Dell Inspiron 3500 - Manual (Page 52)

A coin-cell battery that maintains system configuration, date, and time information in a special section of memory when the system is turned off.
system board
As the main circuit board, the system board usually contains most of your computer's integral components, such as the following:
l Microprocessor
l RAM
l Controllers for standard devices, such as the keyboard
l Various ROM chips
Frequently used synonyms for system board are motherboard and logic board.
system configuration information
Data stored in memory that tells a computer what hardware is installed and how the computer should be configured for operation.
system diskette
System diskette is a synonym for bootable diskette.
system memory
System memory is a synonym for RAM.
system.ini file
A start-up file for the Windows operating system. When you start Windows, it consults the system.ini file to determine a variety of options for the
Windows operating environment. Among other things, the system.ini file records which video, mouse, and keyboard drivers are installed for
Windows.
Running the Control Panel or Windows Setup program may change options in the system.ini file. On other occasions, you may need to change
or add options to the system.ini file manually with a text editor, such as Notepad.
T
termination
Some devices (such as the last device at each end of a SCSI cable) must be terminated to prevent reflections and spurious signals in the cable.
When such devices are connected in a series, you may need to enable or disable the termination on these devices by changing jumper or switch
settings on the devices or by changing settings in the configuration software for the devices.
text editor
An application program such as Windows Notepad that is used for editing text files. Most word processors use proprietary file formats containing
binary characters, although some can read and write text files.
text mode
A video mode that can be defined as x columns by y rows of characters.
TFT
Abbreviation for thin-film transistor. From one to four of these transistors control each pixel in an active-matrix display for portable computers.
time-out
A time-out is a system setup option that activates a power conservation feature after a specified period of inactivity.
tpi
Abbreviation for tracks per inch.
trackball
A pointing device built in to a portable computer that controls the movement of the cursor on the screen. Trackball-aware software allows you to
activate commands by rolling the trackball and clicking its buttons while pointing at objects displayed on the screen.
touch pad
A pointing device that detects the position of your finger over a touch-sensitive area. It is PS/2 compatible and provides full mouse functionality.