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ACRONYMS collected in this list are thought to be correct at the time of publishing. Should any additional acronyms be known, or inconsistencies appear, the author would appreciate feedback to fix them.
ADP Automatic Data Processing
ACIA Asynchronous Communications
Interface Adapter
ACK ACKnowledge character
ACT Automatic Code Translation
ACU Automatic Calling Unit
ADA Automatic Data Aquisition
ADP Automatic Data Processing
ADX Automatic Data Exchange
AI Artificial Intelligence
AIX Advanced Interactive eXecutive
- UNIX variant
ALU Arithmetic Logic Unit
AMR Automatic Message Routing
ANSI American National Standards Institute
APA All Points Adressable
API Applicaations Program Interface
APPC Application Program to Program
Communication
ARQ Automatic ReQuest for repetition
ASCII American Standard Code for
Information Interchange
ASIC Application Specific Integrated Circuit
ASM ASseMbler code
ASPI Advances SCSI Programming Interface
ASR Automatic Send/Receive
ASV Automatic Self Verification
AT Advanced Technology
ATM Automatic Teller Machine
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BASIC Beginners All-purpose Symbolic
Instruction Code
BBS Bulletin Board Service
BCD Binary Coded Decimal
BCO Binary Coded Octal
BEX Broadband EXchange
BIOS Basic Input Output System
BIT Binary digIT
BPS Bits Per Second
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CAD/CAM Computer Aided Design/
Computer Aided Manufacture
CAI Computer Aided Instruction
CAL Computer Aided Learning
CASE Computer-Aided Software Engineering
CBT Computer Based Training
CCITT Comitte' Consultatif International
Telegraphique et Telephonique
CDC Call Directing Code
CD-ROM Compact Disk - Read Only Memory
CGA Color Graphics Adapter
(640x200 mono, 320x200 4 from 16 col)
CGM Computer Graphics Metafile
CISC Complex Instruction Set Computers
CMOS Complimentary Metal-Oxide Semi-conductor
COBOL COmmercial and Business Oriented Language
CP/M Control Program/Monitor - operating system
CPI Characters Per Inch
CPS Characters Per Second
CPU Central Processing Unit
CRC Cyclic Redundancy Check
CRT Cathode Ray Tube
CSD Conceptual Schema Design/Diagram
CVF Compression Volume File
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DAT Digital Audio Tape
DBCS Double Byte Character Set
DBMS Database Management System
DCC Direc Cable Connect
DCI Digital Control Interface
DDE Dynamic Data Exchange
DET Data Entry Terminal
DIF Data Interchange Format
DMA Direct Memory Access
DMP Dot Matrix Printer
DOS Disk Operating System
DP Data Processing
DPI Dots Per Inch
DR-DOS Digital Research Disk Operating System
DRP Disaster Recovery Plan
DTP Desk Top Publishing
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EDI Electronic Data Interchange
EDP Electronic Data Processing
EFT Electronic Funds Transfer
EGA Enhanced Graphics Adapter
(640x350 16 from 64 col)
EHLLAPI Emulated HLLAPI
EISA Extended Industry Standard Architecture
EMAIL Electronic MAIL
EMS Expanded Memory Specification
EPOS Electronic Point Of Sale
EPROM Erasable Programmable ROM
ES Expert System
ESDI Enhanced Small Device Driver
EUC End User Computing
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FAT File Allocation Table
FDD Fixed Disk Drive
FILO First In Last Out (a queue)
FLOPS Floating Point Operations per Second
FLOPTICAL FLOppy oPTICAL disk/drive
FORTRAN FORmula TRANslator language
FTP File Transfer Protocol - a common method of moving files
around on the internet (uploading and downloading often
use this protocol
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G Giga (1,000,000,000 or 1,073,741,824)
GEM Graphics Environment Manager
GIF Graphics Interface Format
GIGO Garbage In Garbage Out
GUI Graphical User Interface
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HAL Hardware Abstraction Layer
HDD Hard Disk Drive
HGC Hercules Graphics Card (720x348 mono)
HLLAPI High-Level Language Application
Programming Interface
HPCL Hewlett-Packard Control Language
HPGL Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language
HTTP HyperText Transport Protocol - the World Wide Web
is composed of web pages sent to you via this protocol
Hz Hertz (cycles per second)
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I/O Input Output
IBG Inter Block Gap
IBM International Business Machines
IC Integrated Circuit
IDE Integrated Device Electronics
IP Internet Protocol Address
IRGB Intensity Red Green Blue
ISA Industry Standard Architecture
ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network
IWHO In Wonko's Humble Opinion
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K Kilo (1,000 or 1,024)
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LAN Local Area Network
LCD Liquid Crystal Display
LED Light Emitting Diode
LIFO Last In First Out (a stack)
LOC Lines Of Code
LQ Letter Quality
LSI Large Scale Integration
(1,000-10,000 transistors on a chip)
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M Mega (1,000,000 or 1,048,576)
MDA Monochrome Display Adapted (text mode only)
MDI Multiple Document Interface
MEGAFLOP millions of FLOating Point
operations per Second
MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface
MIPS Millions of Instructions Per Second
MISC Minimum Instruction Set Computers
MO Drive Magneto-Optical disk drive
MODEM MODulator/DEModulator
MS-DOS Micro$oft Disk Operating System
MTBF Mean Time Between Failures
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NIAM Nijssen Information Analysis Method
NLQ Near Letter Quality
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OCR Optical Character Recognition
OLE Object Linking and Embedding
ONF Optimal Normal Form algorithm
OOPS Object-Oriented Programming System
OROM Optical ROM
OSI Open Systems Interconnection
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P5 Pentium ('586')
PABX Private Automatic Branch Exchange
PC Personal Computer
PCDOS Personal Computer DOS (IBM's own)
PCI Peripheral Component Interconnect
PDA Personal Digital Assistant
POS Point Of Sale
POTS Plain Old Telephone System
PPM Pages Per Minute
PTSN Public Telephone Switching Network
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QEMM Quarterdecks Extended Memory Manager
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RAD Rapid Application Development
RAID Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks
RAM Random Access Memory
RDBMS Relational Data-Base Management System
RGB Red Green Blue
RISC Reduced Instruction Set Computers
RLE Run Length Encoding
ROM Read Only Memory
RSI Repetitive Strain Injury
RTFM Read The Flooping Manual
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SCSI Small Computer Systems Interface
SDF Standard Data Format
SIMM System In-Line Memory Modules
SMP Symmetric Multi-Processing
SOM System Object Model
SQL Structured Query Language
SVGA Super VGA (Max resolution
1024 x 768 pixels)
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TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol/
Internet Protocol
TPI Tracks Per Inch
TSR Terminate and Stay Resident
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UART Universal Asynchronous
Receiver-Transmitter
UPC Universal Product Code
UMB Upper Memory Blocks
UPS Uninterrupted Power Supply
UoD Universe of Discourse
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VAFC VESA Advanced Feature Channel
VASM Video Sequential Access Method
VDU Visual Display Unit
VERONICA Very Easy Rodent Oriented Netwide
Index to Compterised Archives
VESA Video Electronics Standards Association
VFAT Virtual FAT
VGA Video Graphics Adapter (640x480)
with 256 from 262,144 col
VLB VESA Local Bus
VLSI Very Large Scale Integration
(>10,000 transistors on a chip)
VMC VESA Media Channel
VOIP Voice over IP (using internet protocols to send telephone
messages. Some chat clients do this (like Skype)
VR Virtual Reality
VRAM Video RAM
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WAN Wide Area Network
WORM Write Once Read Many (a type of drive)
WOW Windows16 on Windows32 = 'Thunking'
WTF What The Flooping-heck
WYSBYGI What You See Before You Get It
WYSIWYG What You See Is What You Get
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XMS eXtended Memory Specification
XT eXtended Technology
XVGA eXtended VGA
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