User's Manual

248 Glossary
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.
capability
Refers to the actions that an object can perform, or actions that can be taken on
a managed object. For example, if a card is hot-pluggable, it is capable of being
replaced while the system power is turned ON.
CDRAM
Abbreviation for cached DRAM, which is a high-speed DRAM memory chip
developed by Mitsubishi that includes a small SRAM cache.