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| Bus | a parallel collection of conductors that carry data or controls signals from one unit to another. |
| Data Bus | A bidirectional pathway linking the CPU to memory and I/O devices. |
| Address Bus | A pathway that carries data generated by the CPU to the various memory and I/O elements of the computer. |
| PC Bus | The bus architectures used in the first IBM PC's originally on 8-bit bus expanded to a 16-bit bus. |
| ISA | Industry standard Architecture. They run at a bus speed of 8MHz. Modems and sound cards are ISA cards due to their low bandwidth requirements |
| EISA | 16-bit ISA was extended to 32-bits and they called it EISA. |
| PCI | A high-performance 32/64-bit bus. |
| Plug And Play | This is a standard that was supposed to make adding peripherals to your system as easy as plugging them in and using them. |
| Bandwidth | A measure in some amount of bits per second, of the amount of data that can be tranferred over a particular cable. |
| Bus Master | any class of microprocessor unit with the ability to take control of the system buses of a computer. |
| Bus Speed | A measurement usually in MHz, of how many times data can be transferred over the bus per second |
| Expansion Slot | Any type of slot in a computer that you can plug an expansion card into. |
| Legacy | Descibes older computer systems,hardware, software. |
| Firewire | High speed serial bus, allows connections of up to 63 devices primarily used for Digital Video. |
| Adapter | A device that allows one system to connect to and work with another. An adapter is often a simple circuit that converts one set of signals to another. |
| Interrupt | A signal that gets the attention of the CPU and its usually generated when I/O is required. |
| Jumper | A small plug placed over pins to configure hardware settings. |
| DMA | Stands for Direct Memory Access. Specialized circuitry or a dedicated micrprocessor that transfers data from adapters to memory without using the CPU. |
| I/O Address | On PC's,a three digit hexadecimal number used to identify and signal a peripheral device like a serial port,parallel port, or sound card. |
| AGP | Stands for Accelerated Graphics Port. Architecture that is based on the PCI architecture and is designed specifically to speed up 3D graphics. |
