| A | B |
|---|
| Bios | The small program that resides on a Rom chip and is used to start the computer and control the way devices in the comuter talk to each other. |
| CMOS battery | Battery that holds the data entered in the configiguration. |
| AGP | Accelerated Graphics port: the specialized 32 - bit expansion slot on a motherboard used only for video card. |
| Baby AT | Version of the AT form factor reducing the size of the motherboard and allowing cases to be smaller. |
| AT | Advanced Technology: form factor that came after the XT but before the Baby AT and ATX form factors; the power supplies had 2 connectors powering the motherboard and a hard-wired switch to power the case. |
| ATX | Advanced Technology Extended; form factor that came after the Baby AT form factor having on power connector going to the motherboard and also supporting a soft power switch. |
| CMOS setup | Same as BIOS setup or CMOS RAM; program that allows the configuration setings, such as hard drive type, time and date settings, and boot order, to be manipulated. |
| COM 1 | Common 9-pin male serial port found on most PC's. |
| COM 2 | Second serial port; either 9-pin or 25-pin male port found on older PC's. |
| Data bus | The pathway of wires connecting the CPU and memory. |
| Daughter board | Printed circuit board connecting to the motherboard and accepting expansion boards that will be paralles to the motherboard. |
| Expansion bus | The pathway of wires that connect the CPU and the expansion boards. |
| Firmware | Program stored in ROM that holds it's contents with the power removed. |
| Heat Sink | Metal clip-on device, generally made of aluminum, that sits on top of a CPU and used in conjunction with a fan to dissipate heat from the CPU. |
| IRQ | Interrupt Request; a line used by a peripheral needing to gain the attention of the CPU. |
| MicroATX | Small form factor motherboard used in PC's where reduced size is desired. |
| Motherboard | Also known as main board, planar board and system board; contains all the pathways of wires to connect the CPU to memory and the expansion boards. |
| PC bus | Also known as the 8-bit ISA bus. |
| PROM | Programmable Read Only Memory; memory chip that can only be programmed once; used for older BIOS chips that could not be updated. |
| PS/2 Ports | The 6-pin mini-DIN ports for the keyboard and mouse. |
| Molex | The 4-pin power connector that supplies power from the power supply to most storage devices except the floppy drive. |
