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ANSI
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Stands for
American National Standards Institute and is the
body responsible for establishing industry standards in, among
other fields, computer electronics.
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ATA
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Stands for
AT Attachment and describes the standard for attaching
devices to any AT style PC.
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Block
Mode
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A feature
that allows multiple read or write commands to be processed in
batches of up to 32 sectors at a time instead of sector by sector.
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Bus
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A bus
is a group of data, control and/or addressing lines that extend
from device to device and act as a conduit for signals. Often
the bus will be shared by several devices and a set of signals
or a "protocol" is implemented to arbitrate who shall
send and receive signals at any given time.
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| CRC |
Stands
for Cyclic Redundancy Checking. At
the sender, a block of data is subjected to a mathematic algorithm
creating a result which is sent with the data block. The receiver
performs the same calculation. If the results agree, the data is
presumed to be error free. |
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DAW
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Stands for
Digital Audio Workstation. A computer whose function
is devoted primarily to digital audio recording and production.
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DMA
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Stands for
Direct Memory Access. A system by which peripherals
can transfer data to and from system RAM without the intervention
of the CPU.
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FAT
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Stands for
File Allocation Table and is a table that the system
builds on any disk to keep track of what sectors are bad, are
in use and by what file and in what sequence. Damage to the FAT
is catastrophic! DOS/Windows keeps two copies of the FAT on any
disk just for safety.
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FAT
16
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DOS and Windows
through version 95A only supported FAT 16.
This system stored the FAT table in a 16 bit word map. Large drives
were split into very large clusters so they could be mapped. Drive
partitions were limited to just over 2 gig as a result.
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FAT
32
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Starting with
Windows 95B, a 32 bit mapping system was applied to the FAT so
cluster sizes could be kept smaller and very large drives could
be mapped. The result is more efficient use of disk space because
any entry in the directory is allocated space in clusters, not
sectors.
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Hand-
shaking
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A term given
to a data transfer protocol that requires both the talker and
the listener to exchange signals that verify a data packet has
been received error free before the next packet is sent. If needed,
the sender will be asked to repeat a packet if it arrives corrupted.
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IDE
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Stands for
Integrated Drive Electronics. Common name given
to the ATA disk drive format popularly used in PCs today. Usually
connects directly to the Mother Board. EIDE is Enhanced
IDE. Drives capable of bus mastering are EIDE drives.
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I/O
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Stands for
Input / Output. This is a term for situations where
data is transfered to and/or from devices or a system.
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ISA
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Stands for
Industry Standard Architecture. Originally an 8
bit bus in the first PCs, it was quickly upgraded to 16 bits in
the IBM AT. Still in use on modern mother boards, it is limited
to slower throughput peripherals due to its inherently low transfer
speeds.
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LBA
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Stands for
Logical Block Addressing, and allows the BIOS to
remap a drive's geometry so drives larger than 504 MB to be configured.
Requires BIOS support.
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PCI
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Stands for
Peripheral Component Interconnect and refers to
a bus in modern PCs that allows high speed connections to plug-in
cards and IDE drives. The new AGP connector now being used by
a lot of graphics cards is, in fact, only an extension of the
PCI bus.
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PIO
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Stands for
Programmed Input/Output. If your drives aren't
set for DMA, then you can bet they are set for PIO mode 4.
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RAID
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Stands for
"Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives". This system
clusters a group of disk drives together that will all hold the
exact same information so as to guard against down time due to
the failure of any one drive.
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Retries
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If a device
is attempting to communicate over a channel, but the receiver
at the other end signals back that the data was corrupt, the sender
then "retries" the transmission. Constant retries due
to bad connection will eat away at otherwise good throughput specifications.
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SCSI
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Stands for
Small Computer System Interface. Considered a high
performance interface for disk drives, DC drives scanners, and
other peripherals.
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Serial
SCSI
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There are
several attempts being made to standardize a high speed serial
communications protocol to be used between a PC and peripheral
devices such as cameras, keyboards, printers, etc. Aside from
SCSI, the USB port and "FireWire" are also jockeying
for acceptance.
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SMART
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Stands for
Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology.
Allows drives to do sophisticated self diagnostics and auto correct
when possible and report faults to the OS when necessary.
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System
Latency
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This kind
of latency is not to be confused with disk drive rotational
latency. An example of SYSTEM LATENCY is the amount of time it
takes changes in the user interface of a DAW application (such
as clicking a SOLO button) to translate into a change in
the audio output.
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UI
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Stands for
User Interface and usually refers to the combination
of the display, keyboard and pointing device (mouse) that allow
the user to interface with the program. Can also refer to just
the graphical information being displayed by the program.
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Note about SCSI
host adapters
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When the number
of devices that a SCSI controller can access is mentioned, it
is understood that the TOTAL number of devices must include the
controller itself as a device. Therefore, SCSI-1 can access 8
devices, but only 7 remain when the controller itself is counted.
The same goes for wide SCSI that can access 16 devices; the controller
and then 15 more.
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