<<< Back

 

TAPI A standard developed by Intel and Microsoft that can be used by 32-bit Windows 95 communications programs for communicating over phone lines.

TB (Terabyte) A unit of measure for storage capacity 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion) bytes, or 1,000,000 (1 million) megabytes or 1,000 (1 thousand) gigabytes.

TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) The communications protocol used by UNIX systems and the Internet. TCP checks for lost packets, puts the data from multiple packets into the correct order and requests that missing or damaged packets be resent.

Technical documentation The technical reference manuals, included with software packages and periphrals, that provide directions for installation, usage, and troubleshooting.

Telecommunication Using your computer to communicate with another computer via telephone lines and your modem.

Telephone A term describing the technology of converting sound to signals that can travel over telephone lines.

Temp directory A location to which inactive applications and data can be moved as a swap file, while Windows continues to process current active applications.

Temporary file A file that is created by Windows applications, to save temporary data, and that may or may not be deleted when the application is unloaded.

Terminating resistor The resistor added at the end of a SCSI chain to dampen the voltage at the end of the chain. See Termination.

Termination A process necessary to prevent interference of data transmission caused by an echo effect of power at the end of a chain. See Terminating resister.

Thermal grease A special compound placed on processors to facilitate the transfer of heat from the top of the CPU to a heat sink.

TiB (Tebibyte) A unit of measure consisting of 1024GiB.

Tick count The time required for a packet to reach its destination. One tick equals 1/18 of a second.

Token A small frame on a Token Ring network that constantly travels around the ring in only one direction. When a station seizes the token, it controls the channel until its message is sent.

Token ring A network that is logically a ring, but stations are connected to a centralized multistation access unit (MAU) in a star formation. Network communication is controlled by a token.

Toner cavity A container in a laser printer that is filled with toner. The black resin toner is used to form the printed image on paper.

Track The circular path traced across the spinning surface of a disk platter by the read/write head inside the hard-disk drive. The track consists of one or more clusters.

Trailer The part of a packet that follows the data and contains information used by some protocols for error checking.

Transceiver The bidirectional (transmitter and receiver) component on a NIC that is responsible for signal conversion and monitors for data collision.

Transformer A device that converts AC to DC or DC to AC current. A computer power supply is basically a transformer.

Transistor A semiconductor device that uses a stream of charge carriers to produce active electronic effects.

Transport layer The OSI layer that verifies data and requests a resend when the data is corrupted.

Track buffer Memory sometimes built into disk-drive electronics, sufficient to store the contents of one full track. This allows the drive to read the entire track quickly, in one rotation, then slowly send the information to your CPU. It eliminates the need for interleaving and can speed up drive operation.

Transfer rate The speed at which a disk drive can transfer information between its platters and your CPU. The transfer rate is typically measured in megabytes per second, megabits per second, or megahertz.

Transmission speed See baud rate

Trojan horse A type of infestation that hides or disguises itself as a useful program, yet is designed to cause damage at a later time.

TREE command A DOS command that shows the disk directories in a graphical layout similar to a family tree (for example, TREE/F shows every filename in all branches of the tree).

Triad Three phosphor-filled dots (one red, one green, one blue) arranged in a triangular fashion within a monitor. Each of the three electron guns is dedicated to one of these colors. As the guns scan the screen, each active triad produces a single color, which is determined by the combination of excited color dots and by how active each dot is. See also RGB.

TSR program (Terminate and Stay Resident) A program that is loaded into memory but is not immediately executed, such as a screen saver or a memory-resident antivirus program.

Turbo mode A means of doubling the clock speed by pressing a button on the case of some older computers. (Actually the turbo switch cuts the speed in half to run slower applications.)