Toshiba Satellite M40 (PSM42) - Manual (Page 178)

User’s Manual Glossary-3
Glossary
ANSI: American National Standards Institute. An organization established
to adopt and define standards for a variety of technical disciplines.
For example, ANSI defined the ASCII standard and other
information processing requirements.
antistatic: A material used to prevent the buildup of static electricity.
application: A group of programs that together are used for a specific task
such as accounting, financial planning, spreadsheets, word
processing, and games, etc.
ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Interchange. ASCII code is
a set of 256 binary codes that represent the most commonly used
letters, numbers, and symbols.
async: Short for asynchronous.
asynchronous: Lacking regular time relationship. As applied to computer
communications, asynchronous refers to the method of transmitting
data that does not require a steady stream of bits to be transmitted
at regular time intervals.
AUTOEXEC.BAT: A batch file that executes a series of MS-DOS
commands and programs each time you start the computer.
B
backup: A duplicate copy of files kept as a spare in case the original is
destroyed.
batch file: A file that can be executed from the system prompt containing a
sequence of operating system commands or executable files. See
also AUTOEXEC.BAT.
binary: The base two number system composed of zeros and ones (off or
on), used by most digital computers. The right most digit of a binary
number has a value of 1, the next a value of 2, then 4, 8, 16, and so
on. For example, the binary number 101 has a value of 5. See also
ASCII.
BIOS: Basic Input Output System. The firmware that controls data flow
within the computer. See also firmware.
bit: Derived from ìbinary digit,î the basic unit of information used by the
computer. It is either zero or one. Eight bits is one byte. See also
byte.
Bluetooth: A short-range radio technology designed to simplify wireless
communication among computers, communication devices and the
Internet.
board: A circuit board. An internal card containing electronic components,
called chips, which perform a specific function or increase the
capabilities of the system.
boot: Short for bootstrap. A program that starts or restarts the computer.
The program reads instructions from a storage device into the
computer’s memory.
bps: Bits per second. Typically used to describe the data transmission
speed of a modem.