Technology / Computers Glossary

Expansion Card: This is a circuit card that it attached to the motherboards expansion slot. By using an expansion card, you can increase a systems functionality by providing the access to additional devices . . . View Full Definition

Expansion Slot: The slot on the motherboard designed to be filled by expansion cards. See above.

Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC): It is also called the Extended ASCII Code. This is a common asynchronous code used by IBM. It is pronounced 'ehb-suh-dik'. Many corporation that have legacy applications and databases in IBM . . . View Full Definition

Extended Data Output (EDO) Memory: Short for Extended Data Output, a type of dynamic random access memory. EDO memory is much faster than DRAM because it can access more than one block of information at a time. EDO memory acc . . . View Full Definition

Extended Memory: This memory expands upon a DOS systems existing conventional memory.

Extended Memory Specification (XMS): A procedure developed jointly by AST Research, Intel Corporation, Lotus Development, and Microsoft Corporation, for using extended memory and DOS’s high memory area, a 64K block just above 1MB.

eXtensible Markup Language (XML): Like HTML, XML is a markup language, but unlike HTML, it is not limited to Web documents. XML lets Web developers and designers create customized tags that offer greater flexibility in organ . . . View Full Definition

eXtensible Stylesheet Language (XSL): A formatting language standard that defines how the data fields in a XML document will be viewed by a browser.

External Device: A peripheral or device that is installed outside of the computer system.

External Modem: A modem that is separate from the actual computer system and is self-contained in its own box. Because of the additional expense of creating the housing for the external modem, they tend to . . . View Full Definition

Extranet: An extranet is similar to an intranet. They both use Internet protocols. The difference is that the extranet is designed to give a certain amount of access to outside users where an intranet . . . View Full Definition

FAT 16: This was an older FAT (File Allocation Table) that was designed for use in the MS-DOS system. FAT 16 was used in many Windows Operating Systems up to Windows ME. Its biggest downfall was tha . . . View Full Definition

FAT 32: A new version of the file allocation table (FAT) available in Windows 95 OSR 2 and Windows 98. FAT32 increases the number of bits used to address clusters and also reduces the size of each c . . . View Full Definition

Fault Tolerance: The ability of a system to respond gracefully to an unexpected hardware or software failure. There are many levels of fault tolerance, the lowest being the ability to continue operation in t . . . View Full Definition

Fax Modem: A device you can attach to a personal computer that enables you to transmit and receive electronic documents as faxes. A fax modem is like a regular modem except that it is designed to trans . . . View Full Definition

FDISK: A disk partitioning program used by several different operating systems to create the master boot record and set partitions for the operating system. Most commonly used as: FDISK /MBR, which . . . View Full Definition

Fetch: The process of 'fetching' a data or instruction item from memory and writing it to a register. The 'fetched' item is then either executed (instruction), or acted upon (data).

Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI): A standard for transmitting data on optical fiber cables at a rate of around 100,000,000 bits-per-second (10 times as fast as Ethernet, about twice as fast as T-3).

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