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Toshiba Qosmio X500 User Manual

Page 199

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User’s Manual

Glossary-4

Glossary

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.

boot disk: See system disk.
bootable disk: See system disk.
bps: Bits per second. Typically used to describe the data transmission

speed of a modem.

buffer: The portion of the computer's memory where data is temporarily

stored. Buffers often compensate for differences in the rate of flow

from one device to another.

bus: An interface for transmission of signals, data or electric power.
byte: The representation of a single character. A sequence of eight bits

treated as a single unit; also the smallest addressable unit within

the system.

C

cache memory: A section of very fast memory in which frequently used

information is duplicated for quick access. Accessing data from

cache is faster than accessing it from the computer's main memory.

See also L1 cache, L2 cache.

capacity: The amount of data that can be stored on a magnetic storage

device such as a floppy diskette or hard disk drive. It is usually

described in terms of kilobytes (KB), where one KB = 1024 bytes,

megabytes (MB), where one MB = 1024 KB and gigabytes (GB),

where one GB = 1024 MB.

CardBus: An industry standard bus for 32-bit PC Cards.
CD: An individual compact disc. See also CD-ROM.
CD-R: A Compact Disc-Recordable disc can be written once and read

many times. See also CD-ROM.

CD-ROM: A Compact Disc Read-Only Memory is a high capacity disc that

can be read from but not written to. The CD-ROM drive uses a

laser, rather than magnetic heads, to read data from the disc.

CD-RW: A Compact Disc-ReWritable disc can be rewritten many times.

See also CD-ROM.

character: Any letter, number, punctuation mark, or symbol used by the

computer. Also synonymous with byte.

chassis: The frame containing the computer.
chip: A small semiconductor containing computer logic and circuitry for

processing, memory, input/output functions and controlling other

chips.

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