Toshiba Satellite M40 (PSM40) - Manual (Page 193)

User’s Manual Glossary-9
Glossary
keyboard: An input device containing switches that are activated by
manually pressing marked keys. Each keystroke activates a switch
that transmits a specific code to the computer. For each key, the
transmitted code is, in turn, representative of the (ASCII) character
marked on the key.
kilobyte (KB): A unit of data storage equal to 1024 bytes. See also byte
and megabit.
L
level 2 cache: See cache.
Light Emitting Diode (LED): A semiconductor device that emits light when
a current is applied.
Liquid Crystal Display (LCD): Liquid crystal sealed between two sheets of
glass coated with transparent conducting material. The viewing-side
coating is etched into character forming segments with leads that
extend to the edge of the glass. Applying a voltage between the
glass sheets darkens the liquid crystal to provide contrast to lighted
portions of the display.
LSI: Large Scale Integration. 1) A technology that allows the inclusion of up
to 100,000 simple logic gates on a single chip. 2) An integrated
circuit that uses the large scale integration.
modem
M
main board: See motherboard.
MDA: Monochrome Display Adapter. A video display protocol defined by
the IBM Monochrome Display Adapter and its associated circuitry
for direct drive TTL displays that supports a monochrome 720x350
text mode.
megabyte (MB): A unit of data storage equal to 1024 kilobytes. See also
kilobyte.
megahertz: A unit of wave frequency that equals 1 million cycles per
second. See also hertz.
menu: A software interface that displays a list of options on the screen.
Also called a screen.
microprocessor: A hardware component contained in a single integrated
circuit that carries out instructions. Also called the central
processing unit (CPU), one of the main parts of the computer.
MMX: Refers to microprocessors with additional instructions beyond the
x86 standard. The instructions were developed on the basis of
multimedia code requirements and thus improve the performance of
multimedia applications.
mode: A method of operation, for example, the boot mode or the resume
mode.
modem: Derived from modulator/demodulator, a device that converts
(modulates) digital data for transmission over telephone lines and
then converts modulated data (demodulates) to digital format where
received.