User's Manual

210 Glossary
bootable diskette
You can start your computer from a diskette. To make a bootable diskette, insert
a diskette in the diskette drive, type
sys a: at the command line prompt, and
press <Enter>. Use this bootable diskette if your computer does not boot from
the hard drive.
bpi
Abbreviation for bits per inch.
bps
Abbreviation for bits per second.
BTU
Abbreviation for British thermal unit.
bus
An information pathway between the components of a computer. Your computer
contains an expansion bus that allows the microprocessor to communicate with
controllers for all the various peripheral devices connected to the computer. Your
computer also contains an address bus and a data bus for communications between
the microprocessor and RAM.
byte
Eight contiguous bits of information, the basic data unit used by your computer.
C
Abbreviation for Celsius.
CA
Abbreviation for certificate authority.
cache
A fast storage area that keeps a copy of data or instructions for quicker data retrieval.
For example, your computer's BIOS may cache ROM code in faster RAM. Or, a
disk-cache utility may reserve RAM in which to store frequently accessed information
from your computer's disk drives; when a program makes a request to a disk drive
for data in the cache, the disk-cache utility can retrieve the data from RAM faster
than from the disk drive.