CS 303E: Glossary (Fall 2004)

The definitions of many other acronyms can be found here and at the Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing.

ACM: Association of Computing Machinery

ATA: Advanced Technology Attachment interface with extensions (referring to a disk drive interface standard)

CD: Compact Disc

CPU: Central Processing Unit

DDR: Double Data Rate (referring to the transfer rate of computer memory)

DRAM: Dynamic RAM (Random Access Memory)

DVD: Digital Versatile Disc

ETLA: (see MLA, SFLA, TLA, and YABA) Extended Three-Letter Acronym (four or more letters)

FTP: File Transfer Protocol

GIF: Graphics Interchange Format

HTTP: HyperText Transfer Protocol

IBM: International Business Machines

IDE: Interactive (or Integrated) Development Environment

IMAP: Internet Message Access Protocol

IP: (see TCP) Internet Protocol. A connection-less and best-efforts protocol to transmit data.

JPG or JPEG: (refers to a digital format for representing images) Joint Photographic Experts Group

LCD: Liquid Crystal Display

MLA: (see ETLA, SFLA, TLA, and YABA) Multi-Letter Acronym

MP3: Moving Pictures experts group 1 layer 3

MPG or MPEG: (refers to a digital format for representing movies) Moving Pictures Experts Group

NNTP: Network News Transfer Protocol

PCI: Peripheral Component Interconnect

PDF: Portable Document Format

PNG: Portable Network Graphics

POP: (see IMAP) Post Office Protocol

RAM: Random Access Memory

ROM: Read-Only Memory

RPM: Revolutions Per Minute (when referring to the rotational speed of a disk drive) or Redhat Package Manager (when referring to a standard software package distribution format for Linux computer systems)

SDRAM: Synchronous DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory)

Seek time: The average amount of time a disk drive to move a read/write head to a particular track on a disk.

SFLA: (see ETLA, TLA, and YABA) Stupid Four-Letter Acronym

SMTP: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

SSL: (see TLS) Secure Sockets Layer

TCP: Transmission Control Protocol. A connection-oriented protocol designed to reliably transmit data. Most commonly implemented as TCP/IP (TCP over IP).

TLA: (see ETLA, SFLA, and YABA) Three-Letter Acronym

TLS: (see SSL) Transport Layer Security

YABA: (see ETLA, SFLA, and TLA) Yet Another Bloody Acronym