Compatibility Guide

146 Glossary
ASCII
Acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. A text file
containing only characters from the ASCII character set (usually created with a
text editor, such as Notepad in Microsoft
®
Windows
®
), is called an ASCII file.
ASIC
Acronym for application-specific integrated circuit.
ASPI
Acronym for advanced SCSI programming interface.
asset tag code
An individual code assigned to a system, usually by a system administrator, for
security or tracking purposes.
attribute
An attribute, or property, contains a specific piece of information about a
manageable component. Attributes can be combined to form groups. If an
attribute is defined as read-write, it may be defined by a management application.
autoexec.bat file
The autoexec.bat file is executed when you boot your system (after executing any
commands in the
config.sys file). This start-up file contains commands that
define the characteristics of each device connected to your system, and it finds
and executes programs stored in locations other than the active directory.
backup
A copy of a program or data file. As a precaution, you should back up your system's
hard drive on a regular basis. Before making a change to the configuration of your
system, you should back up important start-up files from your operating system.
baud rate
A measurement of data transmission speed. For example, modems are designed
to transmit data at one or more specified baud rate(s) through the COM (serial)
port of a system.
beep code
A diagnostic message in the form of a pattern of beeps from your system's speaker.
For example, one beep, followed by a second beep, and then a burst of three beeps
is beep code 1-1-3.