Backgammon: is a shareware game where you roll the dice and move your chips back to home.
Background Printing: enables you to print while working on other applications at the same time.
Background Printing: allows you to do other things on the computer while printing. When background printing is turned off, the printer prints faster, but you cannot do anything else while printing. The Background Printing switch is
is found in the Chooser. The alias of the Chooser is in the Apple Menu.
Backgrounder: used under System 6.0.x to support background printing.
Backlight Control: allows older PowerBooks (under systems earlier than 7.5) to dim or turn off backlighting after a period of inactivity.
Backup: to make a copy of a file/folder to prevent it from being trashed, corrupted or stolen.
Bad Sector: an unreadable area of a disk containing bad bits, making data within the sector unaccessible.
Balloon Help: A feature of system 7 or later, that helps you learn about certain parts of windows and desktop features. Also, helps provide information (help) on some programs that feature balloon help.
Basic Black: a simple shareware screen saver.
Basic Color Monitor: on Quadra models 700, 800, 900, and 950, as well as on Centris and Quadra models 610 and 650, some users have had problems with overly-green monitor displays. This extension fixes the bug on all Apple, and SOME non-Apple, monitors. However, on some non-Apple monitors, this extension would cause the screen to go blank. This problem cannot be resolved by simply removing the extension, since the settings are saved to the PRAM of the machine (and since you can't see anything ;-) ). The solution is to restart, zap the PRAM a couple times, and immediately start with extensions off. Then remove the extension.
Baud Rate: is the speed of a modem (sometimes referred to as bytes per second). But, bps and baud are not actually identical in modem speed.
BBEdit Lite 3.5.1: is a shareware text editor, programming editor and also has an optional ftp extension for transferring text files on a network.
BBEdit 4.0 Demo: is the same as above, only it has extended features for writing HTML documents. It’s great for a person who wants to learn how to write code for making a web page. It also has advanced features for the programmer too.
BBS: is an electronic bulletin-board system (located on a network) that allows you to post messages to using your computer @ a modem.
Beta Test: this test is exclusively when applied to software. When a software program is so new, and the bugs and conflicts have not been resolved yet.
Big Picture: is a shareware program for zooming and flipping images. A great program for making movies.
Billminder: an extension used by Quicken to alert the user that a bill payment is due. I have heard many complaints about conflicts with this extension.
BIOS: Basic Input/Output System. Aroutine stored in ROM (read-only memory) that controls communications between the PC and its hardware.
Bit: is the smallest unit of computer data or information. A single character is represented by eight bits in a unit called a byte. 8-bits equals 1 byte.
BlackJack Attitude: is a shareware card game where you play BlackJack at three different tables in the Demo version. You can double, split and make bets.
BlackJack Deluxe: is a shareware card game where you play BlackJack and is almost the same as above but also the dealer talks to you and if you want a drink, the waitress will ask if you want one and will get if for you.
Block: a file unit in which sectors are stored.
BMP (bitmap): is a graphic file created in a format native to Microsoft Windows. The BMP format is used primarily for backgrounds and wallpapers for Windows. You'll recognize these types of files by their file extension .bmp (kites.bmp). BMP files are usually larger than other graphic files, and have some limitations. Their biggest advantage is that they can be viewed by all Windows users with the Windows Paintbrush program.
Bomb: a message box containing a bomb icon to alert you that a problem has occured within your software system. Restarting the system is required.
Boot: to start the computer or reboot; restart. To restart your Macintosh after a bomb has occurred, hold down the command () and control keys and press the power key.
Boot Blocks <programming> : information for starting the Macintosh that is contained within the first two sectors of a disk.
bps: stands for bytes per second. The number of 0’s and 1’s that go through your phone line per second. A modem running at a speed of 28.8Kbps is equivelant to 28,800 bps.
Branch <programming> : source code that allows a program to follow just one of two or more paths. The switch and the if statements are examples of C branches.
Bridge: a device that lets you connect AppleTalk networks together.
Brightness: allows you to set the screen brightness on Macs with software/onscreen brightness control (the Classic series).
Broadcast: is a chooser extension that enables communication between Macintosh computers by writing short messages.
Bug: is a programming error in a software program.
Bus: a connection (wires, etc.) which electrical signals are transmitted. Mac drives use the Mac SCSI bus and some accelerator cards use the Mac’s NuBus.
Bus Master: at a given time, the bus device that initiates a transaction. Also, a device with the ability to initiate a NuBus transaction by asserting the START line.
Button Disabler: used to disable the volume/brightness buttons on the front of the LC/Performa 500 series Macs.
Byte: a set in memory or on a disk containing 8 bits.
