Glossary 195Pparallel connector — An I/O port often used to connect a parallel printer to yourcomputer. Also referred to as an LPT port.partition — A physical storage area on a hard drive that is assigned to one or morelogical storage areas known as logical drives. Each partition can contain multiplelogical drives.PC Card — A removable I/O card adhering to the PCMCIA standard. Modems andnetwork adapters are common types of PC Cards.PCI — peripheral component interconnect — PCI is a local bus that supports 32-and64-bit data paths, providing a high-speed data path between the processor and devicessuch as video, drives, and networks.PCI Express — A modification to the PCI interface that boosts the data transfer ratebetween the processor and the devices attached to it. PCI Express can transfer data atspeeds from 250 MB/sec to 4 GB/sec. If the PCI Express chip set and the device arecapable of different speeds, they will operate at the slower speed.PCMCIA — Personal Computer Memory Card International Association — Theorganization that establishes standards for PC Cards.PIO — programmed input/output — A method of transferring data between twodevices through the processor as part of the data path.pixel — A single point on a display screen. Pixels are arranged in rows and columns tocreate an image. A video resolution, such as 800 x 600, is expressed as the number ofpixels across by the number of pixels up and down.Plug-and-Play — The ability of the computer to automatically configure devices. Plugand Play provides automatic installation, configuration, and compatibility withexisting hardware if the BIOS, operating system, and all devices are Plug and Playcompliant.POST — power-on self-test — Diagnostics programs, loaded automatically by theBIOS, that perform basic tests on the major computer components, such as memory,hard drives, and video. If no problems are detected during POST, the computercontinues the start-up.processor — A computer chip that interprets and executes program instructions.Sometimes the processor is referred to as the CPU (central processing unit).PS/2 — personal system/2 — A type of connector for attaching a PS/2-compatiblekeyboard, mouse, or keypad.PXE — pre-boot execution environment — A WfM (Wired for Management)standard that allows networked computers that do not have an operating system to beconfigured and started remotely.
