Sunday, August 24, 1997

Familiarize yourself with the jargon before you shop for a computer

By David Hayes / Knight-Ridder Newspapers

If you're going to buy, know the jargon

Byte: The amount of information - eight bits - needed to produce a letter or number. A kilobyte is just over 1,000 bytes, a megabyte is just over 1 million bytes, and a gigabyte is 1,024 megabytes or just over 1 billion bytes.

CD-ROM: Compact disc, read-only memory. Compact discs are used to store information, including computer programs, which now often come on CD-ROMs instead of floppy disks. A CD holds about 630 megabytes of information.

Hard disk: A computer's permanent memory, ranging in size from a few megabytes (rare) to several gigabytes. Hard disk drives, usually referred to as hard drives, read and write data to a hard disk.

Megahertz, or MHz: Reflects the speed of a computer system. One megahertz is equivalent to 1 million cycles per second.

Microprocessor, or central processing unit: The "brain" of a computer. The CPU controls a computer's actions and can find and carry out instructions and assign tasks to other computer resources. The most common CPU sold today is the Pentium. The larger the CPU number, such as a Pentium 166, the faster the processor.

Modem: A device that allows computers to transmit and receive information over telephone lines. Needed to connect to the Internet or online services.

Monitor: The computer screen and related hardware.

Motherboard: The main printed circuit board in a computer that contains the CPU, other processing chips, memory and controllers that govern other computer components, such as the monitor.

RAM: Random-access memory. The temporary storage area used to load program instructions and store files currently in use. RAM capacity is measured in megabytes. New computer programs, including Microsoft Windows 95, require at least 16 megabytes of RAM.