Computer Glossary B
Baseband The most common type of network. Data is
transmitted digitally, each wire carrying one signal at a time.
Basic beginner’s all-purpose symbolic instruction code. A
popular and simple programming language, which uses
easy-to-understand statements. Microsoft’s Visual Basic
provides a graphical interface for writing programs.
Bios basic input/output system. Software stored in ROM
(read-only memory) and used to start a PC when it is
switched on. It checks that all required hardware components
such as memory, disk drives and keyboard are present, loads
key parts of the operating system and tells it what hardware
is available.
Bit The smallest unit of data, which has a value of 1 or 0 and is
stored by a capacitor in a memory chip using different electrical
currents. Abbreviated b in data transfer rates – for example,
50Kbps (50,000 bits per second).
Bluetooth Specification for linking devices such as mobile
phones, computers and PDAs (personal digital assistants) over
a short-range wireless connection. The maximum range over
which it can operate is currently 10 metres, with data transfer
rates of up to 721Kbps (kilobits per second) supported.
broadband Describes transmissions over a wire that can
carry multiple signals at once. Cable TV uses broadband
transmissions.
buffer underrun Recording data to CD-R is a real-time process
and cannot be interrupted, so most drives come with a buffer
of memory to store information to cover times when the PC is
not supplying information. Buffer underrun occurs when this
buffer is exhausted and the PC has not resumed sending
information to the drive.
Bus The data path on the computer’s motherboard that
interconnects the microprocessor and other components in
expansion slots.
Bus Master An intelligent device such as a PCI adapter card that
can gain control of the bus and use it to transfer data without
involving the processor.
Bus Network A network configuration in which a single cable,
laid out as one long branch, connects all the networked PCs.
Byte A group of eight bits used to represent a character or
number with four bytes representing a word. The binary system
is used, so a kilobyte is 1,024 bytes while a megabyte is
1,048,576 bytes (not 1,000,000 bytes). Abbreviated B in
data transfer rates, for example, 30MBps (30,000,000 bytes
per second).
|
