only supported on a few different browsers, and tends not to work exactly the same on different versions. Thus its use on the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view" Internet is somewhat restricted to fairly simple HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programs. On HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/intranet/view" intranets where there are usually fewer browser versions in use, JavaScript has been used to implement much more complex and impressive programs.
jiffy
A jiffy is 1/60 of a second. Jiffies are to seconds as seconds are to minutes.
joystick
A joystick is a physical device typically used to control objects on a computer screen. It is frequently used for games and sometimes used in place of a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/mouse/view" mouse.
JSON
The JSON is used for data interchange between HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programs, an area in which the ubiquitous HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XML/view" XML is not too well-suited. JSON is HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/lightweight/view" lightweight and works extremely cleanly with languages HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" languages including HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/JavaScript/view" JavaScript, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Python/view" Python, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Java/view" Java, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CPlusPlus/view" C++, and many others.
JSON-RPC
JSON-RPC is like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XML-RPC/view" XML-RPC but is significantly more HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/lightweight/view" lightweight since it uses HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/JSON/view" JSON in lieu of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XML/view" XML.
KDE
The K desktop environment is a popular free HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/windowmanager/view" window manager (and much more -- as its name touts, it is more of a desktop environment) that runs under HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/X/view" X-Windows.
Kerberos
Kerberos is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/network/view" network authentication HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/protocol/view" protocol. Basically it preserves the integrity of passwords in any untrusted network (like the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view" Internet). Kerberized HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/application/view" applications work hand-in-hand with sites that support Kerberos to ensure that passwords cannot be stolen.
kernel
The very heart of an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS is often called its kernel. It will usually (at minimum) provide some HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/library/view" libraries that give programmers access to its various features.
l10n
Commonly used to abbreviate the word "localization". There are ten letters between the "l" and the "n". Similar to (and often used along with) HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/i18n/view" i18n.
library
A selection of routines used by programmers to make computers do particular things.
lightweight
Something that is lightweight will not consume computer resources (such as HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RAM/view" RAM and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/disk/view" disk space) too much and will thus HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/run/view" run on less expensive computer systems.
Linux
Believe it or not, one of the fastest, most HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/robust/view" robust, and powerful HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/multitasking/view" multitasking HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OSes is available for free. Linux can be HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/download/view" downloaded for free or be purchased on CD-ROM for a small service charge. A handful of companies distribute Linux including Red Hat, Debian, Caldera, and many others. Linux is also possibly available for more HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/hardware/view" hardware combinations than any other OS (with the possible exception of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/NetBSD/view" NetBSD. Supported HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processors include: HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Alpha/view" Alpha, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view" PowerPC, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SPARC/view" SPARC, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/68xx/view" 68xx. Most processors currently not supported are currently works-in-progress or even available in HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/beta/view" beta. For example, work is currently underway to provide support for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PA-RISC/view" PA-RISC, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/65xx/view" 65xx, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ARM/view" StrongARM, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Z80/view" Z80. People have even successfully gotten Linux working on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PDA/view" PDAs. As you may have guessed, Linux can be made quite HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/lightweight/view" lightweight. Linux is a variant of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX and as such, most of the traditional UNIX HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software will HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/run/view" run on Linux. This especially includes the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GNU/view" GNU software, most of which comes with the majority of Linux distributions. Fast, reliable, stable, and inexpensive, Linux is popular with HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ISP/view" ISPs, software developers, and home hobbyists alike.
Lisp
Lisp stands for list processing and is the second oldest computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language in the world. Being developed in 1959, it lost the title to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ForTran/view" FORTRAN by only a few months. It is typically HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/interpreted/view" interpreted, but HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/compiled/view" compilers are available for some HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platforms. Attempts were made to standardize the language, and the standard version is called "Common Lisp". There have also been efforts to simplify the language, and the results of these efforts is another language called HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Scheme/view" Scheme. Lisp is a fairly HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/portable/view" portable language, but is not particularly fast. Today, Lisp is most widely used with HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/AI/view" AI HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software.
load
There are two popular meanings for load. The first means to fetch some data or a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program from a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/disk/view" disk and store it in HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/memory/view" memory. The second indicates the amount of work a component (especially a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processor) is being made to do.
Logo
Logo is an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/interpreted/view" interpreted HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language designed by Papert in 1966 to be a tool for helping people (especially kids) learn computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programming concepts. In addition to being used for that purpose, it is often used as a language for controlling mechanical robots and other similar devices. Logo interfaces even exist for building block / toy robot sets. Logo uses a special HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/graphics/view" graphics HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/cursor/view" cursor called "the turtle", and Logo is itself sometimes called "Turtle Graphics". Logo is quite HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/portable/view" portable but not particularly fast. Versions can be found on almost every computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platform in the world. Additionally, some other languages (notably some HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Pascal/view" Pascal versions) provide Logo-like interfaces for graphics-intensive programming.
lossy
If a process is lossy, it means that a little quality is lost when it is performed. If a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/format/view" format is lossy, it means that putting data into that format (or possibly even manipulating it in that format) will cause some slight loss. Lossy processes and formats are typically used for performance or resource utilization reasons. The opposite of lossy is lossless.
Lua
Lua is a simple HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/interpreted/view" interpreted HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language. It is extremely HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/portable/view" portable, and free versions exist for most HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platforms.
Mac OS
Mac OS is the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS used on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Mac/view" Macintosh computers. There are two distinctively different versions of it; everything prior to version 10 (sometimes called HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MacOSClassic/view" Mac OS Classic) and everything version 10 or later (called HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MacOSX/view" Mac OS X).
Mac OS Classic
The HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS created by Apple and originally used by HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Mac/view" Macs is frequently (albeit slightly incorrectly) referred to as Mac OS Classic (officially Mac OS Classic is this original OS running under the modern HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MacOSX/view" Mac OS X in HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/emulator/view" emulation. Mac OS combines the functionality of both an OS and a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/windowmanager/view" window manager and is often considered to be the easiest OS to use. It is partially HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/multitasking/view" multitasking but will still sometimes crash when dealing with a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bug/view" buggy HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program. It is probably the second most popular OS, next only to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinXP/view" Windows 'XP (although it is quickly losing ground to Mac OS X) and has excellent HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/driver/view" driver support and boasts a fair selection of games. Mac OS will run on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view" PowerPC and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/68xx/view" 68xx based machines.
Mac OS X
Mac OS X (originally called Rhapsody) is the industrial strength HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS produced by Apple to run on both HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view" PowerPC and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86 systems (replacing what is often referred to as HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MacOSClassic/view" Mac OS Classic. Mac OS X is at its heart a variant of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX and possesses its underlying power (and the ability to run many of the traditional UNIX tools, including the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GNU/view" GNU tools). It also was designed to mimic other OSes on demand via what it originally refered to as "boxes" (actually high-performance HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/emulator/view" emulators); it has the built-in capability to run HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programs written for older Mac OS (via its "BlueBox", officially called Mac OS Classic) and work was started on making it also run HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win95/view" Windows '95 / '98 / HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinME/view" ME software (via what was called its "YellowBox"). There are also a few rumors going around that future versions may even be able to run HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Newton/view" Newton software (via the "GreenBox"). It provides a selection of two HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/windowmanager/view" window managers built-in: HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Aqua/view" Aqua and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/X/view" X-Windows (with Aqua being the default).
machine language
Machine language consists of the raw numbers that can be directly understood by a particular HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processor. Each processor's machine language will be different from other processors' machine language. Although called "machine language", it is not usually what people think of when talking about HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" computer languages. Machine language dressed up with mnemonics to make it a bit more human-readable is called HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/assemblylanguage/view" assembly language.
Macintosh
A Macintosh (or a Mac for short) is a computer system that has HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MacOS/view" Mac OS for its HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS. There are a few different companies that produce Macs, but by far the largest is Apple. Older Macs are based on the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/68xx/view" 68xx HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processor, newer Macs on the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view" PowerPC processor. The Macintosh was really the first general purpose computer to employ a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GUI/view" GUI.
mainframe
A mainframe is any computer larger than a small piece of furniture. A modern mainframe is more powerful than a modern HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/workstation/view" workstation, but more expensive and more difficult to maintain.
MathML
The Math Mark-up Language is a subset of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XML/view" XML used to represent mathematical formulae and equations. Typically it is found embedded within HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XHTML/view" XHTML documents, although as of this writing not all popular HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/browser/view" browsers support it.
megahertz
A million cycles per second, abbreviated MHz. This is often used misleadingly to indicate HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processor speed, because while one might expect that a higher number would indicate a faster processor, that logic only holds true within a given type of processors as different types of processors are capable of doing different amounts of work within a cycle. For a current example, either a 200 MHz HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view" PowerPC or a 270 MHz HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SPARC/view" SPARC will outperform a 300 MHz HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" Pentium.
Merced
The Merced is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RISC/view" RISC HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processor developed by Intel with help from Hewlett-Packard and possibly Sun. It is just starting to be released, but is intended to eventually replace both the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86 and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PA-RISC/view" PA-RISC processors. Curiously, HP is recommending that everyone hold off using the first release and instead wait for the second one. It is expected some day to be roughly as fast as an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Alpha/view" Alpha or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view" PowerPC. It is expected to be supported by future versions of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Solaris/view" Solaris, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinNT/view" Windows-NT, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/HP-UX/view" HP-UX, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MacOSX/view" Mac OS X, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Linux/view" Linux. The current semi-available Merced processor is called the Itanium. Its overall schedule is way behind, and some analysts predict that it never will really be released in significant quanitities.
MFM
Loosely speaking, An old HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/disk/view" disk HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/format/view" format sometimes used by HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CPM/view" CP/M, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-DOS/view" MS-DOS, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-Windows/view" MS-Windows. No longer too common as it cannot deliver close to the performance of either HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SCSI/view" SCSI or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/IDE/view" IDE.
middleware
HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" Software designed to sit in between an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/application/view" applications. Common examples are HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Java/view" Java and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/TclTk/view" Tcl/Tk.
MIME
The multi-purpose Internet mail extensions specification describes a means of sending non- HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ASCII/view" ASCII data (such as images, sounds, foreign symbols, etc.) through HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/e-mail/view" e-mail. It commonly utilizes HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bcode/view" bcode.
MMX
Multimedia extensions were built into some HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86 HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" CPUs to provide better performance for certain operations, most notably graphics and sound. It is similar to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/AltiVec/view" AltiVec on the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view" PowerPC CPUs. Like AltiVec, it requires special HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software for full performance benefits to be realized.
MOB
A movable object is a graphical object that is manipulated separately from the background. These are seen all the time in computer games. When implemented in HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/hardware/view" hardware, MOBs are sometimes called HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/sprite/view" sprites.
Modula-2
Modula-2 is an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OO/view" object-oriented HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language based on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Pascal/view" Pascal by its original author in 1977. Modula-3 is a further enhanced form. Both versions are HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/compiled/view" compiled languages.
MOTD
A message of the day. Many computers (particularly more capable ones) are configured to display a MOTD when accessed remotely.
Motif
Motif is a popular commercial HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/windowmanager/view" window manager that runs under HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/X/view" X-Windows. Free work-alike versions are also available.
MS-DOS
The HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/DOS/view" DOS produced by Microsoft. Early versions of it bear striking similarities to the earlier HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CPM/view" CP/M, but it utilizes simpler commands. It provides only a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CLI/view" CLI, but either HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS2/view" OS/2, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win3.1/view" Windows 3.1, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win95/view" Windows '95, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win98/view" Windows '98, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinME/view" Windows ME, or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GEOS/view" GEOS may be run on top of it to provide a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GUI/view" GUI. It only runs on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86 based machines.
MS-Windows
MS-Windows is the name collectively given to several somewhat incompatible HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OSes all produced by Microsoft. They are: HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinCE/view" Windows CE, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinNT/view" Windows NT, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win3.1/view" Windows 3.1, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win95/view" Windows '95, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win98/view" Windows '98, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinME/view" Windows ME, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win2K/view" Windows 2000, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinXP/view" Windows XP.
MUD
A multi-user dimension (also sometimes called multi-user dungeon, but in either case abbreviated to "MUD") is sort of a combination between the online HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/chat/view" chatting abilities provided by something like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/IRC/view" IRC and a role-playing game. A MUD built with HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OO/view" object oriented principles in mind is called a "Multi-user dimension object-oriented", or MOO. Yet another variant is called a "multi-user shell", or MUSH. Still other variants are called multi-user role-playing environments (MURPE) and multi-user environments (MUSE). There are probably more. In all cases the differences will be mostly academic to the regular HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/user/view" user, as the same HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software is used to connect to all of them. Software to connect to MUDs can be found for most HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platforms, and there are even HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Java/view" Java based ones that can run from within a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/browser/view" browser.
multitasking
Some HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OSes have built into them the ability to do several things at once. This is called multitasking, and has been in use since the late sixties / early seventies. Since this ability is built into the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software, the overall system will be slower HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/run/view" running two things at once than it will be running just one thing. A system may have more than one HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processor built into it though, and such a system will be capable of running multiple things at once with less of a performance hit.
nagware
Nagware is a variant of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/shareware/view" shareware that will frequently remind its HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/user/view" users to register.
NetBSD
A free variant of Berkeley HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX available for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Alpha/view" Alpha, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/68xx/view" 68xx, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PA-RISC/view" PA-RISC, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SPARC/view" SPARC, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view" PowerPC, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ARM/view" ARM, and many other types of machines. Its emphasis is on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/portable/view" portability.
netiquette
The established conventions of online politeness are called netiquette. Some conventions vary from site to site or online medium to online medium; others are pretty standard everywhere. HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/newbie/view" Newbies are often unfamiliar with the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Help/Netiquette/" conventional rules of netiquette and sometimes embarrass themselves accordingly. Be sure not to send that incredibly important HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/e-mail/view" e-mail message before HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Help/Netiquette/" reading about netiquette.
newbie
A newbie is a novice to the online world or computers in general.
news
Usenet news can generally be thought of as public HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/e-mail/view" e-mail as that is generally the way it behaves. In reality, it is implemented by different HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software and is often accessed by different HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programs. Different newsgroups adhere to different topics, and some are "moderated", meaning that humans will try to manually remove off-topic posts, especially HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/spam/view" spam. Most established newsgroups have a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/FAQ/view" FAQ, and people are strongly encouraged to read the FAQ prior to posting.
Newton
Although Newton is officially the name of the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/lightweight/view" lightweight HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS developed by Apple to run on its MessagePad line of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PDA/view" PDAs, it is often used to mean the MessagePads (and compatible PDAs) themselves and thus the term "Newton OS" is often used for clarity. The Newton OS is remarkably powerful; it is fully HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/multitasking/view" multitasking in spite of the fact that it was designed for small machines. It is optimized for hand-held use, but will readily transfer data to all manner of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/desktop/view" desktop machines. Historically it was the first PDA. Recently Apple announced that it will discontinue further development of the Newton HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platform, but will instead work to base future hand-held devices on either HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MacOS/view" Mac OS or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MacOSX/view" Mac OS X with some effort dedicated to making the new devices capable of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/run/view" running current Newton HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programs.
Newton book
Newton books provide all the functionality of ordinary books but add searching and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/hypertext/view" hypertext capabilities. The HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/format/view" format was invented for the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Newton/view" Newton to provide a means of making volumes of data portable, and is particularly popular in the medical community as most medical references are available as Newton books and carrying around a one pound Newton is preferable to carrying around twenty pounds of books, especially when it comes to looking up something. In addition to medical books, numerous references, most of the classics, and many contemporary works of fiction are available as Newton books. Most fiction is available for free, most references cost money. Newton books are somewhat more capable than the similar HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PalmDOC/view" Palm DOC; both are specific types of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/e-book/view" e-books.
Newton Script
A HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/interpreted/view" intepreted, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OO/view" object-oriented HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Newton/view" Newton MessagePad computers.
nybble
A nybble is half a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/byte/view" byte, or four HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bit/view" bits. It is a case of computer whimsy; it only stands to reason that a small byte should be called a nybble. Some authors spell it with an "i" instead of the "y", but the "y" is the original form.
object-oriented
While the specifics are well beyond the scope of this document, the term "object-oriented" applies to a philosophy of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software creation. Often this philosophy is referred to as object-oriented design (sometimes abbreviated as OOD), and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programs written with it in mind are referred to as object-oriented programs (often abbreviated OOP). Programming HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" languages designed to help facilitate it are called object-oriented languages (sometimes abbreviated as OOL) and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/database/view" databases built with it in mind are called object-oriented databases (sometimes abbreviated as OODB or less fortunately OOD). The general notion is that an object-oriented approach to creating software starts with modeling the real-world problems trying to be solved in familiar real-world ways, and carries the analogy all the way down to structure of the program. This is of course a great over-simplification. Numerous object-oriented programming languages exist including: HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Java/view" Java, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CPlusPlus/view" C++, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Modula-2/view" Modula-2, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/NewtonScript/view" Newton Script, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ADA/view" ADA.
Objective-C & ObjC
Objective-C (often called "ObjC" for short) is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/compiled/view" compiled HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OO/view" object-oriented HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language. Based heavily on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/C/view" C, Objective-C is nearly as fast and can often be thought of as being just C with added features. Note that it was developed independently of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CPlusPlus/view" C++; its object-oriented extensions are more in the style of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Smalltalk/view" Smalltalk. It is however related to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ObjCPlusPlus/view" Objective-C++.
Objective-C++ & ObjC++
Objective-C++ (often called "ObjC++" for short) is a curious hybrid of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ObjC/view" Objective-C and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CPlusPlus/view" C++, allowing the syntax of both to coexist in the same source files.
office suite
An office suite is a collection of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programs including at minimum a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/wordprocessor/view" word processor, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/spreadsheet/view" spreadsheet, drawing program, and minimal HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/database/view" database program. Some common office suites include MS-Office, AppleWorks, ClarisWorks, GeoWorks, Applixware, Corel Office, and StarOffice.
open source
Open source HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software goes one step beyond HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/freeware/view" freeware. Not only does it provide the software for free, it provides the original source code used to create the software. Thus, curious HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/user/view" users can poke around with it to see how it works, and advanced users can modify it to make it work better for them. By its nature, open souce software is pretty well immune to all types of computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/virus/view" virus.
OpenBSD
A free variant of Berkeley HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX available for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Alpha/view" Alpha, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/68xx/view" 68xx, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PA-RISC/view" PA-RISC, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SPARC/view" SPARC, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view" PowerPC based machines. Its emphasis is on security.
OpenDocument & ODF
OpenDocument (or ODF for short) is the suite of open, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XML/view" XML-based HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/officesuite/view" office suite application formats defined by the OASIS consortium. It defines a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platform-neutral, non- HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/proprietary/view" proprietary way of storing documents.
OpenGL
A low-level 3D HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/graphics/view" graphics HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/library/view" library with an emphasis on speed developed by SGI.
OS/2
OS/2 is the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS designed by IBM to run on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86 based machines. It is semi-compatible with HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-Windows/view" MS-Windows. IBM's more industrial strength OS is called HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/AIX/view" AIX.
PA-RISC
The PA-RISC is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RISC/view" RISC HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processor developed by Hewlett-Packard. It is currently produced only by HP. At the moment only one HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS runs on PA-RISC based machines: HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/HP-UX/view" HP-UX. There is an effort underway to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/portable/view" port HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Linux/view" Linux to them, though.
Palm DOC
Palm DOC HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/file/view" files are quite similar to (but slightly less capable than) HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Newtonbook/view" Newton books. They were designed for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PalmPilot/view" Palm Pilots but can now be read on a couple other HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platforms, too. They are a specific type of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/e-book/view" e-book.
Palm Pilot
The Palm Pilot (also called both just Palm and just Pilot, officially now just Palm) is the most popular HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PDA/view" PDA currently in use. It is one of the least capable PDAs, but it is also one of the smallest and least expensive. While not as full featured as many of the other PDAs (such as the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Newton/view" Newton) it performs what features it does have quite well and still remains truly pocket-sized.
parallel
Loosely speaking, parallel implies a situation where multiple things can be done simultaneously, like having multiple check-out lines each serving people all at once. Parallel connections are by their nature more expensive than HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/serial/view" serial ones, but usually faster. Also, in a related use of the word, often HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/multitasking/view" multitasking computers are said to be capable of running multiple HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programs in parallel.
partition
Sometimes due to hardware limitations, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/disk/view" disks have to be divided into smaller pieces. These pieces are called partitions.
Pascal
Named after the mathematician Blaise Pascal, Pascal is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language designed by Niklaus Wirth originally in 1968 (and heavily revised in 1972) mostly for purposes of education and training people how to write computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programs. It is a typically HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/compiled/view" compiled language but is still usually slower than HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/C/view" C or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ForTran/view" FORTRAN. Wirth also created a more powerful HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OO/view" object-oriented Pascal-like language called HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Modula-2/view" Modula-2.
PC-DOS
The HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/DOS/view" DOS produced by IBM designed to work like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-DOS/view" MS-DOS. Early versions of it bear striking similarities to the earlier HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CPM/view" CP/M, but it utilizes simpler commands. It provides only a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CLI/view" CLI, but either HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win3.1/view" Windows 3.1 or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GEOS/view" GEOS may be run on top of it to provide a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GUI/view" GUI. It only runs on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86 based machines.
PCMCIA
The Personal Computer Memory Card International Association is a standards body that concern themselves with PC Card technology. Often the PC Cards themselves are referred to as "PCMCIA cards". Frequently HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/flash/view" flash memory can be found in PC card form.
Perl
Perl is an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/interpreted/view" interpreted HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language extremely popular for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WWW/view" web HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/application/view" applications.
PET
The Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) is an early (circa 1977-1980, around the same time as the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Apple2/view" Apple][) home computer featuring a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ROM/view" ROM-based HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/BASIC/view" BASIC developed by Microsoft which it uses as a default " HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS". It is based on the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/65xx/view" 65xx family of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processors and is the precursor to the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/VIC-20/view" VIC-20.
PETSCII
The PETSCII HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/characterset/view" character set gets its name from "PET ASCII; it is a variant of the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ASCII/view" ASCII character set originally developed for the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PET/view" Commodore PET that swaps the upper and lower case characters and adds over a hundred graphic characters in addition to other small changes. If you encounter some text that seems to have uppercase where lowercase is expected and vice-versa, it is probably a PETSCII file.
PHP
Named with a recursive acronym (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor), PHP provides a means of creating web pages that dynamically modify themselves on the fly.
ping
Ping is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/protocol/view" protocol designed to check across a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/network/view" network to see if a particular computer is "alive" or not. Computers that recognize the ping will report back their status. Computers that are down will not report back anything at all.
pixel
The smallest distinct HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/point/view" point on a computer display is called a pixel.
plug-in
A plug-in is a piece of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software designed not to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/run/view" run on its own but rather work in cooperation with a separate HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/application/view" application to increase that application's abilities.
point
There are two common meanings for this word. The first is in the geometric sense; a position in space without size. Of course as applied to computers it must take up some space in practise (even if not in theory) and it is thus sometimes synonomous with HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/pixel/view" pixel. The other meaning is related most typically to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/font/view" fonts and regards size. The exact meaning of it in this sense will unfortunately vary somewhat from person to person, but will often mean 1/72 of an inch. Even when it does not exactly mean 1/72 of an inch, larger point sizes always indicate larger fonts.
PowerPC
The PowerPC is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RISC/view" RISC HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processor developed in a collaborative effort between IBM, Apple, and Motorola. It is currently produced by a few different companies, of course including its original developers. A few different HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OSes run on PowerPC based machines, including HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MacOS/view" Mac OS, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/AIX/view" AIX, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Solaris/view" Solaris, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinNT/view" Windows NT, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Linux/view" Linux, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MacOSX/view" Mac OS X, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/BeOS/view" BeOS, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/AmigaOS/view" AmigaOS. At any given time, the fastest processor in the world is usually either a PowerPC or an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Alpha/view" Alpha, but sometimes HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SPARC/view" SPARCs and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PA-RISC/view" PA-RISCs make the list, too.
proprietary
This simply means to be supplied by only one vendor. It is commonly misused. Currently, most HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processors are non-proprietary, some systems are non-proprietary, and every HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS (except for arguably HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Linux/view" Linux) is proprietary.
protocol
A protocol is a means of communication used between computers. As long as both computers recognize the same protocol, they can communicate without too much difficulty over the same HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/network/view" network or even via a simple direct HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/modem/view" modem connection regardless whether or not they are themselves of the same type. This means that HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinTel/view" WinTel boxes, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Mac/view" Macs, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Amiga/view" Amigas, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX machines, etc., can all talk with one another provided they agree on a common protocol first.
Psion
The Psion is a fairly popular brand of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PDA/view" PDA. Generally, it is in between a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PalmPilot/view" Palm and a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Newton/view" Newton in capability. It runs the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/EPOC/view" EPOC OS.
Python
Python is an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/interpreted/view" interpreted, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OO/view" object-oriented HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language popular for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view" Internet HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/application/view" applications. It is extremely HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/portable/view" portable with free versions existing for virtually every HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platform.
queue
A queue is a waiting list of things to be processed. Many computers provide printing queues, for example. If something is being printed and the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/user/view" user requests that another item be printed, the second item will sit in the printer queue until the first item finishes printing at which point it will be removed from the queue and get printed itself.
QuickDraw
A high-level 3D HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/graphics/view" graphics HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/library/view" library with an emphasis on quick development time created by Apple.
RAM
Random access memory is the short-term memory of a computer. Any information stored in RAM will be lost if power goes out, but the computer can read from RAM far more quickly than from a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/drive/view" drive.
random access
Also called "dynamic access" this indicates that data can be selected without having to skip over earlier data first. This is the way that a CD, record, laserdisc, or DVD will behave -- it is easy to selectively play a particular track without having to fast forward through earlier tracks. The other common behavior is called HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/sequentialaccess/view" sequential access.
RDF
The Resource Description Framework is built upon an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XML/view" XML base and provides a more modern means of accessing data from HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view" Internet resources. It can provide metadata (including annotations) for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WWW/view" web pages making (among other things) searching more capable. It is also being used to refashion some existing formats like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RSS/view" RSS and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/iCalendar/view" iCalendar; in the former case it is already in place (at least for newer RSS versions), but it is still experimental in the latter case.
real-time
Something that happens in real-time will keep up with the events around it and never give any sort of "please wait" message.
Rexx
The Restructured Extended Executor is an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/interpreted/view" interpreted HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language designed primarily to be embedded in other applications in order to make them consistently programmable, but also to be easy to learn and understand.
RISC
Reduced instruction set computing is one of the two main types of processor design in use today, the other being HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CISC/view" CISC. The fastest processors in the world today are all RISC designs. There are several popular RISC processors, including HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Alpha/view" Alphas, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ARM/view" ARMs, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PA-RISC/view" PA-RISCs, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view" PowerPCs, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SPARC/view" SPARCs.
robot
A robot (or 'bot for short) in the computer sense is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program designed to automate some task, often just sending messages or collecting information. A spider is a type of robot designed to traverse the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WWW/view" web performing some task (usually collecting data).
robust
The adjective robust is used to describe HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programs that are better designed, have fewer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bug/view" bugs, and are less likely to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/crash/view" crash.
ROM
Read-only memory is similar to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RAM/view" RAM only cannot be altered and does not lose its contents when power is removed.
RSS
RSS stands for either Rich Site Summary, Really Simple Syndication, or RDF Site Summary, depending upon whom you ask. The general idea is that it can provide brief summaries of articles that appear in full on a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WWW/view" web site. It is well-formed HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XML/view" XML, and newer versions are even more specifically well-formed HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RDF/view" RDF.
Ruby
Ruby is an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/interpreted/view" interpreted, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OO/view" object-oriented HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language. Ruby was fairly heavily influenced by HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Perl/view" Perl, so people familiar with that language can typically transition to Ruby easily.
scanner
A scanner is a piece of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/hardware/view" hardware that will examine a picture and produce a computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/file/view" file that represents what it sees. A HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/digitalcamera/view" digital camera is a related device. Each has its own limitations.
Scheme
Scheme is a typically HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/interpreted/view" interpreted computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language. It was created in 1975 in an attempt to make HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Lisp/view" Lisp simpler and more consistent. Scheme is a fairly HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/portable/view" portable language, but is not particularly fast.
script
A script is a series of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS commands. The term "batch file" means much the same thing, but is a bit dated. Typically the same sort of situations in which one would say HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/DOS/view" DOS instead of OS, it would also be appropriate to say batch file instead of script. Scripts can be HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/run/view" run like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programs, but tend to perform simpler tasks. When a script is run, it is always HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/interpreted/view" interpreted.
SCSI
Loosely speaking, a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/disk/view" disk HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/format/view" format sometimes used by HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-Windows/view" MS-Windows, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MacOS/view" Mac OS, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/AmigaOS/view" AmigaOS, and (almost always) HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX. Generally SCSI is superior (but more expensive) to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/IDE/view" IDE, but it varies somewhat with system HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/load/view" load and the individual SCSI and IDE components themselves. The quick rundown is that: SCSI-I and SCSI-II will almost always outperform IDE; EIDE will almost always outperform SCSI-I and SCSI-II; SCSI-III and UltraSCSI will almost always outperform EIDE; and heavy system loads give an advantage to SCSI. Note that although loosely speaking it is just a format difference, it is deep down a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/hardware/view" hardware difference.
sequential access
This indicates that data cannot be selected without having to skip over earlier data first. This is the way that a cassette or video tape will behave. The other common behavior is called HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/randomaccess/view" random access.
serial
Loosely speaking, serial implies something that has to be done linearly, one at a time, like people being served in a single check-out line. Serial connections are by their nature less expensive than HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/parallel/view" parallel connections (including things like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SCSI/view" SCSI) but are typically slower.
server
A server is a computer designed to provide various services for an entire HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/network/view" network. It is typically either a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/workstation/view" workstation or a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/mainframe/view" mainframe because it will usually be expected to handle far greater HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/load/view" loads than ordinary HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/desktop/view" desktop systems. The load placed on servers also necessitates that they utilize HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/robust/view" robust HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OSes, as a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/crash/view" crash on a system that is currently being used by many people is far worse than a crash on a system that is only being used by one person.
SGML
The Standard Generalized Mark-up Language provides an extremely generalized level of mark-up. More common mark-up languages like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/HTML/view" HTML and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XML/view" XML are actually just popular subsets of SGML.
shareware
Shareware is HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software made for profit that allows a trial period before purchase. Typically shareware can be freely HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/download/view" downloaded, used for a period of weeks (or sometimes even months), and either purchased or discarded after it has been learned whether or not it will satisfy the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/user/view" user's needs.
shell
A HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CLI/view" CLI designed to simplify complex HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS commands. Some OSes (like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/AmigaOS/view" AmigaOS, the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Hurd/view" Hurd, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX) have built-in support to make the concurrent use of multiple shells easy. Common shells include the Korn Shell (ksh), the Bourne Shell (sh or bsh), the Bourne-Again Shell, (bash or bsh), the C-Shell (csh), etc.
SIMM
A physical component used to add HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RAM/view" RAM to a computer. Similar to, but incompatible with, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/DIMM/view" DIMMs.
Smalltalk
Smalltalk is an efficient HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language for writing computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programs. Historically it is one of the first HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OO/view" object-oriented languages, and is not only used today in its pure form but shows its influence in other languages like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ObjC/view" Objective-C.
Solaris
Solaris is the commercial variant of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX currently produced by Sun. It is an industrial strength, nigh bulletproof, powerful HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/multitasking/view" multitasking HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS that will run on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SPARC/view" SPARC, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view" PowerPC based machines.
spam
Generally spam is unwanted, unrequested HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/e-mail/view" e-mail or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/news/view" Usenet news. It is typically sent out in bulk to huge address lists that were automatically generated by various HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/robot/view" robots endlessly searching the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view" Internet and newsgroups for things that resemble e-mail addresses. The legality of spam is a topic of much debate; it is at best only borderline legal, and spammers have been successfully persecuted in some states.
SPARC
The SPARC is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RISC/view" RISC HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processor developed by Sun. The design was more or less released to the world, and it is currently produced by around a dozen different companies too numerous to even bother mentioning. It is worth noting that even computers made by Sun typically sport SPARCs made by other companies. A couple different HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OSes run on SPARC based machines, including HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Solaris/view" Solaris, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SunOS/view" SunOS, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Linux/view" Linux. Some of the newer SPARC models are called UltraSPARCs.
sprite
A sprite is a small HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MOB/view" MOB, usually implemented in HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/hardware/view" hardware.
SQL
SQL (pronounced Sequel) is an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/interpreted/view" interpreted HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language specially designed for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/database/view" database access. It is supported by virtually every major modern database system.
Sugar
The HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/windowmanager/view" window manager used by the OLPC HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XO/view" XO. It is made to run on top of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Linux/view" Linux.
SunOS
SunOS is the commercial variant of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX formerly produced (but still supported) by Sun.
SVG
Scalable Vector Graphics data is an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XML/view" XML file that is used to hold graphical data that can be resized without loss of quality. SVG data can be kept in its own file, or even embedded within a web page (although not all browsers are capable of displaying such data).
Tcl/Tk
The Tool Command Language is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/portable/view" portable HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/interpreted/view" interpreted computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/language/view" language designed to be easy to use. Tk is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GUI/view" GUI toolkit for Tcl. Tcl is a fairly popular language for both integrating existing HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/application/view" applications and for creating HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WWW/view" Web HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/applet/view" applets (note that applets written in Tcl are often called Tcklets). Tcl/Tk is available for free for most HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platforms, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/plug-in/view" plug-ins are available to enable many HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/browser/view" browsers to play Tcklets.
TCP/IP
TCP/IP is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/protocol/view" protocol for computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/network/view" networks. The HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view" Internet is largely built on top of TCP/IP (it is the more reliable of the two primary HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/IP/view/" Internet Protocols -- TCP stands for Transmission Control Protocol).
terminator
A terminator is a dedicated device used to mark the end of a device HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/chain/view" chain (as is most typically found with HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SCSI/view" SCSI devices). If such a chain is not properly terminated, weird results can occur.
TEX
TEX (pronounced "tek") is a freely available, industrial strength typesetting HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program that can be HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/run/view" run on many different HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platforms. These qualities make it exceptionally popular in schools, and frequently HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software developed at a university will have its documentation in TEX HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/format/view" format. TEX is not limited to educational use, though; many professional books were typeset with TEX. TEX's primary drawback is that it can be quite difficult to set up initially.
TrackBack
TrackBacks essentially provide a means whereby different web sites can post messages to one another not just to inform each other about citations, but also to alert one another of related resources. Typically, a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/blog/view" blog may display quotations from another blog through the use of TrackBacks.
UDP/IP
UDP/IP is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/protocol/view" protocol for computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/network/view" networks. It is the faster of the two primary HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/IP/view/" Internet Protocols. UDP stands for User Datagram Protocol.
Unicode
The Unicode HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/characterset/view" character set is a superset of the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ASCII/view" ASCII character set with provisions made for handling international symbols and characters from other languages. Unicode is sixteen HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bit/view" bit, so takes up roughly twice the space as simple ASCII, but is correspondingly more flexible.
UNIX
UNIX is a family of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OSes, each being made by a different company or organization but all offering a very similar look and feel. It can not quite be considered non- HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/proprietary/view" proprietary, however, as the differences between different vendor's versions can be significant (it is still generally possible to switch from one vendor's UNIX to another without too much effort; today the differences between different UNIXes are similar to the differences between the different HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-Windows/view" MS-Windows; historically there were two different UNIX camps, Berkeley / BSD and AT&T / System V, but the assorted vendors have worked together to minimalize the differences). The free variant HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Linux/view" Linux is one of the closest things to a current, non-proprietary OS; its development is controlled by a non-profit organization and its distribution is provided by several companies. UNIX is powerful; it is fully HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/multitasking/view" multitasking and can do pretty much anything that any OS can do (look to the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Hurd/view" Hurd if you need a more powerful OS). With power comes complexity, however, and UNIX tends not to be overly friendly to beginners (although those who think UNIX is difficult or cryptic apparently have not used HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CPM/view" CP/M). HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/windowmanager/view" Window managers are available for UNIX (running under HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/X/view" X-Windows) and once properly configured common operations will be almost as simple on a UNIX machine as on a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Mac/view" Mac. Out of all the OSes in current use, UNIX has the greatest range of hardware support. It will HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/run/view" run on machines built around many different HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processors. HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/lightweight/view" Lightweight versions of UNIX have been made to run on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PDA/view" PDAs, and in the other direction, full featured versions make full advantage of all the resources on large, multi-processor machines. Some different UNIX versions include HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Solaris/view" Solaris, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Linux/view" Linux, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/IRIX/view" IRIX, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/AIX/view" AIX, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SunOS/view" SunOS, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/FreeBSD/view" FreeBSD, Digital UNIX, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/HP-UX/view" HP-UX, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/NetBSD/view" NetBSD, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OpenBSD/view" OpenBSD, etc.
upload
To upload a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/file/view" file is to copy it from your computer to a remote computer. The opposite is HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/download/view" download.
UPS
An uninterrupted power supply uses heavy duty batteries to help smooth out its input power source.
URI
A Uniform Resource Identifier is basically just a unique address for almost any type of resource. It is similar to but more general than a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/URLa/view" URL; in fact, it may also be a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/URN/view" URN.
URL
A Uniform Resource Locator is basically just an address for a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/file/view" file that can be given to a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/browser/view" browser. It starts with a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/protocol/view" protocol type (such as HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/HTTP/view" http, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/FTP/view" ftp, or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/gopher/view" gopher) and is followed by a colon, machine name, and file name in HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX style. Optionally an octothorpe character "#" and and arguments will follow the file name; this can be used to further define position within a page and perform a few other tricks. Similar to but less general than a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/URI/view" URI.
URN
A Uniform Resource Name is basically just a unique address for almost any type of resource unlike a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/URLa/view" URL it will probably not resolve with a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/browser/view" browser.
USB
A really fast type of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/serial/view" serial port that offers many of the best features of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SCSI/view" SCSI without the price. Faster than many types of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/parallel/view" parallel port, a single USB port is capable of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/chain/view" chaining many devices without the need of a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/terminator/view" terminator. USB is much slower (but somewhat less expensive) than HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/FireWire/view" FireWire.
uucode
The point of uucode is to allow 8- HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bit/view" bit HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/binary/view" binary data to be transferred through the more common 7-bit HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ASCII/view" ASCII channels (most especially HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/e-mail/view" e-mail). The facilities for dealing with uucoded files exist for many different machine types, and the most common programs are called "uuencode" for encoding the original binary file into a 7-bit file and "uudecode" for restoring the original binary file from the encoded one. Sometimes different uuencode and uudecode programs will work in subtly different manners causing annoying compatibility problems. HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bcode/view" Bcode was invented to provide the same service as uucode but to maintain a tighter standard.
variable width
As applied to a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/font/view" font, variable width means that different characters will have different widths as appropriate. For example, an "i" will take up much less space than an "m". The opposite of variable width is HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/fixedwidth/view" fixed width. The terms "proportional width" and "proportionally spaced" mean the same thing as variable width. Some common variable width fonts include Times, Helvetica, and Bookman.
VAX
The VAX is a computer HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platform developed by Digital. Its plural is VAXen. VAXen are large expensive machines that were once quite popular in large businesses; today modern HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/workstation/view" workstations have all the capability of VAXen but take up much less space. Their HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS is called HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/VMS/view" VMS.
vector
This term has two common meanings. The first is in the geometric sense: a vector defines a direction and magnitude. The second concerns the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/format/view" formatting of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/font/view" fonts and images. If a font is a vector font or an image is a vector image, it is defined as lines of relative size and direction rather than as collections of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/pixel/view" pixels (the method used in HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bitmap/view" bitmapped fonts and images). This makes it easier to change the size of the font or image, but puts a bigger HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/load/view" load on the device that has to display the font or image. The term "outline font" means the same thing as vector font.
Veronica & Veronica2
Although traditionally written as a proper name, Veronica is actually an acronym for "very easy rodent-oriented netwide index to computerized archives", where the "rodent" refers to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/gopher/view" gopher. The acronym was obviously a little forced to go along with the pre-existing (and now largely unused) HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Archie/view" Archie, in order to have a little fun with a comic book reference. Regardless, Veronica (or these days more likely Veronica2) is essentially a search engine for gopher resources.
VIC-20
The Commodore VIC-20 computer sold millions of units and is generally considered to have been the first affordable home computer. It features a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/ROM/view" ROM-based HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/BASIC/view" BASIC and uses it as a default " HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS". It is based on the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/65xx/view" 65xx family of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processors. VIC (in case you are wondering) can stand for either video interface c or video interface computer. The VIC-20 is the precursor to the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/C64-128/view" C64/128.
virtual machine
A virtual machine is a machine completely defined and implemented in HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software rather than HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/hardware/view" hardware. It is often referred to as a "runtime environment"; code HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/compiled/view" compiled for such a machine is typically called HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bytecode/view" bytecode.
virtual memory
This is a scheme by which HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/disk/view" disk space is made to substitute for the more expensive HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RAM/view" RAM space. Using it will often enable a comptuer to do things it could not do without it, but it will also often result in an overall slowing down of the system. The concept of swap space is very similar.
virtual reality
Virtual reality (often called VR for short) is generally speaking an attempt to provide more natural, human interfaces to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software. It can be as simple as a pseudo 3D interface or as elaborate as an isolated room in which the computer can control the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/user/view" user's senses of vision, hearing, and even smell and touch.
virus
A virus is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program that will seek to duplicate itself in HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/memory/view" memory and on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/disk/view" disks, but in a subtle way that will not immediately be noticed. A computer on the same HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/network/view" network as an infected computer or that uses an infected disk (even a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/floppy/view" floppy) or that HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/download/view" downloads and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/run/view" runs an infected program can itself become infected. A virus can only spread to computers of the same HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platform. For example, on a network consisting of a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinTel/view" WinTel box, a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Mac/view" Mac, and a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Linux/view" Linux box, if one machine acquires a virus the other two will probably still be safe. Note also that different platforms have different general levels of resistance; HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX machines are almost immune, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win95/view" Win '95 / HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win98/view" '98 / HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinME/view" ME / HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinXP/view" XP is quite vulnerable, and most others lie somewhere in between.
VMS
The industrial strength HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS that runs on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/VAX/view" VAXen.
VoIP
VoIP means "Voice over HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/IP/view" IP" and it is quite simply a way of utilizing the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view" Internet (or even in some cases HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/intranet/view" intranets) for telephone conversations. The primary motivations for doing so are cost and convenience as VoIP is significantly less expensive than typical telephone long distance packages, plus one high speed Internet connection can serve for multiple phone lines.
VRML
A Virtual Reality Modeling Language file is used to represent HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/VR/view" VR objects. It has essentially been superceded by HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/X3D/view" X3D.
W3C
The World Wide Web Consortium (usually abbreviated HYPERLINK "http://www.w3c.org/" W3C) is a non-profit, advisory body that makes suggestions on the future direction of the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WWW/view" World Wide Web, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/HTML/view" HTML, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CSS/view" CSS, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/browser/view" browsers.
Waba
An extremely HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/lightweight/view" lightweight subset of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Java/view" Java optimized for use on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PDA/view" PDAs.
WebDAV
WebDAV stands for Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning, and is designed to provide a way of editing Web-based resources in place. It serves as a more modern (and often more secure) replacement for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/FTP/view" FTP in many cases.
WebTV
A WebTV box hooks up to an ordinary television set and displays HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WWW/view" web pages. It will not display them as well as a dedicated computer.
window manager
A window manager is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program that acts as a graphical go-between for a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/user/view" user and an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS. It provides a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GUI/view" GUI for the OS. Some OSes incorporate the window manager into their own internal HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" code, but many do not for reasons of efficiency. Some OSes partially make the division. Some common true window managers include CDE (Common Desktop Environment), GNOME, KDE, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Aqua/view" Aqua, OpenWindows, Motif, FVWM, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Sugar/view" Sugar, and Enlightenment. Some common hybrid window managers with OS extensions include HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinME/view" Windows ME, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win98/view" Windows 98, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win95/view" Windows 95, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win3.1/view" Windows 3.1, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS2/view" OS/2 and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GEOS/view" GEOS.
Windows '95
Windows '95 is currently the second most popular variant of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-Windows/view" MS-Windows. It was designed to be the replacement HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win3.1/view" Windows 3.1 but has not yet done so completely partly because of suspected security problems but even more because it is not as HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/lightweight/view" lightweight and will not work on all the machines that Windows 3.1 will. It is more capable than Windows 3.1 though and now has excellent HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/driver/view" driver support and more games available for it than any other platform. It is made to run on top of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-DOS/view" MS-DOS and will not do much of anything if MS-DOS is not on the system. It is thus not strictly an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS per se, but nor is it a true HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/windowmanager/view" window manager either; rather the combination of MS-DOS and Windows '95 result in a full OS with HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GUI/view" GUI. It is partially HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/multitasking/view" multitasking but has a much greater chance of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/crash/view" crashing than HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinNT/view" Windows NT does (or probably even HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MacOS/view" Mac OS) if faced with a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bug/view" buggy HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program. Windows '95 runs only on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86 based machines. Currently Windows '95 has several HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Y2K/view" Y2K issues, some of which have patches that can be HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/download/view" downloaded for free, and some of which do not yet have fixes at all.
Windows '98
Windows '98 is quite possibly the second most popular form of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-Windows/view" MS-Windows, in spite of the fact that its official release is currently a point of legal debate with at least nineteen states, the federal government, and a handful of foreign countries as it has a few questionable features that might restrict the novice computer user and/or unfairly compete with other computer companies. It also has some specific issues with the version of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Java/view" Java that comes prepackaged with it that has never been adequately fixed, and it still has several HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Y2K/view" Y2K issues, most of which have patches that can be HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/download/view" downloaded for free (in fact, Microsoft guarantees that it will work properly through 2000 with the proper patches), but some of which do not yet have fixes at all (it won't work properly through 2001 at this point). In any case, it was designed to replace HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win95/view" Windows '95.
Windows 2000
Windows 2000 was the intended replacement for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinNT/view" Windows NT and in that capacity received relatively lukewarm support. Being based on Windows NT, it inherits some of its HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/driver/view" driver support problems. Originally it was also supposed to replace HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win98/view" Windows '98, but HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinME/view" Windows ME was made to do that instead, and the merger between Windows NT and Windows '98 was postponed until Windows XP.
Windows 3.1
Windows 3.1 remains a surprisingly popular variant of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-Windows/view" MS-Windows. It is HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/lightweight/view" lighter weight than either HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win95/view" Windows '95 or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinNT/view" Windows NT (but not lighter weight than HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GEOS/view" GEOS) but less capable than the other two. It is made to run on top of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-DOS/view" MS-DOS and will not do much of anything if MS-DOS is not on the system. It is thus not strictly an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS per se, but nor is it a true HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/windowmanager/view" window manager, either; rather the combination of MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 result in a full OS with HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GUI/view" GUI. Its HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/driver/view" driver support is good, but its game selection is limited. Windows 3.1 runs only on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86 based machines. It has some severe HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Y2K/view" Y2K issues that may or may not be fixed.
Windows CE
Windows CE is the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/lightweight/view" lightweight variant of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-Windows/view" MS-Windows. It offers the general look and feel of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win95/view" Windows '95 but is targetted primarily for hand-held devices, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PDA/view" PDAs, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/NC/view" NCs, and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/embedded/view" embedded devices. It does not have all the features of either Windows '95 or HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinNT/view" Windows NT and is very different from HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win3.1/view" Windows 3.1. In particular, it will not run any HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/software/view" software made for any of the other versions of MS-Windows. Special versions of each HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program must be made. Furthermore, there are actually a few slightly different variants of Windows CE, and no variant is guaranteed to be able to run software made specifically for another one. HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/driver/view" Driver support is also fairly poor for all types, and few games are made for it. Windows CE will run on a few different HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processor types, including the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86 and several different processors dedicated to PDAs, embedded systems, and hand-held devices.
Windows ME
Windows ME is yet another flavor of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-Windows/view" MS-Windows (specifically the planned replacement for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win98/view" Windows '98). Windows ME currently runs only on the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86 HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processor.
Windows NT
Windows NT is the industrial-strength variant of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-Windows/view" MS-Windows. Current revisions offer the look and feel of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win95/view" Windows '95 and older revisions offer the look and feel of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win3.1/view" Windows 3.1. It is the most HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/robust/view" robust flavor of MS-Windows and is fully HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/multitasking/view" multitasking. It is also by far the most expensive flavor of MS-Windows and has far less software available for it than Windows '95 or '98. In particular, do not expect to play many games on a Windows NT machine, and expect some difficulty in obtaining good HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/driver/view" drivers. Windows NT will run on a few different HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processor types, including the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86, the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Alpha/view" Alpha, and the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PowerPC/view" PowerPC. Plans are in place to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/portable/view" port Windows NT to the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Merced/view" Merced when it becomes available.
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is the newest flavor of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-Windows/view" MS-Windows (specifically the planned replacement for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinXP/view" Windows XP). Windows Vista (originally known as Longhorn) currently only runs on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86 HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processors.
Windows XP
Windows XP is yet another flavor of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-Windows/view" MS-Windows (specifically the planned replacement for both HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinME/view" Windows ME and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win2K/view" Windows 2000). Windows XP currently only runs on the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86 HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processors. Windows XP is currently the most popular form of MS-Windows.
WinTel
An HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/x86/view" x86 based system running some flavor of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-Windows/view" MS-Windows.
workstation
Depending upon whom you ask, a workstation is either an industrial strength HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/desktop/view" desktop computer or its own category above the desktops. Workstations typically have some flavor of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX for their HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS, but there has been a recent trend to call high-end HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinNT/view" Windows NT and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win2K/view" Windows 2000 machines workstations, too.
WYSIWYG
What you see is what you get; an adjective applied to a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program that attempts to exactly represent printed output on the screen. Related to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WYSIWYM/view" WYSIWYM but quite different.
WYSIWYM
What you see is what you mean; an adjective applied to a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program that does not attempt to exactly represent printed output on the screen, but rather defines how things are used and so will adapt to different paper sizes, etc. Related to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WYSIWYG/view" WYSIWYG but quite different.
X-Face
X-Faces are small monochrome images embedded in headers for both provides a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/e-mail/view" e-mail and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/news/view" news messages. Better mail and news applications will display them (sometimes automatically, sometimes only per request).
X-Windows
X-Windows provides a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GUI/view" GUI for most HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/UNIX/view" UNIX systems, but can also be found as an add-on library for other computers. Numerous HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/windowmanager/view" window managers HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/run/view" run on top of it. It is often just called "X".
X3D
Extensible 3D Graphics data is an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XML/view" XML file that is used to hold three-dimensional graphical data. It is the successor to HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/VRML/view" VRML.
x86
The x86 series of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processors includes the Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium II, Pentium III, Celeron, and Athlon as well as the 786, 686, 586, 486, 386, 286, 8086, 8088, etc. It is an exceptionally popular design (by far the most popular HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CISC/view" CISC series) in spite of the fact that even its fastest model is significantly slower than the assorted HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RISC/view" RISC processors. Many different HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OSes run on machines built around x86 processors, including HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MS-DOS/view" MS-DOS, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win3.1/view" Windows 3.1, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win95/view" Windows '95, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win98/view" Windows '98, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinME/view" Windows ME, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinNT/view" Windows NT, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Win2K/view" Windows 2000, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinCE/view" Windows CE, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/WinXP/view" Windows XP, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GEOS/view" GEOS, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Linux/view" Linux, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Solaris/view" Solaris, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OpenBSD/view" OpenBSD, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/NetBSD/view" NetBSD, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/FreeBSD/view" FreeBSD, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/MacOSX/view" Mac OS X, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS2/view" OS/2, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/BeOS/view" BeOS, HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CPM/view" CP/M, etc. A couple different companies produce x86 processors, but the bulk of them are produced by Intel. It is expected that this processor will eventually be completely replaced by the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Merced/view" Merced, but the Merced development schedule is somewhat behind. Also, it should be noted that the Pentium III processor has stirred some controversy by including a "fingerprint" that will enable individual computer usage of web pages etc. to be accurately tracked.
XBL
An XML Binding Language document is used to associate executable content with an XML tag. It is itself an HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XML/view" XML file, and is used most frequently (although not exclusively) in conjunction with HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XUL/view" XUL.
XHTML
The Extensible Hypertext Mark-up Language is essentially a cleaner, stricter version of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/HTML/view" HTML. It is a proper subset of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XML/view" XML.
XML
The Extensible Mark-up Language is a subset of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/SGML/view" SGML and a superset of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XHTML/view" XHTML. It is used for numerous things including (among many others) HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RSS/view" RSS and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/RDF/view" RDF.
XML-RPC
XML-RPC provides a fairly HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/lightweight/view" lightweight means by which one computer can execute a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" program on a co-operating machine across a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/network/view" network like the HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Internet/view" Internet. It is based on HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XML/view" XML and is used for everything from fetching stock quotes to checking weather forcasts.
XO
The energy-efficient, kid-friendly HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/laptop/view" laptop produced by the OLPC project. It runs HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Sugar/view" Sugar for its HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/windowmanager/view" window manager and HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Linux/view" Linux for its HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS. It sports numerous built-in features like wireless HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/network/view" networking, a video camera & microphone, a few HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/USB/view" USB ports, and audio in/out jacks. It comes with several educational HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/application/view" applications (which it refers to as "Activities"), most of which are written in HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Python/view" Python.
XSL
The Extensible Stylesheet Language is like HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CSS/view" CSS for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XML/view" XML. It provides a means of describing how an XML resource should be displayed.
XSLT
XSL Transformations are used to transform one type of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XML/view" XML into another. It is a component of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/XSL/view" XSL that can be (and often is) used independently.
XUL
An XML User-Interface Language document is used to define a user interface for an application using XML to specify the individual controls as well as the overall layout.
Y2K
The general class of problems resulting from the wrapping of computers' internal date timers is given this label in honor of the most obvious occurrence -- when the year changes from 1999 to 2000 (abbreviated in some HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/program/view" programs as 99 to 00 indicating a backwards time movement). Contrary to popular belief, these problems will not all manifest themselves on the first day of 2000, but will in fact happen over a range of dates extending out beyond 2075.

Z-Machine
A HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/virtualmachine/view" virtual machine optimized for running HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/IF/view" interactive fiction, interactive tutorials, and other interactive things of a primarily textual nature. Z-Machines have been HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/portable/view" ported to almost every HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/platform/view" platform in use today. Z-machine HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/bytecode/view" bytecode is usually called Z-code. The HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Glulx/view" Glulx virtual machine is of the same idea but somewhat more modern in concept.
Z80
The Z80 series of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/processor/view" processors is a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CISC/view" CISC design and is not being used in too many new stand-alone computer systems, but can still be occasionally found in HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/embedded/view" embedded systems. It is the most popular processor for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/CPM/view" CP/M machines.
Zaurus
The Zaurus is a brand of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PDA/view" PDA. It is generally in between a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PalmPilot/view" Palm and a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/Newton/view" Newton in capability.
zip
There are three common zips in the computer world that are completely different from one another. One is a type of removable removable HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/disk/view" disk slightly larger (physically) and vastly larger (capacity) than a HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/floppy/view" floppy. The second is a group of programs used for running HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/IF/view" interactive fiction. The third is a group of programs used for HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/compression/view" compression.
Zoomer
The Zoomer is a type of HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/PDA/view" PDA. Zoomers all use HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/GEOS/view" GEOS for their HYPERLINK "http://www.saugus.net/Computer/Terms/OS/view" OS and are / were produced by numerous different companies and are thus found under numerous different names. The "classic" Zoomers are known as the Z-7000, the Z-PDA, and the GRiDpad and were made by Casio, Tandy, and AST respectively. Newer Zoomers include HP's OmniGo models, Hyundai's Gulliver (which may not have actually been released to the general public), and Nokia's Communicator line of PDA / cell phone hybrids.