Mod 1 Unit 1

Front 1

Classically, the software routines burned onto the System ROM of a PC. More commonly seen as any software that directly controls a particular piece of hardware. A set of programs encoded in Read-Only Memory (ROM) on computers. these programs handle startup operations and low-level control of hardware such as disk drives, the keyboard, and monitor.

Back 1

BIOS (basic input/output services)

Front 2

A similar technology to that of HD DVD, it gets the laser closer to the data and is able to store more data per layer, 25GB compared to 15GB.

Back 2

blu-ray disc

Front 3

Electronic chips that handle of the low-level functions of a PC, which in the original PC were handled by close to 30 different chips. these usually consist of one, two, or three separate chips embedded into a motherboard to handle all of these functions.

Back 3

chipset

Front 4

Originally, the type of nonvolatile RAM that held information about the most basic parts of your PC such as hard drives, floppies, and amount of DRAM. today, these chips have been replaced by Flash-type non-volatile RAM.

Back 4

CMOS (complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor)

Front 5

The "brain" of the computer. The microprocessor that handles the primary calculations for the computer. CPUs are known by names such as Pentium 4 and Athlon.

Back 5

CPu

Front 6

One of the latest implementations of SDRAM technology, this chip uses lower voltage and uses both sweeps of the clock signal for data transfer as well as internally further splitting each clock pulse in two, doubling the number of operations it is able to perform.

Back 6

DDR2

Front 7

the memory used to store data in most personal computers, it stores each bit in a "cell" composed of a transistor and a capacitor. because The capacitor in one cell can only hold a charge for a few milliseconds, it must be continually refreshed, or rewritten, to retain its data.

Back 7

DRAM (Dynamic Random-Access Memory)

Front 8

The movement of electrons from one body to another. This is a real menace to PCs as it can cause permanent damage to semiconductors.

Back 8

ESD (Electrostatic Discharge)

Front 9

A receptacle or slot on a motherboard that is designed to accept adapters. Common types include AGP, PCI, CNR.

Back 9

Expansion Slot.

Front 10

A data-recording system using solid metallic disks of magnetic material turning at high speeds to store and retrieve programs and data in a computer. Current data storage capacities are greater that 250GB.

Back 10

Hard-Drive

Front 11

An all-digital technology that advances the work of DVI to include higher resolution, higher motion-picture frame rates, and digital audio right on the same connector, as well as a function to share the signals of a remote control.

Back 11

HDMI

Front 12

A form of simultaneous multithreading that takes advantage of a modern CPU's superscalar architecture. Superscalar processors are able to have multiple instructions operation on separate data in parallel.

Back 12

Hyperthreading

Front 13

Also called FireWire, this is the standard to send wide-band signals over a thin connector system that plugs into TV's, VCR's, TV cameras, PC's, etc. This serial bus, developed by Apple and Texas Instruments, enables connection of 60 devices at speeds ranging from 100 to 400 megabites per second.

Back 13

IEEE 1394

Front 14

A pair of small pins that can be shorted with a "shunt" to configure many different aspects of PC's. Usually used in configurations that are rarely changed, such as master/slave setting on IDE drives.

Back 14

Jumper

Front 15

The primary circuit board that holds all of the core components of the computer. Also called a Planar Board and System Board.

Back 15

Motherboard

Front 16

A processor that has architecture with multiple processors on the same package. The operating system can treat the single processor as if it were multiple processors - the OS must support symmetric multi-processing in order to utilize this architecture.

Back 16

Multicore

Front 17

To run a CPU or video processor faster than its rated speed.

Back 17

Overclocking

Front 18

A more advanced expansion-bus standard to compete with AGP that is backward compatible with PCI.

Back 18

PCIe

Front 19

Design architecture for the sockets on the computer motherboard that enable system components to be added to the computer. It is a 'local bus" standard, meaning that devices added to a computer through this port will use the processor at the motherboard's full speed (up to 33 MHz), rather than at the slower 8 MHz speed of the regular bus. In addition to moving data at a faster rate, it moves data 32 or 64 bits at a time, rather than the 8 or 16 bits that the older ISA buses supported.

Back 19

Peripheral Component Interconnect

Front 20

A component cooling method that used the effect from a liquid's change of state to a gas to cool the inside of a PC.

Back 20

Phase Change Cooling

Front 21

Short for picture elements, these are the individual dots that the software projecting the image is capable of controlling. Viewable screen sizes, such as 1024 X 768, refer to the number of these in a matrix. Contrast with dot phosphors.

Back 21

Pixels

Front 22

A patented RAM technology that used accelerated clocks to provide very high-speed memory.

Back 22

Rambus DRAM/RDRAM

Front 23

The most popular form of a removable memory card that can store large quantities of information indefinitely on a very small form factor, typically 32mm X 24mm. Used in camera, video cameras and cell phones.

Back 23

Secure Digital (SD)

Front 24

A type of RAM that uses a flip-flop type circuit rather than the typical transistor/capacitor of DRAM to hold a bit of information. It does not need to be refreshed and is faster that regular DRAM. Used primarily for cache.

Back 24

SRAM (Static RAM)

Front 25

A component of video technology that combines the two chrominance signals into one, resulting in video quality not quite high as that of true component video.

Back 25

S-video