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W6-LI System Board Manual
the bytes arrive simultaneously, as op-
posed to serial transmission in which
bits arrive one by one.
Parallel Port - A connection for a
printer or similar peripheral. Gener-
ally, parallel ports are output only. See
Bidirectional Parallel Port and ECP.
PCI - An acronym for Peripheral
Component Interconnect. A high per-
formance 32-bit or 64-bit bus devel-
oped by Intel Corporation. PCI is
designed to be independent of the
hardware architecture to ensure com-
patibility with future computer sys-
tems. See EISA, VESA Local Bus and
ISA.
Pentium - A high performance 64-bit
CISC processor designed and manu-
factured by Intel Corporation.
Plug and Play - A standard developed
to ensure easy installation of periph-
erals. Theoretically, a newly installed
card will automatically configure itself
and work properly without requiring
jumper configuration or device driv-
ers.
POST - An acronym for Power On
Self Test. A diagnostic program that
is run whenever the system is cold
booted.
RAM - An acronym for Random
Access Memory. A type of memory
that is used as the “working memory”
of a computer system. See DRAM and
SRAM.
ROM - An acronym for Read Only
Memory. A type of memory that re-
tains its data without requiring power.
Once written, it cannot be modified.
See EPROM and Flash ROM.
SCSI - Small computer system inter-
face. A bus interface standard that
defines physical and electrical char-
acteristics for hardware devices. SCSI
provides a standard interface that en-
ables many different kinds of devices,
such as disk drives and CD-ROM
drives to interface with the host com-
puter.
Serial - A type of data transmission
in which the data is sent one bit at a
time over a single wire. See Parallel.
Serial Port - A communications port
used to connect peripherals such as
modems and mice.
Setup - A program that allows you to
make changes to the system configu-
ration.
Shadow RAM - A technique used to
load a duplicate copy of BIOS from
slower ROM into faster RAM. This
enhances system performance be-
cause it provides higher access speed
to the BIOS.
Small Computer System Interface -
See SCSI.
SRAM - An acronym for Static Ran-
dom Access Memory. A type of
memory that can retain data without
requiring a regular clock signal.
75
Glossary