| A | B |
|---|
| Drive bay | An area within a computer system unit that can accommodate an additional storage device. |
| DVD | An optical storage medium similar in appearance and technology to a CD-ROM but with higher storage capacity. |
| DVD-ROM | A DVD disk that contains data that has been permanently stamped on the disk surface. |
| Dye sublimation printer | An expensive, color-precise printer that heats ribbons containing color to produce consistent, photograph-quality images. |
| EIDE | A type of drive that features high storage capacity and fast data transfer. |
| Expnsion bus | The segment of the data bus that trasports data between RAM and peripheral devices. |
| Expansion card | A circuit board that is plugged into a slot on a PC motherboard to add extra functions, devices, or ports. |
| Expansion port | A socket into which the user plugs a cable from a peripheral device, allowing data to pass between the computer and the peripheral device. |
| Expansion slot | A socket or slot in a PC motherboard designed to hold a circuit board called an expansion card. |
| Floppy disk | A removable magnetic storage medium, typically 3.5"in size, with a capacity of 1.44 Mb. |
| Function key | One of the keys numbered F1 through F12 locaated at the top of the computer keyboard that activates program specific commands. |
| Graphics card | A circuit board inserted into a computer to handle the display of text, graphics, animation, and video. Also called a video card. |
| Graphics tablet | A device that accepts input from a pressure-sensitive stylus and converts strokes into images on the screen. |
| Hard disk | Is one or more platters and their associated read-write heads. |
| Hard disk platter | The component of a hard disk drive on which data is stored. It is a flat, rigid disk made of aluminum or glass and coated with a magnetic oxide. |
| Head crash | A collision between the read-write head and the surface of the hard disk platter, resulting in damage to some of the data on the disk. |
| Ink jet printer | A non-impact printer that creates characters or graphics by spraying liquid ink onto paper or other media. |
| ISA | A standard for moving data on the expansion bus. Can refer to a type of slot, a bus, or a peripheral device. An older technology, it is rapidly being replaced by PCI architecture. |
| Joystick | A pointing input device used as an alternative to a mouse. |
| Keyboard shortcut | The use of the [Alt] or the [Ctrl] key in combination with another key on the keyboard to execute a command, such as copy, paste, or cut. |
| Lands | A non-pitted surface area on a CD that represents digital data. |
| Laser printer | A printer that uses laser-based tecnology, similar to that used by photocopiers, to produce text and graphics. |
| LCD | A type of flat panel computer screen, typically found on notebook computers. |
| Magnetic storage | The recording of data onto disks or tape by magnetizing particles of an oxide-baseed surface coating. |
| Milliseconds | A thousandth of a second. |
