JISAO Computer Glossary
See also Yahoo's index of computer dictionaries here.
A
- Alpha
- The brand name of workstations
built by DEC (now Compaq).
C
- console
- Monitor, mouse, and keyboard. The term is usually used with
respect to a particular workstation. For example, a user can
either log on remotely (telnet, rlogin, etc.) or from the
console.
- CPU
- Central Processing Unit. This is often
thought of as the ``brain'' of a computer. It is capable of
doing integer and usually floating-point arithmetic. It has a
very limited memory with which to do computations, on the
order of sixteen to 64 numbers. When other variables are
needed, the CPU reads them from RAM.
D
- DEC
- Digital Equipment Corporation;
a.k.a. ``Digital;'' maker of Alpha workstations and the Tru64 operating
system; bought out by Compaq [date?]. www.Compaq.com/enterprise.
E
- Ethernet
- A type of ``local area'' (e.g. within a single building)
network.
F
- floppy disk (or diskette)
- A physically flexible magnetic storage disk. Note that both
3.5-in. and the old 5.25-in. diskettes are ``floppy.''
3.5-in. diskettes typically can hold 1.44 MB of data. Compare
hard disk.
H
- hard disk
- A physically rigid magnetic storage disk. Hard disks have
much greater data capacity (40 MB to 40 GB) and are much
faster to use than floppy disks.
``Zip'' disks are actually hard disks (hence their speed and
capacity), but have the convenient portability of floppy
disks.
L
- Linux
- A free UNIX operating system.
M
- memory
- see RAM.
O
- operating system
- Includes IBM's OS/2, Microsoft's Windows, Macintosh's MacOS,
and many varieties of DOS and UNIX.
R
- RAM
- Random Access Memory, sometimes called
just ``memory.'' Contemporary workstations typically have between 32
and 1024 MB of RAM.
S
- shell
- This is the text-based user interface of UNIX that users get
when they open an xterm/dtterm or log in remotely with telnet,
rlogin, etc. Users originally could choose from the Korn
shell (ksh), the Bourne shell (sh), or the C shell (csh).
Enhanced versions of each now are available. These shell
interpreters can be used interactively (``the command
line'') or as script processors. Shell scripts are text files
that begin with a line with like
#! /bin/sh
and are followed by lists of commands and programming
constructs specific to the particular shell used. The C shell
is so named because its scripting language was designed to
resemble the C programming language.
DOS veterans can relate: the default shell interpreter is
called COMMAND.COM, and ``scripts'' are called ``batch
files.''
- Solaris
- The operating system product
of Sun Microsystems. Solaris is a UNIX
operating system.
T
- Tru64
- The operating system product
of DEC. Tru64 is a UNIX operating system. Tru64 used to be
called Digital UNIX and (before that) DEC OSF/1.
U
- UNIX
- A family of multiple-user, multi-tasking operating systems including Linux, Sun's Solaris,
DEC's Tru64, IBM's
AIX, and others.
W
- workstation
- A computer including its console and
the box that the monitor, keyboard, mouse, and others plug in
to. The box always contains one or more CPUs and RAM. It may also
have a network interface card (e.g. Ethernet), hard
disk drive(s), floppy disk drive(s),
CD-ROM drive(s). Unlike PCs, workstations are frequently
connected to external hard disk drives in addition to
or instead of internal hard disk drives.
X
- X Window System
- The graphical user environment available in all UNIX operating
systems. The current version is X11R6.4 (10/2000).