Unit 8: Vocabulary

Please study the 21 vocabulary terms below. Then press the Mark Complete button to continue.
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acronym
an abbreviation; a way of writing a longer string of words more concisely
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IT is an acronym for Information Technology.
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bandwidth
a measurement of the capacity of data which can be moved between two points in a given period of time
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The website performed very poorly because it was graphically heavy and required more bandwidth than was available.
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benchmark
a measurement or standard that serves as a point of reference by which process performance is measured
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The magazine article used PCMark 7 scores as a benchmark for computer performance.
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bit (binary digit)
the smallest unit of storage; normally referred to as a '1' or '0'
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The DBA "flipped a bit" in the database, changing a value from a 0 to 1.
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byte (binary term)
8 bits
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One byte of data is enough memory to hold a single ASCII character.
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fault tolerance
the ability of a system component to fail without causing the entire system to shut down; this is often accomplished with redundancy
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Due to low fault tolerances in the new gaming console's GPU, the manufacturer had to issue a total recall.
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FLOPS (floating point operations per second)
a common measurement of computer speed dealing with decimal calculations in a given amount of time
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The more FLOPS a computer can do, the faster it is.
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frequency
the number of cycles undergone per unit (time of a sound wave), most often measured in hertz
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The new processor ran at much higher frequency than the one it replaced, going from 1.8 GHZ up to 4 GHZ.
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G (giga)
one billion
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The word giga originally comes from the Greek word for 'giant'.
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GB (gigabyte)
one billion bytes
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Modern hard drives can store 500 gigabytes of data or more.
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GHz (gigahertz)
one billion hertz
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How long will it be before the first 5-gigahertz processors become affordable?
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Hz (hertz)
an internationally used frequency unit; equals one cycle per second
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A human being can hear sound waves from 20Hz to 20,000Hz.
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IPS (instructions per second)
a very raw measurement of computer processor speed
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IPS is a base measurement of computer speed often expressed in millions (MIPS).
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K (kilo)
one thousand
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A kilobyte is 1024 bytes.
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logarithm
the power to which a number is raised -- the exponent; example: log 10^2 = 2
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Logarithms are used in many areas of science and engineering including computer science and geology.
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M (mega)
one million
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One megabyte is 1,048,576 bytes.
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ยต (micro)
one millionth
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Although micro means "one-millionth", many people use it to express simply "a great deal of smallness."
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m (milli)
a prefix meaning one thousandth
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One millitesla is one-thousandth of a tesla.
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n (nano)
one billionth
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The teacher said the word "nano" can also be used for anything very small, such as nanotechnology.
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order of magnitude
10 times bigger or smalle
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Computer processing power can increase by an order of magnitude between generations.
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T (tera)
one trillion
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There are 1,099,511,627,776 bytes in a terabyte.
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