Computer Definitions
This is from Paul Somerson's column in the
November 1989 issue of "PC\Computing":
- /2:
- A mathematical symbol meaning "only half of the real
value," as in 1/2 or PS/2.
- 386:
- No, 486: Oops, 586: the *only* chip to consider if you're
buying a DOS machine. Until Intel ramps up the 686.
- 640K:
- The salary the average Wall Street PC analyst pulls in
each year.
- Algorithm:
- A catchy 1930 song by George and Ira Gershwin.
- Availability:
- Date when a dozen copies of the beta version will be
hurriedly shrink-wrapped for the benefit of the press and
the investment community.
- Backup:
- The chore you were really, honestly going to do the very
next thing before you switched drive letters and
accidently copied older, out-of-date versions of your
files over all your new ones at 3 a.m.
- Buffer:
- The only other job - involving a chamois at the car wash
- for which most computer store salespeople are
qualified.
- Bundled software:
- Free applications like home dentistry packages and
Esperanto spelling dictionaries that are thrown in with
cheap clones so you think you're getting real value for
your money.
- CD-ROM:
- a $100 mechanism in a $1200 cabinet that accesses vast
quantities of valuable information too slowly to use.
- Copy protection:
- A sly technique employed by hardware vendors to combat
software piracy by continually changing the size and
compatibility of disk drives (from 160K to 320K to 360K
to 1.2MB to 720K to 1.4MB, etc).
- CP/M:
- An antiquated operating system from the early days of
computing, based on inscrutable prompts like A>, terse
commands, and absurdly backward conventions such as 11-
character limits on file names. Contrasted with today's
modern versions of DOS.
- Database, flat-file:
- a program selling for under $500 that most people use to
keep lists of names and addresses, etc.
- Database, relational/programmable:
- A program selling for over $500 that most people use to
keep lists of names and addresses, etc.
- Debugging:
- The process of uncovering glitches by packaging
prerelease software as finished products, then waiting
for irate customers to report problems.
- Downward compatibility:
- You really didn't have to spend the money for the
upgraded version, since all you use anyway is the old set
of features.
- End user:
- One born every minute.
- Entry level:
- Only slightly above most users' heads.
- Expanded memory:
- RAM that is, uh, well, um, different from extended
memory.
- Expansion slot:
- The computer didn't come with everything you needed.
- Extended memory:
- RAM that is, uh, well, um, different from expanded
memory.
- Fax:
- Originally a last resort for procrastinators who missed
the final Federal Express pickup; these days, an
expensive way to order lunch from the pizza place around
the corner.
- Firmware:
- Software with permanent bugs hardwired into it.
- Icon:
- One picture is worth a thousand lawsuits. Or, as
Shakespeare might have put it, "He who steals my
trash can better have a large purse."
- Installation routine:
- A process employed by many applications to overwrite and
thereby trash the user's existing and painstakingly
created AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files.
- Interface, character-based:
- A way of presenting information to the user that's *every
bit as good* as a graphical user interface except in the
areas of readability, ease of use, intuitiveness, and
productivity.
- Interface, graphical user (GUI):
- An increasingly popular way of presenting information to
the user, originally designed by Xerox PARC and now being
adopted by dozens of competitors; otherwise known as the
Trial Attorney Full Employment Act.
- Live links:
- A clever system that lets you unknowingly corrupt data in
lots of separate files at the same time.
- Low-bandwidth:
- The process of talking to corporate press relations
official. (Question: How many IBM PR types does it take
to change a light bulb? Answer: We'll have to get back to
you on that.)
- Nanosecond:
- The time it takes after your warranty expires for your
hard disk to start making a noise like a monkey wrench in
a blender.
- NiCad Battery:
- A cell that powers a laptop long enough to let you do
three solid hours of work, then dies before you're ready
to save any of it to disk.
- Open system:
- Made up of parts from different manufacturers so that,
when you crash, each vendor can blame the others.
- Optional:
- It should have come free, but someone in the marketing
department ran 1-2-3 and figured they'd double their
profits this way.
- Parity:
- A ninth memory bit that one time in nine will crash an
otherwise perfectly functioning system when it detects an
error in itself.
- Partition:
- A wall you have to build around a noisy dot-matrix
printer that makes only slightly less noise than a tree
chipper.
- Point-and-shoot:
- You mean you'd rather click on a menu choice than have to
type things like DEVICE=\DOS\UTS\DRIVER.SYS /D:0 /T:80
/S:15 /H:2 /C /F:1 ?
- Power surge:
- What an MIS director feels when he denies you access to
your own database.
- Power user:
- Someone who's read the manual all the way through once.
- Productivity:
- Printing out 30 different versions of your document
before getting the spacing correct.
- Real-time clock:
- a $50 option based on a five-cent chip.
- SAA:
- Silly And Awkward.
- Shell:
- A clumsy program that forces users to stumble through ten
menus to get anything done in DOS instead of typing a
simple three-letter command.
- Shock-mounted:
- Make sure you're sitting down when you ask the price.
- Spreadsheet:
- Sophisticated software that can be used as a database,
rudimentary word processor, graphing program, and, in a
pinch, a ledger.
- Stack:
- The place in the corner of the room where you pile
unopened software manuals.
- Standard:
- Manufactured by the company that does the flashiest
advertising.
- Support:
- Fast, simple, courteous, friendly, accurate help
available to any user who happens to work for any company
that bought 1,000 copies of the product.
- Throughput:
- What you feel like doing with your foot and your computer
screen after you see the message "General Failure
Error Reading Drive C:".
- Toll-free hotline:
- An AT&T repairman's busy-signal test number.
- Toner cartridge:
- A device to refill laser printers; invented by the
Association of American Drycleaners.
- Torture test:
- Everyone - from the UPS guy to the clerk who opened the
box to the intern who executed the speed tests -
accidentally dropped it.
- Tutorial:
- A program that forces you to sit through lessons on every
last obscure and little-used feature of an application
while ignoring overall fundamental tricks that would make
you far more productive.
- Unix, year of:
- See Calendar, perpetual.
- Value-added:
- A lot more expensive.
- Virus:
- Commonly, the belief of incompetent users that some
mysterious external force is to blame for their mistakes
at the keyboard.
- Workstation:
- Any PC that sells for more than $10,000.
- XT:
- All the computer that most users who just type letters or
run typical spreadsheets will ever need, even though a
386 machine will reformat their text a whole tenth of a
second faster.
