Reference Guide

Glossary 681
PC 98
The third PC 9x specification, which defines five
categories (Consumer, Office, Mobile, Entertainment
and Workstation). It eliminates the ISA bus and
pushes the minimum requirements to a 200MHz CPU
with 32MB of RAM and 256K of L2 cache. PC 98
machines must support OnNow, and the BIOS must
support booting from a CD and be Y2K compliant.
Systems cannot ship with ISA cards installed, but may
have an ISA bus for legacy devices.
PC card
A credit-card sized, removable module for portable
computers standardized by PCMCIA. PC Cards are
also known as "PCMCIA cards." PC Cards are 16-bit
devices that are used to attach modems, network
adapters, sound cards, radio transceivers, solid state
disks and hard disks to a portable computer. The PC
Card is a "plug and play" device, which is configured
automatically by the Card Services software.
PCI
Abbreviation for Peripheral Component Interconnect.
A standard for local-bus implementation developed by
Intel Corporation.
PCIX
Abbreviation for PCI extended.
PCMCIA
Personal Computer Memory Card International
Association. An international trade association that has
developed standards for devices, such as modems and
external hard drives, that can be plugged into
portable computers.
PERC
Acronym for PowerEdge Expandible RAID controller.
peripheral device
An internal or external device—such as a printer, a disk
drive, or a keyboard—connected to a computer.
PGA
Abbreviation for pin grid array, a type of microprocessor
socket that allows you to remove the microprocessor chip.
physical memory array
The physical memory array is the entire physical
memory of a system. Variables for physical memory
array include maximum size, total number of
memory slots on the motherboard, and total number
of slots in use.
physical memory array mapped
The physical memory array mapped refers to the way
physical memory is divided. For example, one mapped
area may have 640 KB and the other mapped area may
have between 1 Megabyte and 127 Megabytes.
PIC
Acronym for programmable interrupt controller.
PIP
Acronym for peripheral interchange program. A CP/M
utility program that was used to copy files.
pixel
A single point on a video display. Pixels are arranged
in rows and columns to create an image. A video
resolution, such as 640 x 480, is expressed as the number
of pixels across by the number of pixels up and down.
PLCC
Acronym for plastic leaded chip carrier.
Plug and Play
An industry-standard specification that makes it
easier to add hardware devices to personal computers.
Plug and Play provides automatic installation and
configuration, compatibility with existing
hardware, and dynamic support of mobile
computing environments.