Those nasty computer-related acronyms: We constantly see or hear them being used on-line and by that snotty 17-year-old employee who works as Computer City. You feel inferior because you have no idea what this equivalent to a doctor’s prescription mumbo-jumbo being presented to you is. And you don’t want to ask because you’ll just be scoffed at and be called names like “silly newbie.”
Well, worry no further, you silly newbie (just kidding)! I have done a little web searching and have found out what many of the most commonly used computer-related acronyms stand for. Now, you can nod along with the snot-master and actually understand some of what he says to you. Here they are, FYI of course …
- ALIWEB – Archie Like Indexing in the Web
- AU – Audio (file name extension)
- ASCII – American Standard for Information Interchange
- BBS – Bulletin Board Systems
- BRB – Be Right Back
- CARL – Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries
- CC – Carbon Copy
- CD – Change Directory (or Carrier Detect, Collision Detection, Color Display, Compact Disc)
- CD-ROM – Compact Disc-Read Only Memory
- CHMOD – Change Mode
- CGI – Common Gateway Interface (or Computer Generated Images, Computer Graphics Interface)
- CPU – Central Processing Unit
- DIR – Directory
- DOS – Disk Operating System
- ECAL – Enjoy Computing and Learn
- ERIC – Educational Resources Information Center
- FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions
- FTP – File Transfer Protocol
- FYI – For Your Information
- GIF – Graphics Interchange Format (file name extension)
- GIG or GB – Gigabyte (1,000 megabytes or 1 million characters of information)
- HD – Hard Drive (or Hard Disk, High Density)
- HTML – HyperText Markup Language
- HTTP – HyperText Transfer/Transport Protocol
- IAP – Internet Access Provider
- IFP – Instruction Fetch Pipeline
- IMHO – In My Humble Opinion
- IP – Internet Protocol
- IRC – Internet Relay Chat
- IRL – In Real Life
- ISDN – Integrated Services Digital Network
- ISP – Internet Service Provider (or Interrupt Status Port, Interrupt Stack Pointer)
- ISSN – International Standard Serial Number
- JANET – Joint Academic Network
- JPEG – Joint Photographic Experts Group
- JUGHEAD – Jonzy’s Universal Gopher Hierarchy Excavation And Display
- LAN – Local Area Network
- MEG or MB – Megabyte (1,000 kilobytes)
- MHz – Megahertz
- MIDI – Musical Instrument Digital Interface
- MOO – MUD, Object Oriented
- MOV – Movie (file name extension)
- MPEG – Moving Pictures Experts Group
- MUD – Multi-User Domain/Dungeon/Dialogue
- NCSA – National Center for Supercomputing Applications
- NIC – Network Information Center
- OS – Operating System
- PC – Personal Computer (or Printed Circuit, Program Counter)
- PERL – Practical Extraction and Report Language
- PINE – Pine Is Not Elm
- PLATO – Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations
- POP – Post Office Protocol (or Point Of Presence)
- PPP – Point-to-Point Protocol
- RAM – Random Access Memory
- RGB – Red-Green-Blue (color model)
- RN – Read News
- SECAM – Sequential Couleur Avec Memoire (Sequential Color with Memory)
- SLIP – Serial Line Interface Protocol
- SPARC – Scalable Processor Architecture
- SysOp – System Operator
- SZ – Send ZModem
- TCP – Transmission Control Protocol
- URL – Uniform Resource Locator
- USENET – User’s Network
- VERONICA – Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index to Computer Archives
- VI – Visual Interactive (type of editor)
- VRML – Virtual Reality Modeling/Markup Language
- W3 or WWW – World Wide Web
- WAIS – Wide Area Information Server
- WAV – Waveform Audio (file name extension)
- WINSOCK – Windows Socket (or Windows Open Systems Architecture)
- WWIS – World Wide Information System
- YAHOO – Yet Another Hierarchically Officious Oracle
There you have it. Some of the most common computer-related acronyms defined … well, sort of. I don’t have enough space in this column to explain it all. For more acronyms that you are confused about that I have not covered here, you may want to check out the Babel Computer Oriented Abbreviations and Acronyms Glossary at: http://www.access.digex.net/~ikind/babel96a.html.
IMHO, don’t forget to ECAL on your PC loaded with RAM, MHz and a CD-ROM!
Hope this column helped you a bit and don’t forget to cut and clip this for future reference. IBB. Confused? That’s because I just made that one up. It stands for I’ll Be Back. Okay … okay, I’m sorry. That was the last one, I promise.
World Wide Ed 