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such as printers, terminals, and modems. In standard usage, one baud is
equivalent to approximately one bit per second. It is named for Emil Baudot, a
pioneer in printing telegraphy.
Bell 103/212A: The American standard for modem operations. See also CCITT.
binary: The base two number system composed of zeros and ones (off or on), used
by most digital computers. The rightmost digit of a binary number has a value
of 1, the next a value of 2, then 4, 8, 16, and so on. For example, the binary
number 101 has a value of 5. See also ASCII.
BIOS: Basic Input Output System. The firmware that controls data flow within
the computer. See also firmware.
bit: Derived from Òbinary digit,Ó the basic unit of information used by the
computer. It is either zero or one. Eight bits is one byte. See also byte.
board: A circuit board. An internal card containing electronic components,
called chips, which perform a specific function or increase the capabilities of
the system.
boot: Short for bootstrap. A program that starts or restarts the computer.
The program reads instructions from a storage device into the computerÕs memory.
bps: Bits per second. Typically used to describe the data transmission speed
of a modem.
buffer: The portion of the computerÕs memory where data is temporarily stored.
Buffers often compensate for differences in the rate of flow from one device to
another.
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: High speed memory which stores data that increases processor
speed and data transfer rate. When the CPU reads data from main memory, it
stores a copy of this data in cache memory. The next time the CPU needs that
same data, it looks for it in the cache memory rather than the main memory,
which saves time.
card: Synonym for board. See board.
capacity: The amount of data that can be stored on a magnetic storage device
such as a diskette (floppy disk) or hard disk. It is usually described in
terms of kilobytes (KB), where one KB = 1024 bytes and megabytes (MB), where one
MB = 1024 KB.
carrier: A single frequency or tone a modem generates when a connection is
made. See CD: Carrier Detect.
CCITT: Consultive Committee International Telegraph and Telephone. An advisory
committee established under the United Nations that provides international