| A | B |
| Analog | a continuously changing electrical signal that can vary in amplitude and frequency |
| Anode | positively charged electrode |
| Aperature grill | a thin piece of metal mounted just behind the phosphor face in a RGB color picture tube having striped slits for the 3 colors to go through |
| Aspect ratio | the width to height ratio of a computer monitor |
| Cathode | negatively charged electrode |
| Color depth | also known as bit depth; the number of color images are displayed in; the number is 2 to the power of the bit depth |
| CRT | Cathode Ray Tube; screen for a computer having red, green, and blue electron guns |
| Data projectors | device used to display the contents from the screen of a computer onto a hanging screen or the wall |
| Digital | an electrical signal that like a binary is either 1 or 0, high or low |
| Digital Camera | creates an image of a fixed number of pixels |
| Electron Gun | part of the CRT that generates a fine beam of electrons that is focused at a phosphor coated screen and coming in 3 colors, red, green, and blue |
| Flat panel | thin monitor using LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) or similiar technology; used as an alternative to CRT monitors |
| Flat screen | CRT monitor with a flat picture tube |
| Headphones | ouptut device used to privately listen to audio coming from the sound card or a CD-ROM drive |
| Keyboard | inout device that allows commands or data to be typed into the computer |
| LCD | Liquid Crystal Display; display technology using polarized filters and rod-shaped molecules; used in laptop screens and flat panel displays |
| Line-in port | the audio input port on a sound card for something other than a microphone |
| Line-out port | the audio output port on a sound card |
| Megapixels | the resolution of a digital imaging device such as a monitor, digital camera, or scanner; one million pixels |
| Memory card | one of many typesof miniature storage devices that store data on magnetic strips or intergrated circuits; some brands include CompactFlash, SmartMedia, and Memory Stick |
| MIC | the input port on a sound card to which a microphone would be attahced to |
| Microphone | input device that is used to convert sound waves into electrical current |
| MIDI | Musical Instrument Digital Interface; standard for exchanging musical data between music instruments and computers |
| Modem | Modulator-Demodulator; device that serves as both an input and output device used to convert analog sounds to digital data and connecting to a phone line to dial-up another computer |
| Mouse | input device that is held in the hand and rolled on a flat surface to cause the cursor to move around on the computer screen |
| Phosphors | coating on the inside of monitors that glows when the electron beam strikes it |
| Pixel | picture element; smallest unit that composes the image on a computer monitor |
| Refresh rate | measured in Hertz; this is the number of times the screen is redrawn or refreshed per second |
| resolution | the number of pixels horizontally by the number of pixels vertically of a computer screen; for example 1024 x 768 |
| scanner | device used to turn a photograph into a digital image |
| screen size | the diagonal measurement of a computer monitor |
| slotted mask | a thin piece of metal mounted just behind the phosphor face ina RGB color picture tube having elliptical holes for the 3 colors to go through |
| speakers | device to which sounds from sound card are output to |
| touch screen | type of display that accepts input from your finger or a stylus pressing on it |
| trackball | inverted mouse-like input device where your roll a ball on the top of the device to move the cursor around on the screen |
| video adapter | expansion card used to generate the image on a monitor |
| video memory | the amount of memory dedicated solely to displaying images and found on the video card |
| RGB | Red Green Blue; the color system used by CRT monitors |
| shadow mask | a thin piece of metal mounted just behind the phosphor face in a RGB color picture tube having holes for the 3 colors to go through |