- Bus-Mastering- Refers to a feature supported by some bus
architectures that enables a controller connected to the bus to communicate
directly with other devices on the bus without going through the CPU. Most
modern bus architectures, including PCI, support bus mastering because it
improves performance.
- Attenuation- Reduction of signal strength during transmission.
Attenuation is the opposite of amplification, and is normal when a
signal is sent from one point to another. If the signal attenuates too much,
it becomes unintelligible, which is why most networks require
repeaters at regular intervals. Attenuation is measured in decibels.
- Sector- The smallest unit that can be accessed on a disk.
- Write precompensation- This is a relic from the mid-80s.
Older disks that use the same number of sectors for every track sometimes
required an adjustment to be made while writing, beginning at a certain
track number, and this setting was that value.
- Yagi-A directional radio and television antenna consisting of a
horizontal conductor with several insulated dipoles parallel to and in the
plane of the conductor.
- Contiguous Memory- Memory that come one after the other.