Glossary Accelerator An expansion unit that speeds up your Amiga's CPU (Central Processing Unit). Some games and most serious programs benefit. A.G.A. Advanced Graphics Architecture. This chipset is graphically far more advanced than its predecessors. It first appeared in October 1992 in the Amiga 4000 and then into the mass market via the Amiga 1200. It had a higher resolution available called Super-High Res. All the resolutions could have 256 different colours on screen beating the previous 32. The new 8-bit HAM mode gave 262,208 colours on screen out of a possible 24-bit colour palette of 16,777,216. AmigaDOS Amiga Disk Operating System. This is a system which can be controlled by CLI and Shell. It allows you to control what is happening on your disk. Anim The most common file format on the Amiga for storing animations. Anim5 is the most common version used. Animation A sequence of pictures which when displayed quickly one after the other look like a moving picture. Each image in the animation is referred to as a frame. Anti-aliasing Smoothing method used by computers to blur the transition between sharp edges and background colours by using intermediate colours. Archiving A process whereby a number of files are compressed and then put into one single file. The files can be decompressed into their original form later on using the program you archived with. ASCII A universal data format which stores plain text. It doesn't allow the text to be style e.g. underlined, but most word processors will easily view it. Baud Rate A measure of the speed of the connection through the serial port (handles modems and some printers). Usually translated as Bits Per Second. BBS Bulletin Board System. A place which you link up to via the telephone line using your modem. Once connected you can send/receive messages and software or play multi user games. Bit The smallest unit of memory that a computer can hold. It is either a 1 or a 0. Blitter Part of the internal Amiga hardware used to copy and transfer data at extremely fast speeds. Used a lot in games. Bubble Jet Printer Works in a similar way to ink jet printers. Instead of electronically forcing ink through the nozzles they, a bubble jet printer heats the nozzles. At certain temperatures bubbles form and ink is forced out. Buffer This is a place where information is stored for a short time until it can be used. E.g. a printer buffer holds the information it is going to print until it can print it (it can receive information more quickly than it could print it). Therefore while something is printing the Amiga could be doing a different task. Bump Mapping Painting term to describe the process of shading a 2D image so it appears to be 3D. Byte A byte is 8 bits. In an ASCII text one byte would be one character. CAD Computer Aided Design. This type of program is used for technical drawings. They store the image data mathematically. CD The Compact Disk can be used to hold a large amount of information. About 550MB which is equivalent to 640 Amiga 880K floppy disks. CD-ROM Compact Disc Read Only Memory. Chrominance The colour component of video. CLI Command Line Interface. A program/window that allows you to use AmigaDOS for standard operations such as deleting or copying files. Click A click is when you press the left mouse button once. A double-click is when you press the left mouse button and then quickly afterwards press it again. Clock Speed Microprocessors carry out their operations strictly by the clock. Each time the clock ticks they carry out the next thing. The faster the clock the faster they work. In an A1200 the clock speed is 14.28Mhz, it ticks 14,280,000 times a second. Composite Video This is the combination of luminance and chrominance into one signal. Compressing This is when a file is reduced in size, usually by deleting information which is repeated in a file. The repeated information is remembered once and then is then called back when ever needed. Co-processor A chip which takes some of the work from the CPU, allowing the CPU to concentrate on the serious number crunching. In the Amiga the co-processors are the custom chips. One other useful co-processor is the FPU. CPS Characters Per Second. A printing term showing the printer's speed. Some times there maybe two figures, one for draft printing and one for NLQ (Near Letter Quality) printing. CPU The Central Processing Unit makes all the decisions and tells everything else what to do. Crash A term used to describe a fatal error in the execution of a program that causes the computer to lock up and/or reset. Custom Chips One of the most important parts of the Amiga is its custom chips. This means it does not have to rely on the CPU for all the computing work. The custom chips are smaller processors which handle various specific processes on the Amiga. Daisy Chain This is way of linking a few add-ons together. E.g. You can have up to 4 external disk drives linked together, using the drive ports at the back of each disk drive to plug in the wires. Data Any form of information stored and processed by a computer such as text, images and sound. Also an android in Star Trek the Next Generation. Database A computer file containing information. Useful for organization of information e.g. address book. They are made up of records which are in turn made up of fields DF0: DF1: DF2: System names for the floppy drives on the Amiga. D = Drive, F = Floppy and the number refers to a drive, 0 being the standard internal drive and the : means its a device. Digitiser A device used for grabbing images from a video signal and then importing them on an Amiga. Digitising The conversion of data from the real world into a digital form that the computer can understand. E.g. images and sound. Dip Switches Dual Inline Pole Switches. These are switched either on or off to allow printers to work on different computers. Most of the time you can do this using the front panel displays. Disk A medium for storing and retrieving data. Download To transfer a file from another computer to yours. Dot Matrix Printer The cheapest type of printer. It forms each part of the printout from a group (matrix) of pins that strike the paper through a ribbon of ink. It can be very noisy. Some dot matrix printers have 9 pins, the more sophisticated ones have 24 pins. They produce a better printout because there is less space between the dots. DRAM Dynamic Random Access Memory. A kind of RAM which is faster than SIMMs the Amiga standard. Drive Click All disk drives click every few seconds to look for a disk in the disk drive. Some programs exist to stop this, but some drives solve this problem with hardware solutions. DTP Desk Top Publishing. This is the combination of pictures and words in one document. Basically you have complete control over the lay-out and appearance of each page you produce. EMail Electronic Mail. Similar to ordinary mail but the messages are delivered electronically instead of physically, so you can't send woolly jumpers through EMail. Emulator Emulators are either software or a combination of hardware and software which allow you to pretend your computer is another machine. This is very useful if you use a number of computers and wish to transfer information between them. EPS Encapsulated Postscript. A file format for saving pictures and other graphics. Epson Compatible A printer standard. The chances are that if a printer is Epson compatible it will work on your Amiga. You will probably get better print-outs if you have a specific printer driver for your printer (which may just happen to be Epson because Epson is a printer manufacturer). External Disk Drive An external disk drive is just a copy of the internal disk drive (which all Amigas have) but is placed in its own case outside of your Amiga. It means you can work with 2 (or more) disks at once and many games support external disk drives which means disk swapping is kept to a minimum. You can have up to 4 external disk drives working with your Amiga. Field A database is divided into fields that contain specific pieces of information for each record. E.g. In an address book possible fields could be name, phone number, address, city and postcode. File Any collection of data stored on a disk. Floppy Disk Disk made with a plastic. Inside is a circle of magnetic material which the computer can use to store information on. Floppy Disk Drive The unit in which floppy disks can be placed and then used. Fonts A style of typeface. FPU The Floating Point Unit or Maths Co-processor really only does a lot of maths. Especially using decimal numbers. It is fast and therefore useful for maths intensive operations like ray-tracing and other 3D work. Fractal Graphics which have been produced by some very complex maths. Formatting Before a blank floppy disk can be used it needs to be formatted. This disk is then set-up to be used with your Amiga. Frame Grabber A device for capturing live video data and converting it into a computer image. It doesn't require a still video signal. Freeware The software which a programmer has produced can be copied freely, however the programmer still retains copyright on his work. Gadgets Bits around the border of a window, which allow you to resize, scroll up or down or left or right through the window, etc. Genlock Add-on device used to combine the graphical out-put of your Amiga with any video source e.g. VCR or video camera. Gigabyte 1024 megabytes is equal to one gigabyte. Grabbing The process of taking images from video/TV and storing them on a disk so they can be viewed on an Amiga. GUI Graphical User Interface. A means of communicating with your Amiga via a WIMP type interface using Workbench. It makes things simpler as keyboard commands do not have to be memorised, makes computers much easier to use. HAM Hold And Modify. This function holds the screen and modifies it to display all the different coloured pixels available to you. HAM programs vastly increase the number of colours to available to you. However this mode is slow to use, animations are jerky and a certain amount of fringing is produced which lowers the quality of the image. Though with careful choices of colour good results can be achieved. Perfect for digitised pictures with their many colours. HAM-6 which is used in the older non-AGA Amigas displays 4096 different colours out of a 4096 colour palette. HAM-8 which is used in the AGA Amigas displays 262,144 different colours out of a 24-bit palette of 16,777,216 colours. Hard Disk As the name implies the Hard Disk is hard (would you believe it?) it can hold vast amounts of data compared with a floppy and operates much faster than a floppy disk. Many programs benefit form being stored on a hard disk. In fact some programs will only run from it because of the large amounts of information involved. Hook Up Games Games which allow you to play another person on two or more separate Amigas. Host The computer you connect to when you dial up a BBS with your modem. Icon A small picture on the computer screen which represents a specific thing. Icons can be used to run programs and show that data exists. IDE Intelligent Drive Electronics. A device which allows you to connect hardware to it such as hard drives. It is cheaper than the SCSI interface, but it is slower, which fortunately is still quite fast. IFF Interchange File Format. A standard form of saving data. This allows similar applications to load the same data. For example any Amiga art package will load in IFF images. Ink Jet Printer Higher quality and far faster than a dot matrix printer. Works by spraying ink on the page through tiny nozzles. Interface The point of communication between you and a computer. JPEG Joint Photographic Experts Group. A way of compressing large graphics with staggering savings. Its really only used on true-colour images (images with 16.8 million colours). Kickstart The name of the set of programs that are automatically run when you switch on your Amiga. Kilobyte Abbreviated to K. Each kilobyte is 1024 bytes. A kilobyte is about 14 lines of ASCII text. Laser Printer The best quality type of printer. Basically the laser in the printer creates the image of whatever you want to print by firing a charge at a photosensitive drum, which then attracts the toner to it. The image is transferred to paper when the paper runs over the drum. Licenseware Licenseware programs are a little commercial, you are not allowed to copy them freely. When you pay for this type of program the programmer automatically gets his cut. They only cost a little bit more than standard PD software. Light Pen A device shaped like a pen. You point it at the screen to control functions during special application programs. Luminance Black and white video. Megabyte Abbreviated to MB. A megabyte is 1024 kilobytes. At release the A600 was equipped with 1MB of RAM. At release the A1200 was equipped with 2MBs of RAM. A megabyte of memory can hold about 46 pages (1400 lines) of ASCII text. Memory Memory is where a computer can remember data, for later retrieval. It can store things in RAM in ROM or on some kind of disk. Memory can be worked out in bits, bytes, kilobytes, megabytes and in some rare cases gigabytes. Menu A list of functions and operations, usually contained as a pull down menu in a title bar. E.g. Pressing the right mouse button on Workbench will show the menu titles on the title bar. Moving your mouse (while still holding the right mouse button) over the menu title will show you a list of options which you can access. MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface. Standard way of get your Amiga to work with a sequencer. You need a synthesizer to actually make the sound. MNP Miracom Networking Protocol. A device used with a modems and a telephone line to filter out any rubbish from the line. A level 5 MNP filter also compresses the data you send. Modem A device which allows you to connect your computer to others over the telephone lines. You can use it to connect up with a Bulletin Board System (BBS) and it also lets you to get connected to the Internet. Modulator A device used to convert the Amiga's RGB (Red, Green and Blue) and audio signals into either RF (Radio Frequency) or television and separate audio signals. Monitor A display specially designed for computers. Images are clearer than on a TV screen, which means less strain on the eyes. If a monitor comes with speakers the sound is also usually better than on a TV. Morphing A graphical technique which makes one image appear to turn into another in front of your eyes. It can also be used to distort images. Mouse A device which sits on a desktop. It allows the Workbench pointer to be moved. When its pushed around the rubber ball inside the plastic shell moves around, this in turn rotates three little rollers which detect the direction that the mouse is moving. The Amiga interprets in the information and changes the position of the pointer accordingly. Multimedia Combination of text, images and sound in a single program. Sort of like a computer book. Multi-tasking Allows a number of programs to run simultaneously. Remember the Amiga has had this for years! NLQ Near Letter Quality. Most printers have at least one NLQ font, for printing finished documents of a high standard. Printing in NLQ mode slows down the print speed. Some top of the range printers offer SLQ (Super Letter Quality) fonts. NTSC National Television Systems Committee. The 525 line television display used in the USA. Also due to its poor quality its some times referred to as Never Twice the Same Colour. Null-Modem Games Games which can be played by 2 players on 2 separate Amigas which are joined together by a null-modem cable. Overscan A screen mode which allows you to work with any area of the TV. Most screen modes leave a small vertical bar down the left side of the TV. Overscan is only really used for video work, to achieve a far more professional effect. PAL Phase Alternating Line. The 625 line display used by televisions in the UK. Palette The range of colours at your disposal in a paint program. PD Public Domain. This is when programmers waive their copyright on their software. It can then be copied freely. The Public Domain software can be bought cheaply from PD libraries for little more than a price of a disk. There are few restrictions to PD, the most common being the author should be credited for the work. Peripheral Piece of hardware such as monitors, disk drives and printers which are connected to and controlled by your Amiga. Pixel Picture Element. A dot of colour on the computer screen. A picture on a computer is made up of many square pixels. Each individual square is coloured. Pointer An arrow or other symbol on the screen under your control. The pointer is used to select commands or draw in graphics programs. Port Socket on a computer that you can use to connect peripherals to your Amiga. Program Set of instructions for the computer telling it what to do. Computer programs are collecitively referred to as software. Protocol A transfer protocol is a software system whereby by two separate computers can send and receive information over a telephone line. The most known protocols are Kermit, XModem, YModem and ZModem. RAM Random Access Memory. Memory which can be altered. The main use of RAM is store programs and program data while the program is running. Every time the Amiga is switched off the contents of the RAM is erased unlike ROM chips. There are 2 types of RAM they, are Chip RAM and Fast RAM. Chip RAM is allocated to the Amiga's custom chips as well as the CPU. Fast RAM is only accessed by the CPU. It is therefore far faster than Chip RAM. A computer which has Fast RAM and Chip RAM will work faster than the same type of computer with only Chip RAM. Range The spread of colours from one shade to another. E.g. red to white through lots of shades of pink. Ray-Tracing This when realistic images are created from calculating where light bounces and travels. This is a very mathematical process. Record A record is the database equivalent to a card containing information on a single subject. Rendering Producing a 3D image by calculating it. Very similar to ray-tracing. Resolution The number of pixels across by the number down is the resolution. For example Low-Resolution is 320 pixels across by 256 down which amounts to 81,920 pixels on screen. The Amiga has a variety of resolutions all varying in detail. Games usually use a Low-Resolution for speed. RF Radio Frequency. The method used to transmit combined video and audio signals from a broadcaster to a receiver. There is a loss of quality from the original source. RGB Red, Green and Blue. The raw colours used to make-up electronic images such as colour TV or computer screen images. The Amiga outputs RGB video as standard. Using an RGB monitor insures a far better display than an RF signal on a TV. ROM Read Only Memory. ROMs cannot be altered and when the Amiga is switched off the contents is retained, unlike RAM. The most obvious use on the Amiga is to store the Kickstart The A1200 has a 512k ROM. RTF Rich Text Format. RTF is text format which is interchangeable with a variety of programs. Sampler A device which allows the Amiga to record sounds electronically. They work by checking the voltage levels of the sound thousands of times a second. The more times the voltage is checked then better the quality of the sound when it is played back. Compact disks store data digitally at 44.1kHz (441,000 voltage changes a second) if a sampler can operate at this rate it is said to have CD quality. The higher the sample rate the more memory is required to hold the information. Sampled sounds are used in many games to great affect. Scanner A device for converting a still, flat image like a photograph into a computer image. Scanners are either hand held (you move them over the image) or flat bed (used like a photocopier). SCART A 21-pin connector used by many Videos and TVs to send picture and sound information into one socket. Script File A set of commands saved as a ASCII text file, so you don't have to type them out by hand. Scrolling Moving a screen in any given direction. SCSI Small Computer Systems Interface. A device that allows you to connect hardware to it such as laser printers, memory expansions and hard drives. It is quite a fast interface. Self-Booting Disk A disk that starts up of its own accord. Most disks are self-booting e.g. your Workbench disk is self-booting. Sequencer A means of recording all the notes and performance data to be played by a synthesizer. No sounds are recorded, just the instructions to tell the synthesizer what to do. Shareware Software which is initially free but if you like the program then you are meant to pay for it. It allows you to try before you buy. Usually after paying you will get the latest version of your program. Sheet Feeder A device which automatically gives the printer a fresh piece of paper whenever needed. Shell An advanced version of CLI, which allows you to use standard AmigaDOS operations such as deleting or copying a file. SIMM Single In-line Memory Management units. RAM for the Amiga usually comes in the form of SIMM cards which plug easily into the appropriate slots on the motherboard. Splitter A device for splitting a video image into red, green and blue image components instead of with a black and white camera or filters. Sprite A graphic that can move over a background without affecting it. Used for mouse pointers and in games for ships, bullets etc. Startup-sequence A script file which is executed by standard Amiga DOS disks on loading. They handle the setting up of many programs and help the user by giving them less to do. SysOp System Operator. The person who is in charge of a BBS. Task A task is one individual software application which is running. Because the Amiga is multi-tasking it is possible to have more than one task running at any given time. Tractor Feed A mechanism which pulls a continuous line of paper through a printer. Upload To send a file from your computer to another computer. Virus Nasty programs which can harm your computer data. They can damage files stored on floppy disk or hard disk, they can crash the computer and ruin software. Some viruses are not very harmful, but annoying. Fortunately virus killing programs exist, check-out the Virus Checker series. Wild Card A function which allows you to group files together, e.g. look at all image files ending with .iff WIMP Windows Icon Menu Pointer. The first user interface which did not rely on the keyboard. It used the mouse and pointer instead. Window A frame which contains icons to data and programs on the computer. Workbench An Amiga program with a GUI which allows you to control many of the facilities of your Amiga. Many programs can be integrated into the Workbench environment. WYSIWYG What You See Is What You Get (pronounced whizzie-wig). Applies to a program in which the screen display matches the printed out-put. Y/C Video By keeping luminance (Y) and chrominance (C) video components separate a better picture quality can be obtained. This format is used in Super-VHS systems. Zorro Zorro boards are expansion boards for the high-end Amigas. Legal Stuff This file is the COPYRIGHT of Mark Klocek 1995 Ben Gaunt 1995 It must not be used/re-published etc. without written permission from both parties. Who can be contacted at CHANNEL X BBS on 0181 943 5187 or Fido - Ben Gaunt 2:256/260.12 END ===