| A | B |
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| The two most common form factors in use today are the | Baby AT motherboard and the ATX motherboard. |
| Most new systems come with the | ATX motherboard form factor. |
| Motherboards are usually described by their | form factors, which describe their physical dimensions. |
| ROM chips retain their contents even when the computer is | powered down. |
| The instructions and data in the ROM chip that control the boot process and the computer hardware are known as | the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS), sometimes called firmware |
| Industry Standard Architecture (ISA ) is a 16-bit expansion slot | transfers data with the motherboard at 8 MHz |
| Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI ) is a 32-bit local bus slot | talks" to the motherboard at 33 MHz; most commonly used type in motherboards today |
| Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) is a dedicated high-speed bus that is used to | support the high demands of graphical software |
| Pixels | picture elements |
| The screen image is made of pixels (tiny dots), which are | arranged in rows across the screen. |
| Dot pitch is a measurement of how | close together the phosphor dots are on the screen. |
| The refresh rate is the | rate per seconds that the screen image is refreshed. |
| Refresh rates are measured in Hertz (HZ), which means | times per second |
| Each pixel consists of | three colors: red, green, and blue (RGB) |
| The video card or video adapter is the | interface between the computer and monitor. |
| a PC can identify up to four serial ports, but the typical computer contains | only two, referred to as COM1 and COM2. |
| a serial port transmits data bits | one after the other (serially) over a single line. |
| The parallel port contains | eight lines for transmitting an entire byte (8 bits) across the eight data lines simultaneously. |
| The hard drive and other devices can use one of these two types of interface controllers to work with the computer | Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics (EIDE), and Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, pronounced "scuzzy") connections. |
| SCSI devices are typically connected in a series, forming | a chain that is commonly referred to as a daisy chain. |
| Each SCSI device in the chain, including the SCSI controlier card, is given | a SCSI ID number form 0 to 7 |
| SCSI ID number 0 is assigned to the | primary boot drive (the hard drive) |
| SCSI ID number 7 is assigned to the | SCSI controller card |
| CD-ROM | Reads CD-ROM and CD-R |
| CD-R | Reads CD-ROM and CD-R. Write once on special discs named CD-R |
| CD-RW | Reads CD-ROM and CD-R. Write and rewrite on special discs named CD-RW |
| system resource refer to the mechanisms used to | interface, communicate, and control individual device adapters along with the serial, parallel, and mouse ports |
| System resources are shared between the different | hardware components or devices of the computer system that need to communicate with the Central Processing Unit (CPU) |
| System resources prevent two or more devices from | communicating at the same time and also enable the CPU to identify the hardware device that is seeking its attention. |
