This is a list of 280+ acronyms which commonly come up in discussion
of hardware. It does not contain abbreviations or names that don't
stand for anything, nor does it attempt to explain exactly what the
technology does, where it can be found, nor even how to use it in a
sentence. So, is it completely useless? Well, sometimes just knowing
what an acronym stands for is enough to tell you what people are
talking about or where to go to get more information about it.
If anyone has any additions, comments, or corrections, please forward
them to me directly. Keep in mind that I have tried to avoid software
topics except where they overlap with hardware ones, so don't bother
telling me what BASIC stands for as it is outside the scope of this
list.
AC Alternating Current
AE Applications Engineer
AFS Andrew File System
AI Artificial Intelligence
ALU Arithmetic-Logic Unit
AM Amplitude Modulated
AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
AMI American Megatrends Inc.
ANSI American National Standards Institute
ASCII American Standard Code for Information Interchange
ASIC Application Specific Integrated Circuit
ASPI Advanced SCSI Programming Interface
AT Advanced Technology
ATA AT bus Attachment
ATDM Asynchronous Time Division Multiplexing
ATM Asynchronous Transfer Mode
AUI Attached Unit Interface
BBS Bulletin Board System
BCC Block Check Character
BCD Binary Coded Decimal
BE Back End
BiCMOS Bipolar Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor
BIOS Basic Input / Output System
BNC Bayonet Nut Connector
BPS/bps Bytes/bits Per Second
BSC Binary Synchronous Communications
BSD Berkeley Standard Distribution
BTU British Thermal Units
CAD Computer Aided Design
CAM Computer Aided Manufacturing
CAM Content Addressable Memory
CAM Common Access Method (Committee)
CAS Column Address Strobe
CBX Common Branch eXtender
CCD Charge Coupled Device
CCITT Consultative Committee of International Telephony and Telegraphy
CD Carrier Detect
CDDI Copper Distributed Data Interface
CDROM Compact Disk Read Only Memory
CGA Color Graphics Adaptor
CHS Cylinder Head Sector
CISC Complex Instruction-Set Computer
CLA Carry Lookahead Adder
CMOS Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor
CP/M Control Program / Monitor
CPI Clocks Per Instruction
CQFP Ceramic Quad-FlatPack
CPU Central Processing Unit
CR Carriage Return
CRC Cyclical redundancy check
CRQ Command Response Queue
CRT Cathode Ray Tube
CS Chip Select
CSMA Carrier Sense Multiple-Access
CSMA/CD Carrier Sense Multiple-Access with Collision Detect
CSR Command Status Register
CTS Clear To Send
DAT Digital Audio Tape
DC Direct Current
DCD Data Carrier Detect
DCE Data Circuit-terminating Equipment
DD Double Density
DEC Digital Equipment Corporation
DES Data Encryption Standard
DID Direct Inward Dial
DIN Deutsche Industrie Norm
DIP Dual-In-line Package
DIS Draft International Standard
DMA Direct Memory Access
DOS Disk Operating System
DPE Data Parity Error
DPSK Differential Phase Shift Keying
DRAM Dynamic Random Access Memory
DS Double Sided
DSP Digital Signal Processor
DSR Data Set Ready
DTC Data Terminal Controller
DTE Data Terminating Equipment
DTMF Dual-Tone MultiFrequency
DTR Data Terminal Ready
EBCDIC Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code
ECC Error Correction Code
ECL Emitter-Coupled Logic
ECO Engineering Change Order
ECU EISA Configuration Utility
EEPROM Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory
EGA Enhanced Graphics Adaptor
EIA Electronic Industries Association
EISA Enhanced Industry Standard Architecture
EMI Electro-Magnetic Interference
EMF Electro-Magnetic Force
EMS Expanded Memory Specification
EOF End Of File
EOL End Of Line
EOS Electrical Overstress
EPROM Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory
ESD Electro-Static Discharge
ESDI Enhanced Small Devices Interface
FAT File Allocation Table
FCC Federal Communications Commission
FDD Fixed Disk Drive (or Floppy Disk Drive)
FDDI Fiber Distributed Data Interface
FDM Frequency Division Multiplexing
FDX Full-Duplex Transmission
FE Front End
FEP Front End Processor
FF Form Feed
FIFO First-In First-Out
FILO First-In Last-Out (same as LIFO)
FM Frequency Modulation
FPGA Field Programmable Gate Array
FPU Floating Point Unit
FRU Field-Replaceable Unit
FSF Free Software Foundation
FSK Frequency Shifty Keying
FTP File Transfer Program
GAS Gallium Arsenide
GFLOPS Billions (10^9) of FLOating Point Operations Per Second ("GigaFlops")
GNU Gnu's Not Unix
GUI Graphical User Interface
HD High Density
HDD Hard Disk Drive
HDX Half-Duplex Transmission
HFS Hierarchical File System
HPFS High Performance File System
HS Helical Scan
I/O Input / Output
IBM International Business Machines Corp.
IC Integrated Circuit
IDC Insulation Displacement Connector
IDE Integrated Device Electronics
IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
IMP Interface Message Processor
IPC InterProcess Communication
IRQ Interrupt ReQuest
ISA Industry Standard Architecture
ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network
ISO International Standards Organization
JFS Journaled File System
kVA KiloVolt-Amps
LAN Local Area Network
LAPM Link Access Procedure M
LBA Linear Block Array
LCD Liquid Crystal Display
LED Light Emitting Diode
LF Line Feed
LIM Lotus/Intel/Microsoft Expanded Memory Manager Specification
LRU Least-Recently Used
LSB/lsb Least Significant Byte/bit
LSI Large Scale Integration
LUN Logical Unit Number
MAN Metropolitan Area Network
MB/Mb Mega Bytes/bits
MBR Master Boot Record
MCA Micro Channel Architecture
MCGA Multi-Color Graphics Array
MCM Multi-Chip Module
MFLOPS Millions of FLOating Point Operations per Second ("MegaFlops")
MFM Modified Frequency Modulated
MHz MegaHertz
MICR Magnetic Ink Character Recognition
MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface
MIMD Multiple-Instruction Multiple-Data
MIPS Millions of Instructions per Second
MISD Multiple-Instruction Single Data
MMU Memory Management Unit
MNP Microcom Network Protocol
MODEM MOdulator / DEModulator
MOPS Millions of Operations Per Second
MOS Metal-Oxide Semiconductor
MP MultiProcessor
MPP Massively Parallel Processor
MSB/msb Most Significant Byte/bit
MSDOS Microsoft Disk Operating System
MSI Medium Scale Integration
MTBF Mean Time Between Failure
N/C No-Connect
NBS National Bureau of Standards
NEMA National Electrical Manufacturers Association
NFS Network File System
NFU Not-Frequently Used
NMI Non-Maskable Interrupt
NMOS Negatively doped Metal-Oxide Semiconductor
NOP No OPeration
NRU Not-Recently Used
NSF National Science Foundation
NVRAM NonVolatile Random Access Memory
OCR Optical Character Recognition
ODI Open Datalink Interface
OEM Original Equipment Manufacturer
OS Operating System
OSF Open Software Foundation
OSI Open Systems Interconnect
PAL/PLA Programmable Array Logic (Logic Array)
PB Push Button
PBX Private Branch eXtender
PC Personal Computer, Program Counter
PCB Printed Circuit Board
PCI Peripheral Component Interconnect
PCM Pulse Code Modulation
PCMCIA Personal Computer Memory Card International Association
PE Processor Element
PFF Page Fault Frequency
PGA Pin Grid Array
PIC Programmable Interrupt Controller
PIO Programmed Input/Output
PLCC Plastic Leaded Chip Carrier
PLL Phase Locked Loop
PM Preventive Maintenance
PMOS Positively doped Metal-Oxide Semiconductor
POST Power On Self Test
PPP Point-to-Point Protocol
PQFP Plastic Quad-FlatPack
PROM Programmable Read-Only Memory
PSTN Public Switched Telephone Network
PTE Page Table Entry
QAM Quadrature Amplitude Modulation
QFP Quad-FlatPack
QIC Quarter Inch Cartridge
RAID Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks
RAM Random Access Memory
RAMDAC Random Access Memory Digital to Analog Converter
RAS Row Address Strobe
RCA Radio Corporation of America
RCC Routing Control Center
RFC Request For Comments
RFI Radio Frequency Interference
RI Ring Indicator
RISC Reduced Instruction-Set Computer
RLL Run Length Limited
RMM Read Mostly Memory (same as EPROM)
RMS Root Mean Squared
RMW Read Modify Write
ROM Read-Only Memory
RPC Remote Procedure Call
RPM Rotations Per Minute
RTC Real Time Clock
RTS Request To Send
SAM Sequential Access Memory
SASI Shugart Associates Standard Interface
SCSI Small Computer Systems Interface
SD Single Density
SDLC Synchronous Data Link Control
SDLC Synchronous Data Link Control
SE Systems Engineer
SIMD Single-Instruction Multiple-Data
SIMM Single Inline Memory Module
SIPP Single Inline Pinned Package
SISD Single-Instruction Single-Data
SLIP Serial Line Internet Protocol
SMD Surface Mount Device
SMT Surface Mount Technology
SNA System Network Architecture
SNR Signal to Noise Ratio
SO/SOL Small OutLine
SOIC Small Outline Integrated Circuit
SPOOL Simultaneous Peripheral Operation On Line
SPT Sectors Per Track
SPU Single Processor Unit
SQE Signal Quality Error
SRAM Static Random Access Memory
SS Single Sided
STDM Synchronous Time Division Multiplexing
STN Super Twisted Nematic
STU Streaming Tape Unit
SVGA Super Video Graphics Array
TCM Trellis Code Modulation
TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol
TDM Time Division Multiplexing
TI Texas Instruments
TIA Telecomm. Industry Assocation
TLB Translation-Lookaside Buffer
TPI Tracks Per Inch
TSR Terminate and Stay Resident
TTL Transistor-Transistor Logic
TUV Technischer Ueberwachuags Verein
UART Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter
UDP User Datagram Protocol
UMB Upper Memory Block
UPS Uninterruptible Power Supply
USL Unix System Labs
UTP Unshielded Twisted Pair
UUCP Unix to Unix Copy Program
VCR Video Cassette Recorder
VESA Video Enhanced Standards Association
VGA Video Graphics Array
VLB VESA Local Bus
VLIW Very Long Instruction Word
VLSI Very Large Scale Integration
VM Virtual Memory
VME Versa Module Eurocard
VRAM Video Random Access Memory
VTR Video Tape Recorder
WAN Wide Area Network
WATS Wide Area Telephone Service
WD Western Digital
WORM Write-Once Read-Many
WS Wait State
XGA eXtended Graphics Array
XMS Extended Memory Specification
XOR Exclusive-Or
XT eXtended Technology
ZIF Zero Insertion Force
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