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GLOSSARY
Glossary-9
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 mono-
chrome 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 compo-
nent 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 devel-
oped 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.
modem
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.
M
main board: See motherboard.