Thanks to aab_forbiden
— A —
ACPI - Advanced Configuration and Power Interface
ACR - Advanced Communications Riser
ADC - Analog to Digital Converter
ADPCM - Adaptive Differential Pulse-Code Modulation
ADSL - Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line
AGP - Accelerated Graphics Port
ALI - Acer Labs, Incorporated
ALU - Arithmetic Logic Unit
AM - Active Matrix
AMD - Advanced Micro Devices
AMR - Audio Modem Riser
ANSI - American National Standards Institute
APM - Advanced Power Management
ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange
ASIC - Application Specific Integrated Circuit
ASPI - Advanced SCSI Programming Interface
AT - Advanced Technology
ATA - Advanced Technology Attachment
ATAPI - AT Attachment Packet Interface
ATM - Asynchronous Transfer Mode
ATX - Advanced Technology Extended
— B —
BGA - Ball Grid Array
BIOS - Basic Input Output System
BIT - Binary Digit
BNC - Barrel Nut Connector
BNC - Berkeley Nuclear Connector
BNC - British Naval Connector
BSRAM - Burst Static Random Access Memory
— C —
CAS - Column Address Signal
CAV - Constant Angular Velocity
CD - Compact Disk
CDR - Compact Disk Recorder
CDRW - Compact Disk Re-Writer
CDTV - Commodore Dynamic Total Vision
CD-ROM - Compact Disk - Read Only Memory
CFM - Cubic Feet per Minute (ft³/min)
CGA - Color Graphics Adapter
CISC - Complex Instruction Set Computer
CLV - Constant Linear Velocity
CMOS - Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor
CMYK - Cyan Magenta Yellow Black
COAST - Cache On A Stick
CNR - Communication Network Riser
CPRM - Copyright Protection for Recordable Media
CPU - Central Processing Unit
CSU/DSU - Channel Service Unit/Data Service Unit
CRC - Cyclic Redundancy Check
CRIMM - Continuity Rambus Inline Memory Module
CRT - Cathode Ray Tube
— D —
DAC - Digital-to-Analog Converter
DACS - Digital Access and Cross-connect System
DAE - Digital Audio Extraction
DDC - Display Data Channel
DDR - Double Data Rate
DDR-SDRAM - Double Data Rate - Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory
DEC - Digital Equipment Corporation
DIMM - Dual Inline Memory Module
DIP - Dual Inline Pin
DMA - Direct Memory Access
DOCSIS - Data Over Cable Systems Interface Specifications
DRAM - Dynamic Random Access Memory
DPI - Dots Per Inch
DS/DD - Double Sided, Double Density
DS/HD - Double Sided, High Density
DSL - Digital Subscriber Line
DSP - Digital Signal Processing
DSTN - Dual Supertwisted Nematic
DUN - Dial Up Networking
DVD - Digital Versatile Disc
DVD-RAM - Digital Versatile Disk - Random Access Memory
— E —
EBps - Exabytes per second
Ebps - Exabits per second
ECC - Error Correction Code
ECP - Enhanced Capability Port
EDO - Extended Data Out
EEPROM - Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory
EPROM - Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory
EGA - Enhanced Graphics Adapter
EGA - Enhanced Graphics Array
EIDE - Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics
EIAJ - Electronics Industry Association of Japan
EISA - Enhanced Industry Standard Architecture
EMI - Electro-Magnetic Interference
EMS - Expanded Memory Specification
ESDRAM - Enhanced Synchronous Dynamic DRAM
EPIC - Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing
EPP - Enhanced Parallel Port
ESD - Electro-Static Discharge
EWSD - Electronic Worldwide Switch Digital
— F —
FC-PGA - Flip Chip Pin Grid Array
FDC - Floppy Disk Controller
FDD - Floppy Disk Drive
FDDI - Fiber Distributed Data Interconnect
FeRAM - Ferroelectric Random Access Memory
FIFO - First In First Out
FLOPS - Floating Point Operations per Second
FMD - Flourescent Multi-layer Disk
FMD-ROM - Flourescent Multi-layer Disk - Read Only Memory
FPGA - Field-Programmable Gate Array
FPM - Fast Page Mode
FPS - Frame Per Second
FPU - Floating Point Unit
FSAA - Full Screen Anti-Aliasing
FSB - Front Side Bus
FXSR - Fast Save and Restore
— G —
GART - Graphics Address Remapping Table
GB - Gigabytes
GBps - Gigabytes per second
Gbps - Gigabits per second
GDI - Graphical Device Interface
GFD - Gold Finger Device
GHz - GigaHertz
GPA - Graphics Performance Accelerator
GPU - Graphics Processing Unit
GSR - Gigabit Switched Router
GTS - GigaTexel Shader
— H —
HCI - Human-Computer Interaction/Interface
HDD - Hard Disk Drive
HIPPI - High Performance Parallel Interface
HPA - High Performance Addressing
HSF - Heat Sink and Fan
HSR - Hidden Surface Removal
HardOCP - Hard Overclocker Comparison Page
— I —
IBM - International Business Machines Corporation
IC - Integrated Circuit
ICH - I/O Controller Hub
IDE - Integrated Drive Electronics
IDSL - ISDN Digital Subscriber Line
IEEE - Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers
IFTTC - Integrated Fiber To The Curb
IFITL - Integrated Fiber In The Loop
IHA - Intel Hub Architecture
I/O - Input/Output
IR - Infra Red
IRQ - Interrupt Request
ISA - Industry Standard Architecture
ISDN - Integrated Services Digital Network
ISO - International Standards Organization
— J —
JBOD - Just a Bunch Of Disks
— K —
Kbps - Kilobits Per Second
KBps - KiloBytes per second
KNI - Katmai New Instructions
KVM - Keyboard Video Mouse
— L —
LASER - Light Amplified by Stimulated Emissions of Radiation
LBA - Logical Block Addressing
LCD - Liquid Crystal Display
LDT - Lightning Data Transport
LED - Light Emitting Diode
LIF - Low Insertion Force
LIFO - Last In First Out
LMA - Lightspeed Memory Architecture
LPT - Line Print Terminal
LUN - Logical Unit Number
LVD - Low-Voltage Differential
— M —
MAC - Media Access Control
MB - MotherBoard
MB - Megabyte
MBps - Megabytes Per Second
Mbps - Megabits Per Second
MC - Micro-Channel
MCA - Micro Channel Architecture
MCE - Machine Check Exception
MCGA - Multi-Color Graphic Array
MDRAM - Multibank Dynamic Random Access Memory
MEMS - Micro-Electromechanical Systems
MFLOPS - Millions of FLoating point Operations Per Second
MFM - Modified Frequency Modulation
MHz - MegaHertz
MIPS - Million Instructions Per Second
MMX - Multi-Media Extensions
Modem - Modulate/Demodulate
MTRR - Memory Type Range Registers
— N —
NAS - Network Attached Storage
NAT - Network Address Translation
NFG - Not Functioning Good
NIC - Network Interface Card
— O —
OC - Overclock (Over Clock)
OEM - Original Equipment Manufacturer
OTFT - Organic Thin-Film Transistor
— P —
PA-RISC - Precision Archetecture Reduced Instruction Set Computing
PAL - Phase Alternation Line
PAN - Personal Area Network
PAT - Port Address Translation
PBC - Pipelined Burst Cache
PC - Personal Computer
PCB - Printed Circuit Board
PCI - Peripheral Component Interconnect
PCM - Pulse Code Modulation
PCMCIA - Peripheral Component Microchannel Interconnect Architecture
PCMCIA - Personal Computer Memory Card International Association
PGA - Professional Graphics Array
PIO - Programmable Input/Output
PIXEL - Picture Element
PLD - Programmable Logic Device
PnP - Plug ‘n Play
POST - Power On Self Test
POTS - Plain Old Telephone System
PPGA - Plastic Pin Grid Array
PPP - Point to Point Protocol
PPPoA - Point-to-Point Protocol over ATM
PPPoE - Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet
PRAM - Parameter Random Access Memory
PROM - Programmable Read-Only Memory
PSU - Power Supply Unit
PWM - Pulse Width Modulation
— Q —
QDR - Quadruple Data Rate
— R —
RADSL - Rate Adaptive Digital Subscriber Line
RAID - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks
RAID - Redundant Array of Independant Disks
RAM - Random Access Memory
RAMDAC - Random Access Memory Digital Analog Convertor
RDRAM - Rambus Dynamic Random Access Memory
RGB - Red Green Blue
RIMM - Rambus Inline Memory Module
RISC - Reduced Instruction Set Computing
RLL - Run Length Limited
ROM - Read Only Memory
RPM - Revolutions Per Minute
— S —
SAN - Storage Area Network
SASID - Self-scanned Amorphous Silicon Integrated Display
SCA - SCSI Configured Automatically
SCSI - Small Computer System Interface
SDRAM - Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory
SDSL - Synchronus Digital Subscriber Line
SECC - Single Edge Contact Connector
SEP - Single Edge Processor
SEPP - Single Edge Processor Package
SGI - Silicon Graphics Incorporated
SGRAM - Synchronous Graphics RAM
SIMD - Single Instruction-Stream, Multiple Data-Stream
SIMM - Single Inline Memory Module
SLI - Scan Line Interleave
SLIP - Serial Line Internet Protocol
SMDS - Switched Multimegabit Data Service
SMP - Symmetric MultiProcessing
SNR - Signal to Noise Ratio
SODIMM - Small Outline Dual Inline Memory Module
SPARC - Scalable Processor ArChitecture
SOHO - Small Office Home Office
SRAM - Static Random Access Memory
SSE - Streaming SIMD Extensions
STN - Supertwisted Nematic
STP - Shieled Twisted Pair
SVGA - Super Video Graphics Array
S/PDIF - Sony/Philips Digital Interface
— T —
TB - Terabytes
TBps - Terabytes per second
Tbps - Terabits per second
TEC - Thermoelectric Cooler
TFT - Thin Film Transistor
THz - TeraHertz
TIM - Thermal Interface Material
TNT - TwiN Texel
TOPS - Theoretical Operations Per Second
TSOP - Thin Small Outline Package
TTL - Transistor Transistor Logic
TWAIN - Technology Without An Important Name
— U —
UART - Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter
UDMA - Ultra Direct Memory Access
UMA - Unified Memory Architechture
UPS - Uninteruptible Power Supply
USB - Universal Serial Bus
UTP - Unshieled Twisted Pair
— V —
VCD - Video CD
VCM - Virutal Channel Memory
VCRAM - Virtual Channel Read Access Memory
VDSL - Very High Data Digital Subscriber Line
VESA - Video Electronics Standards Association
VFD - Vacuum-Flourescent Displays
VGA - Video Graphics Array
VIVO - Video In, Video Out
VLB - VESA Local Bus
VPN - Virtual Private Network
VRAM - Video Random Access Memory
— W —
WORM - Write-Once Read-Many
WRAM - Window Random Access Memory
WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get
— X —
XGA - Extended Graphics Array
XMS - Extended Memory Specification
XT - Extended Technology
— Z —
ZIF - Zero Insertion Force
ZV - Zoomed Video
A
- ABEND — short for abnormal end, and refers to a program stopping prematurely due to a bug, from an IBM System/360 error message. Abend is the German word for evening, and some say ABEND is so-named because it's "what system operators do to the machine late on Friday when they want to call it a day."[1]
- Originally this name was chosen by an author just because it was a catchy name. Soon enough, it was suggested that the name was indeed appropriate, because its founders got started by applying patches to code written for NCSA's httpd daemon. The result was "a patchy" server.
- AWK — a computer pattern/action language, name made up of the surnames of its authors Alfred V. Aho, Peter J. Weinberger, and Brian W. Kernighan
B
- B — a programming language created by Ken Thompson as a revision of the BCPL programming language.
- biff — a command to turn on asynchronous email notification on Unix systems. Actually named after a dog at U.C. Berkeley, who would bark when mail was delivered. (The dog belonged to Heidi Stettner, validation of this from Eric Cooper.)
- Bon — a programming language created by Ken Thompson and named after his wife Bonnie. However according to an encyclopedia quotation in Bon's manual, it was named after a religion (likely Tibetan) whose rituals involve the murmuring of magic formulas.[2]
- BASIC - In computer programming, BASIC (an acronym which stands for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of high-level programming languages designed to be easy to use.
- The term is often (but erroneously) credited to Grace Hopper. In 1946, she joined the Harvard Faculty at the Computation Laboratory where she traced an error in the Harvard Mark II to a moth trapped in a relay. This bug was carefully removed and taped to the log book. (See picture).
- However, use of the word "bug" to describe defects in mechanical systems dates back to at least the 1870s, perhaps especially in Scotland. Thomas Edison, for one, used the term in his notebooks.
- byte — the term was coined by Werner Buchholz in 1956 during the early design phase for the IBM Stretch computer. It was coined by mutating the word bite so it would not be accidentally misspelled as bit. A byte usually is a grouping of 8 bits, but technically refers to the smallest addressable unit of memory.
C
- C — a programming language named because Dennis Ritchie improved on the B language and called it New B. He later called it C. (See also D).
- C++ creator Bjarne Stroustrup called his new language "C with Classes" and then "new C". Because of which the original C began to be called "old C" which was considered insulting to the C community. At this time Rick Mascitti suggested the name C++ as a successor to C. In C the '++' operator increments the value of the variable it is appended to, thus C++ would increment the value of C.
- Cookie — A packet of information that travels between a browser and the web server.
- The term was coined by web browser programmer Lou Montulli after the term "magic cookies" used by Unix programmers.
- COBOL - COmmon Business-Oriented Language
- CPU - An acronym for Central Processing Unit and is often used to refer to a computer system, such as “That beige box sitting next to my 24” flat screen monitor is my new CPU.” The “beige box” being referred to in the aforementioned statement is a computer system and not a CPU, the CPU is the chip inside the computer system known specifically as the microprocessor. Prior to the invention of the microprocessor in 1971 by Intel (the 4004) CPU’s were circuits consisting of many chips to make up the function of a programmable information processing and manipulation device.
- CSV - The comma-separated_values file format is a set of file formats used to store tabular data in which numbers and text are stored in plain textual form that can be read in a text editor.
D–F
- D — a programming language Walter Bright designed as an improved C, avoiding many of the design problems of C (e.g., extensive pointer manipulation, unenforced array boundaries, ...).
- Daemon — a process in an operating system that runs in the background.
- It is falsely considered an acronym for Disk And Execution MONitor. According to the original team that introduced the concept, "the use of the word daemon was inspired by the Maxwell's demon of physics and thermodynamics (an imaginary agent which helped sort molecules with differing velocities and worked tirelessly in the background)" thus evading the Laws of Thermodynamics.[3] The earliest use appears to have been in the phrase "daemon of Socrates", which meant his "guiding or indwelling spirit; his genius", also a pre-Christian equivalent of the "Guardian Angel", or, alternatively, a demigod (who bears only an etymological connection to the word "demon"). The term was embraced, and possibly popularized, by the Unix operating systems which supported multiple background processes: various local (and later Internet) services were provided by daemons. This is exemplified by the BSD mascot, John Lasseter's drawing of a friendly imp (copyright Marshall Kirk McKusick). Thus, a daemon is something that works magically without anyone being much aware of it. Note that an alternative spelling is 'daemon', which is sometimes slightly differentiated in purpose from 'demon'.
- finger — Unix command that provides information about users logged into a system
- Les Earnest wrote the finger program in 1971 to provide for users who wanted information about other users on a network or system. Before the finger program, the only way to get this information was with a who program that showed IDs and terminal line numbers for logged-in users; people used to run their fingers down the "who" list. Earnest named his program after this phenomenon.
G
- Gnu is also a species of African antelope. The founder of the GNU project Richard Stallman liked the name because of the humour associated with its pronunciation and was also influenced by the song The Gnu Song,[9] by Flanders and Swann which is a song sung by a gnu. It is also an early example of a recursive acronym: "GNU's Not Unix".
- Google — search engine on the web.
- The name started as an exaggerated boast about the amount of information the search-engine would be able to search. It was originally named 'Googol', a word for the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. The word was originally invented by Milton Sirotta, nephew of mathematician Edward Kasner in 1938 during a discussion of large numbers and exponential notation.
- Gopher — an early distributed document search and retrieval network protocol on the Internet
- The source of the name is claimed to be three-fold: first, that it is used to "go-for" information; second, that it does so through a menu of links analogous to gopher holes; and third, that the mascot of the protocol authors' organization, the University of Minnesota, is Goldy the Gopher.
- The name comes from a command in the Unix text editor ed that takes the form
g/re/p meaning search globally for a regular expression and print lines where instances are found. "Grep" like "Google" is often used as a verb, meaning "to search".
H–K
- Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in 'mail' and finally settled for Hotmail as it included the letters "HTML" — the markup language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casing.
- i18n — short for internationalization.
- "18" is for the number of letters between the i and the n. The term l10n (for localization) has failed to catch on to the same degree, but is used by some.
- ICQ is not an initialism. It is a play on the phrase "I seek you" (similar to CQ in ham radio usage).
- ID10T - pronounced "ID ten T" - is a code frequently used by a customer service representative (CSR) to annotate their notes and identify the source of a problem as the person who is reporting the problem rather than the system being blamed. This is a thinly veiled reference to the CSR's opinion that the person reporting the problem is an IDIOT. Example: Problem reported caused by ID10T, no resolution possible. See also PEBKAC.
- Jakarta was the name of the conference room at Sun where most of the meetings between Sun and Apache took place. The conference room was most likely named after Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, which is located on the northwest coast of the island of Java.
- Originally called "D", but with the connotation of a near-failing mark on a report card the language was renamed Oak by Java-creator James Gosling, from the tree that stood outside his window. The programming team at Sun had to look for a substitute name as there was already another programming language called Oak. "Java" was selected from a list of suggestions, primarily because it is a popular slang term for coffee, especially that grown on the island of Java. As the programmers drank a lot of coffee, this seemed an appropriate name. Many people mistakenly think that Java is indeed an acronym and spell it JAVA. When one of the original Java programmers from Sun was asked to define JAVA he said it stood for nothing, but if it must stand for something: "Just Another Vague Acronym."
- It was originally developed by Brendan Eich of Netscape under the name Mocha, which was later renamed to LiveScript, and finally to JavaScript.[10] The change of name from LiveScript to JavaScript roughly coincided with Netscape adding support for Java technology in its Netscape Navigator web browser. JavaScript was first introduced and deployed in the Netscape browser version 2.0B3 in December 1995. The naming has caused confusion, giving the impression that the language is a spin-off of Java, and it has been characterized by many as a marketing ploy by Netscape to give JavaScript the cachet of what was then the hot new web-programming language.[11][12]
- When created by programmers at MIT in the 1970s, they wanted a name that suggested high security for the project, so they named it after the Greek mythology character kerberos, (also spelled Cerberus), the mythical three-headed canine guarding Hades' gates. The reference to Greek mythology is most likely because Kerberos was developed as part of Project Athena.
L
- Linux — an operating system kernel, and the common name for the operating system which uses it.
- Linux creator Linus Torvalds originally used the Minix operating system on his computer, didn't like it, liked MS-DOS less, and started a project to develop an operating system that would address the problems of Minix. Hence the working name was Linux (Linus' Minix). Originally, however, Linus had planned to have it named Freax (free + freak + x). His friend Ari Lemmke encouraged Linus to upload it to a network so it could be easily downloaded. Ari gave Linus a directory called linux on his FTP server, as he did not like the name Freax.
- Apple stated that LISA was an acronym for Local Integrated Software Architecture; however, it is often inferred that the machine was originally named after the daughter of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, and that this acronym was invented later to fit the name. Accordingly, two humorous suggestions for expanding the acronym included Let's Invent Some Acronym and Let's Invent Silly Acronyms.
- Liveware - a term meaning computer personnel. It plays on the terms software and hardware. Coined in 1966, the word indicates that sometimes the computer problem is not with the computer itself, but with the user.
M
- from McIntosh, a popular type of apple. Jef Raskin, a computer scientist, is credited with this naming.
- from "Mac", a shortened form of Macintosh and a commonly used name for the Macintosh computer system (see elsewhere on this page), and "OS", the common abbreviation for "operating system".
- Coined by Donald Michie in his 1968 paper Memo Functions and Machine Learning.
- When Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape, created a browser to replace the Mosaic browser, it was internally named Mozilla (Mosaic-Killer, Godzilla). When Netscape's Navigator source code was made open source, Mozilla was the internal name for the open source version.
N–O
- Nerd — A colloquial term for a computer person, especially an obsessive, singularly focused one.
- Earlier spelling of the term is "Nurd" and the original spelling is "Knurd", but the pronunciation has remained the same. The term originated at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the late 1940s. Students who partied, and rarely studied were called "Drunks", while the opposite — students who never partied and always studied were "Knurd" ("Drunk" spelled backwards). The term was also (independently) used in a Dr. Seuss book, and on the TV show Happy Days, giving it international popularity.
- Novell, Inc. was originally Novell Data Systems co-founded by George Canova. The name was suggested by George's wife who mistakenly thought that "Novell" meant "new" in French.
- The name of this online interactive software - that prevented CICS system abends caused by applications programs - did not originate from "OnLIne VERification" or similar. It was the name of the author's son Oliver.
- Larry Ellison, Ed Oates and Bob Miner were working on a consulting project for the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). The code name for the project was called Oracle (the CIA evidently saw this as a system that would give answers to all questions). The project was designed to use the newly written SQL database language from IBM. The project eventually was terminated but they decided to finish what they started and bring it to the world. They kept the name Oracle and created the RDBMS engine.
- SIMON - Batch Interactive test/debug software.
- The name of this instruction set simulator software - that allowed batch application programs to be tested interactively from online terminals - did not originate from "SIMulation ONline" or similar. It was the name of the author's other son (see Oliver above).
P
- The term comes from paku paku which is a Japanese onomatopoeia (written version of a noise) used for noisy eating; similar to chomp chomp. The game was released in Japan with the name Puck-Man, and released in the US with the name Pac-Man, fearing that kids may deface a Puck-Man cabinet by changing the P to an F.
- The Personal Computer Memory Card International Association is an international standards body that defines and promotes standards for expansion devices such as modems and external hard disk drives to be connected to notebook computers. Over time, the acronym PCMCIA has been used to refer to the PC card form factor used on notebook computers. A twist on the acronym is People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms.
- PEBKAC - an acronym for "Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair", which is a code frequently used by a customer service representative (CSR) to annotate their notes and identify the source of a problem as the person who is reporting the problem rather than the system being blamed. This is a thinly veiled reference to the CSR's opinion that the person reporting the problem is the problem. Example: PEBKAC, no resolution possible. See also ID10T.
- The fifth microprocessor in the 80x86 series. It would have been called i586 or 80586, but Intel decided to name it Pentium (penta = five) after it lost a trademark infringement lawsuit against AMD due to a judgment that numbers like "286", "386", and "486" cannot be trademarked. According to Intel, Pentium conveys a meaning of strength, like titanium.
- Since some early Pentium chips contained a mathematical precision error, it has been jokingly suggested that the reason for the chip being named Pentium rather than 586 was that Intel chips would calculate 486 + 100 = 585.99999948.
- Perl was originally named Pearl, after the "pearl of great price" of Matthew 13:46. Larry Wall, the creator of Perl, wanted to give the language a short name with positive connotations and claims to have looked at (and rejected) every three- and four-letter word in the dictionary. He even thought of naming it after his wife Gloria. Before the language's official release Wall discovered that there was already a programming language named Pearl, and changed the spelling of the name. Although the original manuals suggested the backronyms "Practical Extraction and Report Language" and "Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister", these were intended humorously.
- Originally called "Personal Home Page Tools" by creator Rasmus Lerdorf, it was rewritten by developers Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans who gave it the recursive name "PHP Hypertext Preprocessor". Lerdorf currently insists the name should not be thought of as standing for anything, for he selected "Personal Home Page" as the name when he did not foresee PHP evolving into a general-purpose programming language.
- Acronym for "Program for Internet News & Email". It is also a recursive acronym for "Pine Is Not Elm" (in reference to Elm, another email client)
- Ping — computer network tool used to detect hosts
- The author of ping, Mike Muuss, named it after the pulses of sound made by a sonar called a "ping". Later Dave Mills provided the backronym "Packet Internet Groper".
R
- Radio buttons got their name from the preset buttons in radio receivers. When one used to select preset stations on a radio receiver physically instead of electronically, depressing one preset button would pop out whichever other button happened to be pushed in.
- Company founder Marc Ewing was given the Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes) while at college by his grandfather. People would turn to him to solve their problems, and he was referred to as "that guy in the red hat". He lost the cap and had to search for it desperately. The manual of the beta version of Red Hat Linux had an appeal to readers to return his Red Hat if found by anyone.
- Based on the surnames of the authors of this algorithm — Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Len Adleman.
S
- Samba software — a free implementation of Microsoft's networking protocol. The name samba comes from inserting two vowels into the name of the standard protocol that Microsoft Windows network file system use, called SMB (Server Message Block). The author searched a dictionary using grep for words containing S M and B in that order; the only matches were Samba and Salmonberry.
- The company was called "Santa Cruz Operation", as its office was in Santa Cruz, California.
- sed — stands for stream editor, used for textual transformation of a sequential stream of text data. It is modelled after the ed editor.
- shareware — coined by Bob Wallace to describe his word processor PC-Write in early 1983. Before this Jim Knopf (also known as Jim Button) and Andrew Fluegelman called their distributed software "user supported software" and "freeware" respectively, but it was Wallace's terminology that prevailed.
- While registering the domain, Slashdot-creator Rob Malda wanted to make the URL silly, and unpronounceable ("http://slashdot.org" gets pronounced as "h t t p colon slash slash slash dot dot org") Alternatively, many say that the Slashdot(/.) name refers to the *NIX command line interpretation of the "root" directory, or a play on the website being the "root" of all tech news.
- Apple Computer had a long litigation history with Apple Records, the Beatles' recording company. Fearing that the ability to record musical sound would cause yet more legal action, the Apple legal department allegedly ordered the sound to be renamed from its original, musical name. So the developers changed the name to Sosumi ("So sue me"). Depending on who was asked, they quipped that it was Japanese for either "absence of sound" or "a light pleasing tone".
- Spam — unwanted repetitious messages, such as unsolicited bulk e-mail
- The term spam is derived from the Monty Python SPAM sketch, set in a cafe where everything on the menu includes SPAM luncheon meat. While a customer plaintively asks for some kind of food without SPAM in it, the server reiterates the SPAM-filled menu. Soon, a chorus of Vikings join in with a song: "SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, lovely SPAM, wonderful SPAM", over and over again, drowning out all conversation.
- SPIM — a simulator for a virtual machine closely resembling the instruction set of MIPS (computer manufacturer) processors, is simply MIPS spelled backwards. MIPS stands for Millions of Instructions Per Second, from way back when that was something to boast of. In recent time, SPIM has also come to mean SPam sent over Instant Messaging.
- Swing — a graphics library for Java.
- Swing was the code-name of the project that developed the new graphic components (the successor of AWT). It was named after swing, a style of dance band jazz that was popularized in the 1930s and unexpectedly revived in the 1990s. Although an unofficial name for the components, it gained popular acceptance with the use of the word in the package names for the Swing API, which begin with
javax.swing.
T–V
- Tomcat was the code-name for the JSDK 2.1 project inside Sun. Tomcat started off as a servlet specification implementation by James Duncan Davidson who was a software architect at Sun. Davidson had initially hoped that the project would be made open-source, and since most open-source projects had O'Reilly books on them with an animal on the cover, he wanted to name the project after an animal. He came up with Tomcat since he reasoned the animal represented something that could take care of and fend for itself.
- Troff — a document processing system for Unix
- Troff stands for "typesetter roff", although many people have speculated that it actually means "Times roff" because of the use of the Times font family in troff by default. Troff has its origins from Roff, an earlier formatting program, whose name is a contraction of "run off".
- Trojan horse — a malicious program that is disguised as legitimate software.
- The term is derived from the classical myth of the Trojan Horse. Analogously, a Trojan horse appears innocuous (or even to be a gift), but in fact is a vehicle for bypassing security.
- Tux (linux mascot) - The penguin now commonly regarded as the most famous logo of the Linux Kernal and its deviants.
- The logo was originally created by Larry Ewing in 1996 as an entry in a Linux Logo competition. The creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds was bitten by a fairy penguin during a visit to a Canberra zoo in 1993, which made the penguin his 'favourite' animal. The word Tux apparently comes from "(T)orvalds (U)ni(X)". Some people also observe that the first thing that comes ot one's mind when looking at the black and white coat of the Penguin is a tuxedo.
- "Twain" is a dated word for "two". Although TWAIN is not an acronym, it has often been referred to as an acronym for "Technology Without An Intelligent Name".
- When Bell Labs pulled out of the MULTICS (MULTiplexed Information and Computing System) project, which was originally a joint Bell Labs/GE/MIT project, Ken Thompson of Bell Labs, soon joined by Dennis Ritchie, wrote a simpler version of the operating system for a spare DEC minicomputer, allegedly found in a corridor. They needed an OS to run the game Space War which had been compiled under MULTICS. The new OS was called UNICS — UNIplexed operating and Computing System by Brian Kernighan. An alternative spelling was Eunuchs, it being a sort of 'reduced' MULTICS. It was later shortened to Unix.
- vi — a text editor, initialism for visual, a command in the ex editor which helped users to switch to the visual mode from the ex mode. the first version was written by Bill Joy at UC Berkeley.
- Vim — a text editor, acronym for Vi improved after Vim added several features over the vi editor. Vim however had started out as an imitation of Vi and was expanded as Vi imitation.
- The term virus was first used as a technical computer science term by Fred Cohen in his 1984 paper "Experiments with Computer Viruses", where he credits Len Adleman with coining it. Although Cohen's use of virus may have been the first academic use, it had been in the common parlance long before that. A mid-1970s science fiction novel by David Gerrold, When H.A.R.L.I.E. was One, includes a description of a fictional computer program called VIRUS that worked just like a virus (and was countered by a program called ANTIBODY). The term "computer virus" also appears in the comic book "Uncanny X-Men" No. 158, published in 1982. A computer virus's basic function is to insert its own executable code into that of other existing executable files, literally making it the electronic equivalent to the biological virus, the basic function of which is to insert its genetic information into that of the invaded cell, forcing the cell to reproduce the virus.
W–Z
- Coined by Ward Cunningham, the creator of the wiki concept, who named them for the "wiki wiki" or "quick" shuttle buses at Honolulu Airport. Wiki wiki was the first Hawaiian term he learned on his first visit to the islands. The airport counter agent directed him to take the wiki wiki bus between terminals.
- The name 'worm' was taken from a 1970s science fiction novel by John Brunner entitled The Shockwave Rider. The book describes programs known as "tapeworms" which spread through a network for the purpose of deleting data. Researchers writing an early paper on experiments in distributed computing noted the similarities between their software and the program described by Brunner, and adopted that name.
- WYSIWYG - describes a system in which content during editing appears very similar to the final product.
- Acronym for What You See Is What You Get, the phrase was originated by a newsletter published by Arlene and Jose Ramos, called WYSIWYG. It was created for the emerging Pre-Press industry going electronic in the late 1970s.
- X derives its name as a successor to a pre-1983 window system called W (the W Window System). X follows W in the alphabet.
- Yahoo!'s history site says the name is an acronym for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle", but some remember that in its early days (mid-1990s), when Yahoo! lived on a server called akebono.stanford.edu, it was glossed as "Yet Another Hierarchical Object Organizer." The word "Yahoo!" was originally invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book Gulliver's Travels. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and action and is barely human. Yahoo! founders Jerry Yang and David Filo selected the name because they considered themselves yahoos.
- The file format was created by Phil Katz, and given the name by his friend Robert Mahoney. The compression tool Phil Katz created was called PKZIP. Zip means "speed", and they wanted to imply their product would be faster than ARC and other compression formats of the time.
Computer Terms - Letters M through O
MAC (media access control) address: unique 6-byte address associated with and coded into each network interface card (NIC); address assignment is controlled by the IEEE
MAN (metropolitan area network): connects sites in and around a large city
MB (megabyte): unit of information or computer storage equal to either exactly one million bytes or, in some cases, 1,048,567 bytes, or more rarely, 1,024,000 bytes; not to be confused with Mb, which stands for megabits
Mbps (megabits per second): a unit of information storage; not to be confused with MB or megabytes
Medium: transmission, or system that carries the message or data
MAU (medium attachment unit): converts signals on an Ethernet cable to and from AUI signals
Memory: desk space of the computer system; microchips located on the motherboard that hold data and instructions for the CPU (central processing unit)
Memory management: allocates memory to separate tasks and protects data from corruption
Menu: used in some DOS shells and early versions of Windows; an improvement on the command line but cumbersome when a task requires the submenu of a submenu of a submenu of a menu item
Message: information content to be shared
MHz (megahertz): one hertz is one cycle per second; a megahertz is equal to one million cycles per second
MIB (management information base): a type of database used to manage the devices in a communications network
MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group): digital video format identified by “.mpg” extension after the file name; a working group of ISO/IEC charged with the development of video and audio encoding standards; pronounced m-peg
MPLS (multiprotocol label switching): an initiative that integrates Layer 2 information about network links (bandwidth, latency, utilization) into Layer 3 (IP) within a particular autonomous system to simplify and improve IP packet exchange
Mpps (millions of packets per second): a measurement of information sent per second
Multiplexing: process of putting multiple signals on a wire simultaneously
Multiport repeaters: allow multiple devices to be wired to a central location, share the same media, and regenerate (repeat) the signal; also referred to as active hubs
Multitasking routines: permit two or more distinct tasks to be performed concurrently by the computer
Name resolution: process by which the peer-to-peer name used on each conversational level is related to other levels
NAP (network access point): transitional data communications facilities at which Network Service Providers (NSPs) would exchange traffic, in replacement of the publicly-financed NSFNet Internet backbone; now replaced by modern IXPs
NAT (network address translator): involves re-writing the source and/or destination addresses of IP packets as they pass through a router or firewall; also called network masquerading, native address translation, or IP-masquerading
NetBIOS (network basic input/output system): allows applications on separate computers to communicate over a local area network (LAN)
Network access layer: allows a computer to exchange data with another computer over a common network medium; part of the TCP/IP model that performs the same functions as the data link and physical layers of the OSI model
Network address: part of an IP address that is uniquely assigned by one of the ICANN-sanctioned agencies
Network design: how the various clients and servers are arranged for purposes of connectivity, performance, and security
NOS (network operating system): optimizes the client/server architecture; provides and supports network services such as file services, e-mail, Internet and intranet services, and applications
NIC (network interface card): hardware adapter that provides communication capabilities; responsible for building, transmitting, receiving, and decoding frames in a LAN environment; serves as the interface between the networked devices and the connecting wires
NNTP (network news transfer protocol): makes USENET possible; protocol for the distribution, inquiry, retrieval, and posting of news articles using a reliable stream-based transmission of news among the ARPAInternet community
Nonvolatile memory: chips that hold information even when the system is turned off
NRZ-L (non-return to zero level): form of digital encoding; negative voltage is used to represent a binary 1, and a positive voltage is used to represent a binary 0
NSP (network service provider): a business or organization that sells bandwidth or network access by providing direct backbone access to the Internet, and usually access to it’s network access points (see NAP)
OC1 (optical carrier, level 1): a fiber optic connection capable of transferring data at 51.85 Mbps
Operating environment: how the OS controls the hardware and application programs
OS (operating system): interface between the application (word processor, spreadsheet, etc.) and the computer hardware
OSI (open systems interconnection) model: developed to provide a view of the distinct functionalities that are required to implement each protocol layer; defines a complete range of functions that can be achieved with data communications equipment
OSPF (open shortest path first): a link-state hierarchical interior gateway protocol (see IGP) for network routing protocol
Cache: keeps data the processor is likely to need quickly close at hand; increases processor operation speed
CAD/CAM (computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing): software used to design products such as electronic circuit boards in computers
Campus backbone: connects building LANs together
CD-R (compact disc - recordable): special type of CD-ROM that can be written onto by any computer with a recording drive; can only be written onto once
CD-ROM (compact disc read-only memory): optical storage device read by lasers; can hold up to 700 megabytes of data
CD-RW (compact disc - rewritable): special type of CD-ROM that can be written onto by any computer with a recording drive; can be written onto more than once
CIR (committed information rate): describes the user information transfer rate the network supports during normal network operations
CLEC (competitive local exchange carrier): In the US, a telecommunications provider company (also called a carrier) that competes with other, already established carriers (the local telephone company)
Client/server architecture: network where some computers are dedicated clients (workstations) and some are dedicated servers; information is centralized on the server, and an administrator sets policies and manages it
CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) RAM: requires very little power; maintains information even when the computer is off
Collision: occurs when several network users communicate at the same time and interfere (collide) with one another
Collision domain: logical network segment where data packets can "collide" with one another for being sent on a shared medium, in particular in the Ethernet networking protocol
Computer networking: a combination of hardware and software that lets the various computers in an organization communicate with one another
Computer operating system (OS): special computer program that provides an environment in which other programs can use the computer’s central processor and the attached input/output devices
Connectivity devices: bring users of the network into contact with one another
Constant bit rate (CBR): transmission that uses a set amount of network capacity on a continual basis; used when the arrival of the information is time-sensitive
Convergence: the merging and sometimes clashing of voice and data
CPE (customer premises equipment): generally refers to telephones, DSL or cable modems, or purchased set-top boxes for use with communication service providers’ services
CPS (cycles per second): measure of how frequently an alternating current changes direction; has been replaced by the term hertz (Hz)
CPU (Central Processing Unit): the brain of the computer system where calculations and decisions are made; also referred to as the processor
CPU Speed: how fast the CPU works
CSU (channel service unit): provides a loopback function for telephone company testing, and checks bipolar signal generation
CRC (cyclic redundancy check): method of checking for errors in data that has been transmitted on a communications link; a function used to produce a Checksum against a block of data
CS (convergence sublayer): particular protocols that are responsible for gathering and formatting higher layer information so it can be processed by the lower layers
CSMA/CD (carrier sense multiple access/collision detect): set of rules for determining how network devices response when two devices collide
D (data) channel: used for common channel signaling by both the telephone company switch and the customer equipment; provides the call signals that set up B channel connections
DACS (digital access and cross-connect system): a piece of telecommunications equipment used for routing T1 lines; can cross-connect any T1 line in the system with any other T1 line in the system
Data: information manipulated inside the computer in the form of bits and bytes
Datagram: data packet that is sent over an IP network; associated with the network layer when communication protocol is connectionless
DCE (data communications equipment OR data circuit-terminating equipment): a device that communicates with a data terminal equipment (DTE) device in a particular standard
DDP (datagram delivery protocol): a member of the AppleTalk networking protocol suite, mainly responsible for socket-to-socket delivery of datagrams over an AppleTalk network
DE (discard eligibility): signal used to identify less important data traffic that can be dropped during periods of congestion on the system
DLCI (data link connection identifier): a channel number that tells the network how to route the data
DMA (direct memory access): a feature that allows certain hardware subsystems in a computer to access system memory for reading and/or writing independently of the CPU; can include disk drive controllers, graphics cards, network cards, and sound cards
DOS (disk operating system): a family of closely related operating systems (COS) that ran on IBM PC type hardware.
DNA (digital network architecture): a set of specifications or protocols created by Digital Equipment Corporation (DECnet) that evolved into one of the first peer-to-peer network architectures
DNS (domain name system): service that connects a domain name to an IP address
DRAM (dynamic random access memory): primary choice for holding large amounts of information due to its inexpensive cost; must be refreshed or rewritten frequently (about every 386 milliseconds)
DS0 (digital signal, level 0): basic digital signaling rate of 64 kbit/s, corresponding to the capacity of one voice-frequency-equivalent channel
DS1 (digital signal, level 1): also known as T1; widely used to transmit voice and data between devices
DSL (digital subscriber line): technology that delivers digital data transmission over the wires of a local telephone network
DVD (digital versatile disc): can hold over seven times as much information as CDs
DWDM (dense wavelength-division multiplexing): an optical technology used to increase bandwidth over existing fiber optic backbones (see building backbone, campus backbone)
EBCDIC (extended binary coded decimal interchange code): 8-bit character encoding table used by ISM mainframes
EGP (exterior gateway protocol): a protocol commonly used between hosts on the Internet to exchange routing table information
EMI (electromagnetic interference): radiation that causes unwanted signals (interference or noise) to be induced in other circuits; also called radio frequency interference or RFI
Enterprise network: connects many types of networks
Ethernet: most commonly used protocol designed to change the packets into electrical signals that can be sent out over the wire
Exterior protocols: routing protocol used between autonomous systems
FAT (file allocation table): table that the operating system uses to locate files on a disk; because a file may be divided into many sections that are scattered around the disk, the FAT keeps track of all the pieces
FDDI (fiber distributed data interface): a set of ANSI protocols for sending digital data over fiber optic cable (see ANSI)
FDM (frequency-division multiplexing): permits a range of input signals to be carried over a communication line that uses separate carrier frequencies for each signal channel; mostly used for analog information but can carry digital
File management system: way to store and retrieve information from disk drives; controls how files can be created, accessed, retrieved, and deleted
Firewall: a barrier between a network and the Internet through which only authorized users can pass; set of security policies to screen incoming and outgoing messages; also used to isolate one part of a network from another
Floppy drive: early versions were actually floppy; today, they use hard 3.5 inch disk; also referred to as removable drive
Frame: data structure that collectively represents the transmission stream (headers, data, and the trailer) and provides the information necessary for the correct delivery of the data
Frame relay: service with standards and specifications designed to transmit data; some users have had success at transmitting voice
FRAD (frame relay access device): software that frames the customer’s payload with the Frame Relay overhead information, including the first DLCI (data link connection identifier) address, to prepare it for delivery to the network
Frequency: number of times a wave repeats a cycle in a one-second period; measured in cycles per second, or hertz
FTP (file transfer protocol): application used to transfer a copy of a file from one computer to another computer with one acting as client and the other as server; a login with a user name and password is typically required
Full-duplex link: enables both sides to simultaneously send and receive data; could require two separate cables, one in each direction or a single multiplexed cable
Gateways: a node on a network that translates (converts protocol) from one operating system environment to another
Gateway routers: used to implement exterior protocols and interconnect autonomous systems
Gbps (gigabits per second; billions of bits per second): a data transfer speed measurement for highspeed networks
GUI (graphical user interface): easy way of accessing applications with the use of a pointing device, such as a mouse; pronounced “gooey”
Half-duplex link: enables one side to transmit and receive, but not simultaneously; information only flows in one direction at a time using a control procedure to mediate
Host-to-host layer: part of the TCP/IP model that performs the same function as the transport layer in the OSI model
Host address: part of an IP address that is uniquely assigned by an administrator
HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol): protocol users interact with (by means of a browser) to access Web pages over an internet or intranet
Hubs: bring the users of the network into contact with one another
Hz (hertz): unit of frequency; one hertz simply means one cycle per second, applied to any periodic event (e.g., one tick of a clock is 1 Hz; the human heart beats at 1.2 Hz)
ILECs (incumbent local exchange carriers): a telephone company providing local service when the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was enacted (see CLEC)
ILP (initial loader program): reads an existing file containing database records; also called a boot-loader
Input/output management routines: provide orderly control and flow of information between a computer’s main memory and attached peripheral devices
Interface: point in the system where the rules, control codes, formats, and information direction (as dictated by the protocol) are implemented
Interior protocols: routing protocol used within/interior to an independent/ autonomous system
Internet layer: part of the TCP/IP model that performs the same function as the network layer of the OSI model
Internetworking: connecting one network to another network
Interprocess communication: allows programs to share information dynamically, whether running locally or remotely
I/O (Input/output devices): hardware used to enter and retrieve data from the system
IP (internet protocol): network layer protocol provided with TCP/IP; connectionless, unreliable protocol that provides features for addressing, type or service specification, fragmentation and reassembly, and security
IP address (internet protocol address): logical address assigned to every workstation, server, printer, and router on any interconnected network
IPX/SPX (Internetwork packet exchange/sequenced packet exchange): a networking protocol used by the Novell NetWare operating systems; it is a datagram protocol used for connectionless communications
IRC (Internet relay chat): allows groups to communicate interactively via keyboard and screen display
ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network): a circuit-switched telephone network system designed to allow digital transmission of voice and data over ordinary copper telephone wires
ISDN PRI: switched-line service from telephone companies that operates over T1 (or E1/J1) facilities
IS-IS (intermediate system-to-intermediate system): an interior gateway protocol (IGP) intended for use within an administrative domain or network
ISPs (Internet service providers): businesses or organizations that provide consumers with access to the Internet and related services
IT (information technology): broad term that can refer to anything from mainframes to PDAs; any technology that moves information (voice, video, or data)
ITU-T (ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector): coordinates standards for telecommunications on behalf of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
IXC (interexchange carrier): a telephone company that provides connections between local exchanges in different geographic areas
Jitter: distortion in a digital signal caused by a shift in timing pulses; can cause data interpretation errors
JPEG (Joint Photographics Experts Group): a lossy compression technique for color images; pronounced jay-peg (see Lossy)
Kbps (thousands of bits per second): a measure of data transfer speed
kHz (kilohertz): a unit of measurement of frequency, also known as cycles per second; e.g., one kilohertz equals 1,000 Hz, or cycles per second
LAN (local area network): network that operates within a small geographic area, usually within a building, office, or department
LAPB (link access protocol, balanced): a data link protocol in the X.25 stack
LATAs (local access and transport areas): In the US, refers to a geographic region assigned to one or more telephone companies for providing communication services
Layer 2 switches: interpret and make switching decisions on the LAN hardware adapter address contained in the data link header of MAC frames; forward frames only to the destination hardware address contained in the frame
LCI (logical channel identifier): used to define frequencies in use on M/A-COM EDACS (Enhanced Digital Access Communications System) systems and LTR (logic trunked radio) systems; more commonly known as logical channel number (see LCN); also known as virtual channel
LCN (logical channel number): used to define frequencies in use on M/A-COM EDACS (Enhanced Digital Access Communications System) systems and LTR (logic trunked radio) systems; also known as the logical channel identifier (see LCI); also known as virtual channel
LE (local exchange): a regulatory term in telecommunications for local telephone company
Leased lines: another name for private lines, dedicated lines, or permanent circuits
LEC (local exchange carrier): a public telephone company in the US that provides local service
LGN (logical channel group number): together with the LCN (in the X.25 packet header), identifies the actual logical channel number of the DTE-DCE link; a 4-bit field representing a number between 0 and 15
Line layer: layer of the OSI physical layer that is responsible for synchronizing and multiplexing multiple streams of data into one SONET stream within SONET frames; also monitors and administers SONET multiplexers
LLC (logical link control): standard interface allowing any combination of MAC techniques and physical media to be used simultaneously in the same workstations; shields higher layer protocols from the peculiarities of the physical medium
Logical segmentation devices: allow network designers to maintain separate networks (often for security reasons) that can still communicate with one another
Lossy: data compression method where compressing and then decompressing retrieves data that may well be different from the original, but is "close enough" to be useful in some way
LU (logical unit): identifies an end-user in IBM's Systems Network Architecture (SNA)
MAC (media access control) address: unique 6-byte address associated with and coded into each network interface card (NIC); address assignment is controlled by the IEEE
MAN (metropolitan area network): connects sites in and around a large city
MB (megabyte): unit of information or computer storage equal to either exactly one million bytes or, in some cases, 1,048,567 bytes, or more rarely, 1,024,000 bytes; not to be confused with Mb, which stands for megabits
Mbps (megabits per second): a unit of information storage; not to be confused with MB or megabytes
Medium: transmission, or system that carries the message or data
MAU (medium attachment unit): converts signals on an Ethernet cable to and from AUI signals
Memory: desk space of the computer system; microchips located on the motherboard that hold data and instructions for the CPU (central processing unit)
Memory management: allocates memory to separate tasks and protects data from corruption
Menu: used in some DOS shells and early versions of Windows; an improvement on the command line but cumbersome when a task requires the submenu of a submenu of a submenu of a menu item
Message: information content to be shared
MHz (megahertz): one hertz is one cycle per second; a megahertz is equal to one million cycles per second
MIB (management information base): a type of database used to manage the devices in a communications network
MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group): digital video format identified by “.mpg” extension after the file name; a working group of ISO/IEC charged with the development of video and audio encoding standards; pronounced m-peg
MPLS (multiprotocol label switching): an initiative that integrates Layer 2 information about network links (bandwidth, latency, utilization) into Layer 3 (IP) within a particular autonomous system to simplify and improve IP packet exchange
Mpps (millions of packets per second): a measurement of information sent per second
Multiplexing: process of putting multiple signals on a wire simultaneously
Multiport repeaters: allow multiple devices to be wired to a central location, share the same media, and regenerate (repeat) the signal; also referred to as active hubs
Multitasking routines: permit two or more distinct tasks to be performed concurrently by the computer
Name resolution: process by which the peer-to-peer name used on each conversational level is related to other levels
NAP (network access point): transitional data communications facilities at which Network Service Providers (NSPs) would exchange traffic, in replacement of the publicly-financed NSFNet Internet backbone; now replaced by modern IXPs
NAT (network address translator): involves re-writing the source and/or destination addresses of IP packets as they pass through a router or firewall; also called network masquerading, native address translation, or IP-masquerading
NetBIOS (network basic input/output system): allows applications on separate computers to communicate over a local area network (LAN)
Network access layer: allows a computer to exchange data with another computer over a common network medium; part of the TCP/IP model that performs the same functions as the data link and physical layers of the OSI model
Network address: part of an IP address that is uniquely assigned by one of the ICANN-sanctioned agencies
Network design: how the various clients and servers are arranged for purposes of connectivity, performance, and security
NOS (network operating system): optimizes the client/server architecture; provides and supports network services such as file services, e-mail, Internet and intranet services, and applications
NIC (network interface card): hardware adapter that provides communication capabilities; responsible for building, transmitting, receiving, and decoding frames in a LAN environment; serves as the interface between the networked devices and the connecting wires
NNTP (network news transfer protocol): makes USENET possible; protocol for the distribution, inquiry, retrieval, and posting of news articles using a reliable stream-based transmission of news among the ARPAInternet community
Nonvolatile memory: chips that hold information even when the system is turned off
NRZ-L (non-return to zero level): form of digital encoding; negative voltage is used to represent a binary 1, and a positive voltage is used to represent a binary 0
NSP (network service provider): a business or organization that sells bandwidth or network access by providing direct backbone access to the Internet, and usually access to it’s network access points (see NAP)
OC1 (optical carrier, level 1): a fiber optic connection capable of transferring data at 51.85 Mbps
Operating environment: how the OS controls the hardware and application programs
OS (operating system): interface between the application (word processor, spreadsheet, etc.) and the computer hardware
OSI (open systems interconnection) model: developed to provide a view of the distinct functionalities that are required to implement each protocol layer; defines a complete range of functions that can be achieved with data communications equipment
OSPF (open shortest path first): a link-state hierarchical interior gateway protocol (see IGP) for network routing protocol
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