1: A highly successful line of personal computers designed by Apple Computers. Called a "Mac" for short, Macintosh computers, with their operating system called "System", practically pioneered the graphical user interface. Using a system of a desktop work area and icons to represent files, Macs were a long-time favorite for people wanting ease-of-use and a visual interface.
2: A family of 32-bit personal computers introduced by Apple in 1984; the first widely used computers with a graphical user interface, a mouse, and windows. Rather than typing in commands, users open software and copy or delete files by clicking on icons on the screen that look like file folders, a trash can, and other things one would find in a real office. Macs quickly became popular because of their user-friendly interface. In 1994, PowerMacs, which use a PowerPC CPU, became available.
3: A computer platform used primarily in the graphic arts field. It differs from PC or Windows based computers but is increasingly compatible. This is the in-house computer system used by Model Graphics to produce artwork and pre-press. (see pre-press)
The binary representation of a program that the computer actually reads.
Theoretically, a document that explains the workings of your new purchase in clear, easy-to-understand terms. More often, an invitation to Excedrin Headache Number 435. See arrghh.
See co-processor.
See megabyte.
Megabits per second. A measurement of transmission speed, the amount of data that can be moved in one second.
The media player is the software on the client computer that decompresses the streaming video or audio using a codec and plays it back on the computer screen. The media player can be used as a stand alone application or embedded in a Web page to create a video application interacting with HTML content; A program that allows you to play and manage audio and video files. Some programs also offer ripping, burning, and visual effects. Examples include: iTunes, Winamp, Windows Media Player, Sonique, Quintessential, Musicmatch Jukebox.
Roughly one million bits.
Roughly a million bytes or characters, equal to the length of an average novel. Also referred to as "megs." One megabyte is equal to 1,024 kilobytes.
Millions of cycles per second. A number that designates how fast a CPU can process information. Hertz means cycles per second.
A holding tank for recently-accessed data. Data in the cache can be accessed much more quickly than data in the main memory, or RAM.
See megahertz.
An integrated circuit (IC) made of interconnected transistors and other components. Pieces of your computer's brain are on this tiny piece of silicon.
See CPU and related articles on CPU/microprocessor.
An icon-based operating system marketed by Microsoft for IBM-compatible computers. See graphical user interface. Windows 95, 3.x and NT are examples of different versions of the operating system.
Musical Instrument Digital Interface, a hardware and software standard that allows electronic musical instruments such as keyboards and drum pads to communicate with each other. One MIDI device can tell another device which sound and notes to play. Most sound-equipped computers can record and play MIDI sequences, which are sets of instructions for the electronic orchestra in your sound card.
A unit of measure equal to one one-thousandth of a second. Used to quantify the seek times of disk drives.
A type of Pentium processor designed to add speed to graphics and multimedia software. Read more about microprocessors.
Modems translate a computer's digital signals into analog signals that can be transmitted over the phone, and convert received analog signals back into digital. The name "modem" is an abbreviation of "modulate/demodulate," the process described.
What you're staring at. See the whole big section on monitors.
The main circuit board in a computer. In personal computers, the motherboard typically contains the data bus, the CPU/microprocessor and the controllers for peripherals, including serial ports and parallel ports. It also tends to contain expansion slots that accept additional boards (called daughter boards). The motherboard is also known as a logic board.
A common type of pointing device. screen. See the articles on pointing devices.
Mozilla (aka the Mozilla Suite or the Mozilla Application Suite and codenamed Seamonkey) is a free, cross-platform Internet software suite, whose components include a web browser, an email client, an HTML editor and an IRC client. Its development was initiated by Netscape Communications Corporation based on the source for their Netscape Communicator, but the Mozilla Foundation now spearheads development
Microsoft Disk Operating System, the operating system that was thrown together in six weeks and released with the first IBM PC in 1981. MS-DOS is a command-line operating system that is devoid of the intuitive graphical interfaces of today; it requires users to type in commands to run applications, copy files or do anything else required of an operating system.
MS-DOS used to be capable of running only one application (not exceeding 640 kilobytes) at a time before a hardware solution was developed to get around the problem. Despite its many limitations, MS-DOS survives in IBM-compatible computers today as the basis of more intuitive and capable operating systems such as Microsoft Windows.
Some computer systems allow the user to switch between two or more monitorresolutions, which changes the size and quality of on-screen images. The monitor itself must be capable of adjusting to different frequencies, but this feature also requires two other elements: a video adapter (or adapters possessing drivers for different resolutions), and software that enables the switching. See the articles on monitors.
|