#7 CPS (Vocabulary, apparently on national level + very little other stuff)

Volts used on PSU's

+5, +12 and +3.3V

What is the maximum transfer rate of USB 1.1?

12 Mbps

What is the maximum transfer rate of USB 2.0?

480 Mbps

What is the maximum transfer rate of USB 3.0?

5 Gbps

XGA

Extended Graphics Array 1024 × 768

What is the maximum length of a USB cable?

5 meters

What is the super high 4:3 monitor resolution, defined by 1600x1200?

ULTRA XGA

CMOS

Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor

PXE

Preboot eXecution Environment. Boot from a network.

MOSFET

Metal Oxide Semiconductor field-effect transistor. Deliver a certain amount of volts to the CPU depending on what it needs.

SATA

Serial Advanced Technology Attachment

WORM

Write once read many. Worm drives.

NVME

Nonvolatile memory express

SCSI (Small Computer System Interface or scuzzy)

Was designed to connect many different kinds of devices together into a standard format. With scuzzy to use any kind of device plugged in you would need to assign the device an ID. To signal the end of a SCSI bus there would need to be a terminator. Some SCSI devices have terminators built-in and some need an external terminator to terminate them. Frequently used for hard drives in old servers.

LUNS (Logical Unit Number)

LUNS are assigned to drives in a SCSI drive array.

SAS

Serial attached SCSI is a newer kind of connection with no terminator and no need to configure any ID information. It is a point to point connection on a serial connection and is full-duplex with faster RPM speeds up to 15,000 RPM speeds.

PATA

Parallel ATA is a form interface for a parallel connection between two devices. IDE refers to the first-generation PATA drives

IDE

Integrated Drive Electronics was an older interference for hard drives in the late '80s. Two IDE drives share one cable and are configured as master and slave. Out of the box, drives are set to master, and switching jumper pins makes them slaves.

Degaussing

The process of removing the magnetic field either on a monitor or a hard drive. To degauss a hard drive is to remove the magnetic properties and therefore removes all of the data on the hard drive. Degaussing a CRT monitor removes all the magnetic properties and then adds them back to remove any corruption of picture or color.

NCQ

Native Command Queuing allows the drive itself to determine the optimal order in which to retrieve outstanding requests. This allows the drive to fulfill all requests in fewer rotations and thus less time. This only works with SATA drives.

AHCI

Advanced host controller interface enables hot-swapping HDDs via ESATA, support for fetching multiple data at the same time following a performance increase.

APM (Advanced power management)

Developed by intel and released in 1992 which allows IBM PCs to achieve power management. The CPU is the last device to be powered down but the first to be powered up in a shutdown/restart.

In what year did Energy Star start to label computer monitors and PCs to promote energy-efficient products?

1992

Fiber Distributed Data Interference (FDDI)

A standard for fiber optic over a LAN network. 100Mbps per second and is used in LAN's up to 124 miles.

PON

Passive optical network. It is a fiber-optic telecommunications technology for delivering broadband network access to end-customers. Costs less to install and operate. Same signal to all end users. Last-mile installations (20km). A PON uses optical splitters to separate and collect optical signals as they move through the network. A passive optical network shares fiber optic strands for portions of the network. Powered equipment is required only at the source and receiving ends of the signal.

AON

Active optical network. An active optical system uses electrically powered switching equipment, such as a router or a switch aggregator, to manage signal distribution and direct signals to specific customers. This switch opens and closes in various ways to direct the incoming and outgoing signals to the proper place. In such a system, a customer may have a dedicated fiber running to his or her house. Costs more than a PON can cover larger distances and provides max speed regardless of user amount.

What was the first CPU socket to support dual voltage?

CPU Socket 7

What makes Intel's Itanium processors significant?

The first line of processors to be totally 64

PAE

Physical address extension. PAE makes 32 bit systems use more than 4 gigs of RAM.

NX bit

A technology used in CPUs to segregate areas of memory for use by either storage of processor instructions (code) or for storage of data.Used in security to protect any malicious software from getting into the boot sector. It can also prevent the CPU from executing any code in a specific sector of the memory.

SSE2

Streaming SIMD Extensions 2. Allows data to be processed better with added performance in CPUs and

TDP

Thermal design power is a specification measured in watts that are found on processors that tells the maximum amount of heat the CPU is going to output under heavy load.

L1 Memory

The first cache the CPU uses, usually part of the CPU. Primary cache and the fastest memory in the computer.

L2 Memory

Under the L1 cache but much bigger. In some CPUs's the L1 and L2 share data but most of the time the L2 cache feeds into the L1 cache. In older computers, the L2 cache resides outside of the CPU.

L3 Memory

L3 cache is generally shared among all the processing cores.

Cache Miss

Cache miss is a state where the data requested for processing by a component or application is not found in the cache memory. It causes execution delays by requiring the program or application to fetch the data from other cache levels or the main memory.

WEP

Wired equivalent privacy came out in 1999 and was the first protection for wifi.

WPA

Wifi Protected Access replaced WEP and came out in 2003. Also referred to as IEEE 802.11i. The second iteration of WPA is WPA2 which is a more secure version of WPA. Every packet gets a unique 128-bit encryption key.

WPS

Wifi Protected Setup is a type of wifi connection setup that makes it easier to connect from a device to a router.

SSID

Service Set Identifier, (Name of a network)

How many bits make up a byte?

8

How many devices can be chained to a USB port?

127 devices can be chained to a USB port

802.11a

First wifi standard that came out in 1999. Up to 115ft at 5.4GHz and up to 54 Mbps

802.11b

Second wifi standard. Bigger range than the 802.11a variant with a 2.4GHZ and up to 11Mbps.

802.11g

Third wifi standard that operates in 2.4GHZ and up to125ft at 54Mbps. Backward compatible with 802.11b. Came out in 2003

802.11n

Fourth wifi standard that operates at 2.4 and 5GHz. Up to 380ft at 600Mbps.Came out in 2009. Uses MIMO

802.11ac

Fifth wifi standard that came out in 2014. It only operates in 5GHz. It is less corroded with more frequencies.It has 8 different MIMO streams. Nearly 7Gbps

Bluetooth Class 1 Up to 30ft at 2.4GHz

S/PDIF

S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface)[1][2] is a type of digital audio interconnect used in consumer audio equipment to output audio over reasonably short distances. The signal is transmitted over either a coaxial cable with RCA connectors or a fiber optic cable with TOSLINK connectors. S/PDIF interconnects components in home theaters and other digital high-fidelity systems.

What is the most common form of identification and authentication?

User ID and password.

PC card/PCMCIA card

Personal computer memory card international association cards were used in laptops as expansion slots. There are four types of PCMCIA cards.

Type I

16-bit interface. They are 3.3 millimeters. 1.0 standard

Type II

Type-II and above PC Card devices use two rows of 34 sockets, and have a 16- or 32-bit interface. They are 5.0 millimeters (0.20 in) thick. Type-II cards introduced I/O support, allowing devices to attach an array of peripherals or to provide connectors/slots to interfaces for which the host computer had no built-in support. Like TV cards.

Type III

16 or 32 bit 10.5 mm thick and used for hard drives

Type IV

Type-IV cards, introduced by Toshiba, were not officially standardized or sanctioned by the PCMCIA. These cards are 16 millimeters (0.63 in) thick.

Card Bus

CardBus are PCMCIA 5.0 or later (JEIDA 4.2 or later) 32-bit PCMCIA devices, introduced in 1995 and present in laptops from late 1997 onward. CardBus is effectively a 32-bit, 33 MHz PCI bus in the PC Card design. CardBus supports bus mastering, which allows a controller on the bus to talk to other devices or memory without going through the CPU. Many chipsets, such as those that support Wi-Fi, are available for both PCI and CardBus.

CompactFlash

CompactFlash is a smaller dimensioned 50 pin subset of the 68 pin PC Card interface. It requires a setting for the interface mode of either "memory" or "ATA storage".

Express Card 34/54mm

The Express card interference comes in 34 and 54 mm Sizes. The Express card interference was used mainly on laptops. Express card Can have USB connectors ethernet connectors firewire and Serial ATA storage devices as well as TV tuner cards and sound cards.

UTP

Untwisted Pair

STP

Shielded Twisted Pair

TPM

The Trusted platform module can store artifacts for authenticating your PC, such as passwords, encryption keys, and certificates. In addition, the TPM can store protocols for ensuring the security of your PC. This includes authentication, or making sure your PC is truly your PC, and attestation, or making sure a PC hasn't been breached.

MIMO

Multiple-input multiple-output Is a method for multiplying the capacity of a radio link using multiple transmission and receiving antennas to exploit multipath propagation.

RFID

Radio-frequency identification

NFC

Near field communication

802.15.4

A technical standard which defines the operation of low-rate power wireless personal area networks. Used in home network protocols like Zigbee and Z-wave.

Zigbee

A set of standards for use of IoT in homes. It has longer distance than Bluetooth and is a mesh network between devices. Uses low power and bandwidth than Bluetooth and wifi and operates on ISM bands. Has no max hop.

ISM bands

Bands reserved for industrial scientific and medical usages.

Z-Wave

A set of standards like Zigbee made by Sigma. Used in IoT homes. Has a stricter set of standards from companies. Has a max of 4 hops.

GSM

Global systems for mobile communications. A 2G network type not designed for data. Designed for voice.

CDMA

Code division multiple access. A 2G network type not designed for data. Designed for voice.

LTE

Long term evolution. Converged CDMA and GSM networks. Download rates 150 Mbps. LTE-A supports 300 Mbps.

OTA

Over the air. The process of talking to someone over the air/over the waves. Like talking on your phone.

Real time operating system (RTOS)

Intended to serve the data as it comes in real-time. Processes data without any delay and in the order that it was received. It does not dynamically switch between processes based on availability. If processing is not done immediately then the system will fail. Found mostly in cargo ships and on assembly lines and used mainly in embedded OS's that were made for specific machinery. Typically has little user interference and no end-user utilities.

Event driven systems switch between tasks based on their priorities, while time-sharing systems switch the task based on clock interrupts. Most RTOSs use a pre-emptive scheduling algorithm.

Single user, single task

Only one task on the OS can be done at a time. MS-DOS is a Single user, single-task system.

Single user, multi-tasking

Multiple tasks can happen at the same time on the system. Most modern OS's like Windows 10 and OSX Catalina have multitasking.

Multi user

Multiple users can use the same operating system.

POST

Power-on self-test.

Boot sector

The starting sector of an HDD or the first set of code on a storage device to be booted up

Bootstrap loader

Loads the OS into the memory and sets up the drivers that control the hardware. Used to communicate within and between the subsystems and applications of the computer. It also sets startup flags. After this process is done it turns control of the system to the OS.

Semaphore

A simple integer value shared between threads. Used for synchronization in the multiprocessing environment.

Binary Semaphore

Can only be a 0 or a 1 and it is used to implement the solution of critical section problem with multiple processes.

Counting Semaphore

Its value can range over an unrestricted domain. It is used to control access to a resource that has multiple instances.

UEFI

Unified Extensible Firmware Interface

SUS

Software Update Services, enabled XP users to update security patches

WSUS

Windows server update services always allows admins to deploy updates to machines.

SOE

Standard operating environment. Administrators typically implement SOE as a standard disk image for mass deployment to multiple computers in an organization. SOEs can include the base operating system, a custom configuration, standard applications used within an organization, software updates, and service packs. An SOE can apply to servers, desktops, laptops, thin clients, and mobile devices.

Unintended installation

Installing an OS that has predetermined settings filled out in advance so you don't have to go through all the settings of installing it.

What is the most common authentication protocol?

Kerberos

Kerberos

Used for authentication and security in client/servers. To connect to the server/client, the user has to be verified by the KDC (key distribution center) and a TGS (Ticket Granting Server)

DLP

Data loss prevention. Monitors and limits the data that goes across the network. Detects potential data breaches/data ex-filtration transmissions.

A process, then, is software that performs some action and can be controlled by a user, by other applications or by the operating system. It is processes, rather than applications, that the operating system controls and schedules for execution by the CPU. In a single-tasking system, the schedule is straightforward. The operating system allows the application to begin running, suspending the execution-only long enough to deal with interrupts and user input.

The Kernal

The center of the operating system. A direct link between the software and the hardware layer.

System call

A system call is a call to the kernel from a process to request a service or a resource from the kernel. A system call is a way for programs to interact with the operating system. A computer program makes a system call when it makes a request to the operating system's kernel. System call provides the services of the operating system

Draw call

A call from the CPU to the GPU to render something. Then the CPU provides the GPU with the drawing resources for the GPU.

Interrupt

A signal from the hardware or software to request resources from the CPU. Sometimes the operating system will schedule the priority of processes so that interrupts are masked -- that is, the operating system will ignore the interrupts from some sources so that a particular job can be finished as quickly as possible.

Non maskable interrupts (NMIs)

Interrupts from the memory that have to be dealt with immediately.

Non uniform memory access (NUMA)

A design that pulls memory only the closest from the processor. Memory access time depends on where the processor is located. Under this, a processor can access its local memory faster than its nonlocal memory.

Process control block/process descriptor

Contains all the information about the process. Holds the process ID, where the data is and where processing last occurred, points to the upper and lower bounds of the memory required for switching and stats of the IO needed by the process.

Many processes consume no CPU time until they get some sort of input. For example, a process might be waiting for a keystroke from the user. While it is waiting for the keystroke, it uses no CPU time. While it's waiting, it is "suspended".