Compatibility Guide

Glossary 99
PKIS
Abbreviation for Novell Public Key Infrastructure
Services.
PLCC
Abbreviation 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.
PME
Abbreviation for Power Management Event. A PME is
a pin on a peripheral component interconnect that
allows a PCI device to assert a wake event.
POST
Acronym for power-on self-test. Before the operating
system loads when you turn on your system, the POST
tests various system components such as RAM, the disk
drives, and the keyboard.
power supply
An electrical system that converts AC current from the
wall outlet into the DC currents required by the system
circuitry. The power supply in a personal computer
typically generates multiple voltages.
power unit
A set of power supplies in a system chassis.
ppm
Abbreviation for pages per minute.
PPP
Abbreviation for Point-to-Point Protocol.
PQFP
Abbreviation for plastic quad flat pack, a type of
microprocessor socket in which the microprocessor
chip is permanently mounted.
program diskette set
The set of diskettes from which you can perform a
complete installation of an operating system or
application program. When you reconfigure a program,
you often need its program diskette set.
protected mode
An operating mode supported by 80286 or higher
microprocessors, protected mode allows operating
systems to implement:
• A memory address space of 16 MB (80286
microprocessor) to 4 GB (Intel386 or higher
microprocessor)
• Multitasking
• Virtual memory, a method for increasing addressable
memory by using the hard drive
The Windows NT, OS/2
®
, and UNIX
®
32-bit
operating systems run in protected mode. MS-DOS
cannot run in protected mode; however, some
programs that you can start from MS-DOS, such as the
Windows operating system, are able to put the system
into protected mode.
provider
A provider is an extension of a CIM schema that
communicates with managed objects and accesses data
and event notifications from a variety of sources.
Providers forward this information to the CIM Object
Manager for integration and interpretation.
PS
Abbreviation for power supply.
PS/2
Abbreviation for Personal System/2.