Computer Abbreviations

ANSI American National Standards Institute

AOL America Online

ARLL Advanced Run Length Limited

ARQ Automatic Repeat Request

ASCII American Standard Code for Information Interchange

ASP Association of Shareware Professionals

ASPI Advanced SCSI Programming Interface [Adaptec]

AST AST Research, Inc. (named from first initials of the founders: Albert Wong, Safi Qureshey, Thomas Yuen)

ATDT Attention Dial Tone

ATM Adobe Typeface Manager + Asynchronous Transfer Mode + Automated Teller Machine

ATZ Attention Restore configuration profile from nonvolatile RAM (Modem command)

AWK (Unix language named after its authors... Al Aho, Peter Weinberger and Brian Kernighan)

BIOS Basic Input/Output System

BIX Byte Information Exchange (BBS)

BPS Bits Per Second + Bytes Per Second

CERN The European Particle Physics Laboratory (initials originally from Conseil European pour la Recherche Nucleaire)

CERT Computer Emergency Response Team

CGA Color Graphics Adapter Graph (file name extension) [Lotus 1-2-3] [LDC]

COM1 First serial Port (asynchronous port)

COM2 Second serial Port

COM3 Third serial Port

COM4 Fourth serial Port

CP/M Control Program for Microcomputers

CPU Central Processing Unit

CYMK Cyan-Yellow-Magenta-Black (color model)

DAC Data Acquisition and Control + Digital to Analog Converter

DAD Desktop Application Director [Borland]

dB Decibel

DBMS Data Base Management System

DCD Data Carrier Detect

DCE Data Communications Equipment + Distributed Computing Environment [OSF] + Distributed Computing Equipment

DCF Data Communication Facility [IBM] +

DDE Direct Data Entry + Dynamic Data Exchange [Microsoft]

DIN Deutsche Industrie Norm (German equivalent of EIA)

DIR Directory (file)

DLL Dynamic Link Library

DMA Direct Memory Access/Addressing

DNS Domain Naming System

DOS Disk Operating System

DPI Dots Per Inch

EBCDIC Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code [IBM]

ECC Error Check Code + Error Checking and Correction + Error Correction Code

ECD Enhanced Color Display

ECP Enhanced Capabilities Port [Microsoft]

EEPROM Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory

EISA Extended Industry Standard Architecture

EMACS Editing Macros [Unix]

EMS Electronic Mail System + Electronic Message Service + Expanded Memory Specification [LIM]

EMWAC European Microsoft Windows NT Academic Centre

EOF End of File + Enterprise Objects Framework [Next Computer]

EOI End or Identify

EPROM Electrically Programmable Read Only Memory + Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory

ESDI Enhanced Small Device Interface

EWAN Emulator Without A Good Name [Internet]

FAQ Frequently Asked Question

FAT File Allocation Table

FAX Facsimile

FDC Floppy Disk Controller

FIFO First-In, First-Out

FLOPS Floating Point Operations Per Second

FYI For Your Information

GIGO Garbage In, Garbage Out

GIS Geographic Information System +

GNU Gnu's Not Unix (operating system)

GPS Global Positioning Satellite/System

GUI Graphical User Interface

GW-BASIC Gee Whiz BASIC

HDTV High Definition Television

HEX Hexadecimal

HMA High Memory Area [Microsoft] + Hub Management Architecture

HMD Head Mounted Display

HP Hewlett-Packard (Company)

HPDJ Hewlett-Packard Desk Jet

HPFS High-Performance File System

HPGL Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language

HPIB Hewlett-Packard Interface Bus

HPLJ Hewlett-Packard Laser Jet

HTML HyperText Markup Language

HTTP HyperText Transport Protocol

Hz Hertz

IDE Imbedded Drive Electronics + Integrated Development Environment [Borland] + Integrated Drive Electronics + Intelligent Drive Electronics + Interactive Design and Engineering + Interface Design Enhancement

IDF Intermediate Distribution Frame

IMHO In My Humble Opinion

IP Instruction Pointer + Internet Protocol

IPX Internetwork Packet Exchange [Novell]

IRQ Interrupt Request

ISA Industry Standard Architecture

ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network

JPEG Joint Photographic Experts Group

KB Keyboard + Kilobyte (1,024 bytes)

kHz Kilohertz

LCD Liquid Crystal Display

LED Light Emitting Diode

LF Line Feed

LIF Low Insertion Force

LPT Line Printer

LPT1 First Parallel Printer Port

LPT2 Second Parallel Printer Port

LPT3 Third Parallel Printer Port

LZW Lempel-Ziv-Walsh (algorithm)

MB Megabyte (1,000 kilobytes) + Middle Button (of 3 button Mouse)

MBASIC Microsoft BASIC [Microsoft]

MBASIC Microsoft BASIC [Microsoft]

MEG Megabyte

MFM Modified Frequency Modulation

MFS Macintosh File System [Macintosh] + Magnetic Tape Field Search + Modified Filing System [Revelation Technologies]

MFT Master File Table +

MHz Megahertz

MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface

MIME Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension [Internet]

MIPS Million Instructions Per Second

MNP Microcom Networking Protocol [Microcom]

MODEM Modulator Demodulator

MPEG Moving Picture Experts Group

MSCDEX Microsoft Compact Disc Extensions [Microsoft]

MS-DOS Microsoft - Disk Operating System [Microsoft]

MTBF Mean Time Between Failures

NCSA National Center for Supercomputing Applications

NICAD Nickel Cadmium

NIMH Nickel-Metal Hydride

NNTP Network News Transfer Protocol [Internet]

NSFNET National Science Foundation Network

NSP Native Signal Processing [Intel] + Network Service Provider

OLE Object Linking and Embedding [Microsoft]

PAL Paradox Applications Language [Borland] +

PBX Private Branch Exchange

PC-DOS Personal Computer - Disk Operating System [IBM]

PCI Peripheral Component Interconnect/Interface

PCMCIA Personal Computer Memory Card International Association

PD Public Domain

PDA Personal Digital Assistant

PDF Portable Document Format + Portable Document File + Processor Defined Function + Program Development Facility

PDIAL Public Dialup Internet Access List [Internet]

PGP Pretty Good Privacy (name of encryption program)

PING Packet Internet Groper

PIXEL Picture Element

PRN Printer

PRTSC Print Screen

QEMM Quarterdeck Expanded Memory Manager [Quarterdeck Corp.]

RAM Random Access Memory

RLL Run Length Limited

RN Read News [Internet]

ROTFL Rolling on the Floor Laughing

RTF Rich Text Format

SIMM Single In-line Memory Module

SIPP Single In-line Pin Package

SLIP Serial Line Interface Protocol

SMTP Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

SNOBOL String Oriented Symbolic Language (Progamming Language) System Device Driver (file name extension)

SYSGEN System Generator

SYSOP System Operator

TBBS The Bread Board System (BBS)

TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol

TEMP Temporary

THOMAS The (U.S.) House (of Representatives) Open Multimedia Access System

THOR Tandy High-Performance Optical Recording

TIFF Tagged Image File Format

TLA Three Letter Acronym

TMP Temporary

UAE Unrecoverable Application Error

UART Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter

UMB Upper Memory Block [LIM/AST]

UNIX (AT&T Bell Laboratories Operating System)

UPS Uninterruptible Power Supply + Uninterruptible Power System

USENET User's Network [Internet]

UUCP Unix-To-Unix Copy Program

VAX/VMS Virtual Address Extension/Virtual Memory System [DEC]

VDT Video Dial Tone + Video Display Terminal

VFAT Virtual File Allocation Table [Microsoft]

VLM Virtual Loadable Module

VRAM Video Random Access Memory

VxD Virtual Extended Driver [Microsoft]

W3 (see WWW)

WAIS Wide Area Information Server

WELL Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (BBS)

WFW Windows For Workgroups [Microsoft]

WINWORD Word For Windows [Microsoft]

WORM Write Once, Read Many

WP WordPerfect + Word Processing + Write Protected

WPM Words Per Minute

WS WordStar + Workstation

WWW World-Wide Web [Internet]

WYSIWYG What You See Is What You Get

XGA Extended Graphics Array [IBM]

ZIF Zero-Insertion Force (socket)

*.* Star-Dot-Star (represents Any file name.Any file name extension)