Fast Ethernet Adapter Installation and Support Guide
Glossary
Fast Ethernet Adapter Installation and Support Guide—425685-003
Glossary-22
device
device. A computer peripheral or an object that appears to an application as such. See 
also terminal.
dial-out point. A Compaq TSM workstation from which incident reports are sent to a 
service provider. Incident reports are sent only from the TSM workstations defined as 
the primary and backup dial-out points (the primary and backup system consoles).
DID. See destination ServerNet ID (DID).
DIMM. See dual inline memory module (DIMM).
direct current (DC). Electric current that flows in only one direction. Contrast with 
alternating current (AC).
direct jump area. One of sixteen 256-megabyte portions of the 4-gigabyte virtual address 
space. A RISC jump instruction has the ability to jump directly to any location within its 
own direct jump area without having to use a far jump table.
directory. A type of Open System Services (OSS) special file that contains directory entries, 
which associate names with files. No two directory entries in the same directory have 
the same name.
directory entry. In the Open System Services (OSS) file system, an object that associates 
a filename with a file. Several directory entries can associate names with the same 
file. See also link.
directory loop. In the Open System Services (OSS) file system, an error condition in which 
a directory is identified as its own parent directory.
directory special file. See directory.
directory stream. In the Open System Services (OSS) file system, an object with an 
opaque data type. A process can sequentially read directory entries from a directory 
stream.
directory tree. A hierarchy of directories. In the Open System Services (OSS) environment, 
directories are connected to each other in a branching hierarchical fashion such that 
only one path exists between any two directories (if no backtracking occurs).
disconnecting means. A device, group of devices, or other means by which the conductors 
of a circuit can be disconnected from their source of supply.
discovery. For the Compaq TSM package, the process of identifying the resources that 
exist on an HP NonStop™ S-series server. See also incremental discovery and initial 
discovery.
disk bootstrap. A software entity residing on disk that is used to load the HP NonStop™ 
Kernel operating system image (OSIMAGE) into memory during a system load. A disk 
that contains the disk bootstrap is referred to as a bootable disk. The disk bootstrap is 










