| A | B |
|---|
| Bus | Parallel collection of conducters that carry data or control signals from one unit to another |
| Data Bus | A bidirectional pathway linking CPU to memory & I/O devices |
| Address Bus | Pathway that carries data generated by the CPU to the various memor and I/O elements of the computer. |
| PC Bus | Bus architectures used in first IBM PC's, originally 8-bit but expanded to 16-bit. |
| ISA | Industry Standard Architecture- 8 and 16-bit original connectors used in PC's. |
| EISA | Extended ISA. 16-bit extended to 32-bit. |
| PCI | Peripheral system interconnect. High performance 32 and 64-bit bus. |
| Plug and Play | PnP, Supposed to make adding peripherals as easy as plugging them in and using them. |
| Bandwidth | Measure in bits per second, amount of data that can be sent over a particular medium. |
| Bus Master | Any class of micro P unit with ability to take over control of system bus. |
| Bus Speed | Measurement, usually in MHz, of how many times data can be transferred over the bus per second. |
| Expansion Slot | Any type of slot on a computer you can plug an expansion card into. |
| Legacy | Previous major generation of hardware and/or software that continues to be used. |
| FireWire (IEE 1394) | High speed serial bus by Apple and T.I. that allows for connection of up to 63 devices. |
| Adapter | A device that allows one system to connect and work with another. |
| Interrupt | Signal that gets attention of CPU and is usually generated when I/O is required. |
| Jumper | The simplest form of an on/off switch. |
| DMA | Direct Memory Access - Specialized circuitry or a dedicated microprocessor that transfers data from memory to memory without assistance of CPU. |
| I/O Address | A three digit hexadecimal number used to identify and signal a peripheral device. |
| AGP | Accelerated Graphics Port - High speed graphics port from Intel that provides a direct connection between display adapter and memory. 4x as fast as PCI video card. |
