Coaxial Cable Definition Coaxial (or “coax”) cable is a common type of cable used for transmitting data over long distances. It can carry either an analog or digital signal. While coax cables have many applications, they are most commonly used to transmit cable TV and Internet signals. Coax cables that run underground are typically thicker and more heavily insulated than the cables that connect your cable box or cable modem to the wall outlet. However, they all transmit data via a thin copper l...

PC Definition Stands for "Personal computer." PCs are are what most of us use on a daily basis for work or personal use. A typical PC includes a system unit, monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Most PCs today also have a network or Internet connection, as well as ports for connecting peripheral devices, such as digital cameras, printers, scanners, speakers, external hard drives, and other components. Personal computers allow us to write papers, create spreadsheets, track our finances, play games, and...

VGA Definition Stands for "Video Graphics Array." It is the standard monitor or display interface used in most PCs. Therefore, if a montior is VGA-compatible, it should work with most new computers. The VGA standard was originally developed by IBM in 1987 and allowed for a display resolution of 640x480 pixels. Since then, many revisions of the standard have been introduced. The most common is Super VGA (SVGA), which allows for resolutions greater than 640x480, such as 800x600 or 1024x768. A stan...

Blu-ray Definition Blu-ray is an optical disc format such as CD and DVD. It was developed for recording and playing back high-definition (HD) video and for storing large amounts of data. While a CD can hold 700 MB of data and a basic DVD can hold 4.7 GB of data, a single Blu-ray disc can hold up to 25 GB of data. Even a double sided, dual layer DVD (which are not common) can only hold 17 GB of data. Dual-layer Blu-ray discs will be able to store 50 GB of data. That is equivalent to 4 hours of HD...

HDMI Definition Stands for "High-Definition Multimedia Interface." HDMI is a trademark and brand name for a digital interface used to transmit audio and video data in a single cable. It is supported by modern audio/video equipment, such as 4K televisions, HDTVs, audio receivers, DVD and Blu-ray players, cable boxes, and video game consoles. While other types of A/V connections require separate cables for audio and video data, a single HDMI cable carries the audio and video streams together, ...

DAC Definition Stands for "Digital-to-Analog Converter" and is often pronounced "dac." Since computers only recognize digital information, the output produced by computers is typically in digital format. However, some output devices only accept analog input, which means a digital-to-analog converter, or DAC, must be used. The most common use for a DAC is to convert digital audio to an analog signal. This conversion typically takes place in the sound card, which has a built-in DAC. The digital s...

FPU Definition Stands for "Floating Point Unit." An FPU is a processor or part of a processor that performs floating point calculations. While early FPUs were standalone processors, most are now integrated inside a computer's CPU. Even without an floating point unit, a CPU can handle both integer and floating point (non-integer) calculations. However, integer operations use significantly different logic than floating point operations, which makes it inefficient to use the same processor to hand...

APU Definition An APU is a processor that includes both the CPU and GPU on a single chip. The name “APU” was coined by AMD, which released the first APU in January, 2011. For many years, CPUs handled all non-graphics calculations, while GPUs were only used for graphics operations. As GPU performance increased, hardware manufacturers and software programmers realized GPUs had a lot of unused potential. Therefore, they began to find ways to offload certain system calculations to the GPU. This str...

Quad-Core Definition A quad-core CPU has four processing cores in a single chip. It is similar to a dual-core CPU, but has four separate processors (rather than two), which can process instructions at the same time. Quad-core CPUs have become more popular in recent years as the clock speeds of processors have plateaued. By including multiple cores in a single CPU, chip manufacturers can generate higher performance without boosting the clock speed. However, the performance gain can only be reali...

Dual-Core Definition A dual-core processor is a CPU with two processors or "execution cores" in the same integrated circuit. Each processor has its own cache and controller, which enables it to function as efficiently as a single processor. However, because the two processors are linked together, they can perform operations up to twice as fast as a single processor can. The Intel Core Duo, the AMD X2, and the dual-core PowerPC G5 are all examples of CPUs that use dual-core technologies. These C...