Technical data

ground
A voltage reference point in a system that has a zero voltage potential.
hard disk
A hard disk resides permanently inside a disk drive.
hardware
The physical components—mechanical and electrical—that make up a system.
(Compare with software.)
head
The part of a fixed disk drive, diskette drive, or tape drive that reads, records,
and erases data. Also called read/write head.
IEEE
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
IEEE 802.3
An Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standard
describing the physical and data link layers of a local area network based on
bus topology and Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detect (CSMA/CD).
LAN
Local area network. A high-speed communications network that covers a
limited geographical area, such as a section of a building, an entire building, or
a cluster of buildings. It is a privately owned communications network whose
speed is upward of 1M bits/second.
LED
Light-emitting diode. LEDs are used as indicators on the system enclosure.
load
To copy software (usually from a peripheral device) to memory. To physically
place a disk in a disk drive or a tape in a tape drive.
Local Area Network
See LAN.
magnetic tape
A tape used for storing data that is made of plastic and coated with magnetic
oxide. Also called magtape.
Glossary–4