| Word or
Term |
Description or
Explanation |
| Magneto-optical |
a technology used to provide read-write data
storage with a removable medium - it is slower than the magnetic technology of
conventional hard drives, especially in writing - however, magneto-optical
discs are much cheaper than the cartridges used for conventional removable hard
discs |
| Mail exchanger |
a computer that handles mail for other
computers |
| Mail gateway |
a computer or service that links up two or more
email systems |
| Mail merge |
when you want to send the same document to many
people, you can use a file which contains the basic text which is to remain
constant - the changeable details are then held in a separate file - at the
time of printing, the computer will insert the information, such as names and
addresses, so that each letter is individually addressed |
| Mail server |
machines to which you connect to send and
receive mail |
| Mailbomb |
large amounts of data being emailed to one
person, repeatedly, until it kills their mail system or at least renders it
unusable - usually the result of seriously breaching netiquette |
| Mailing list |
a group of people who send and receive communal
email messages on a specific topic |
| Majordomo |
basically it's a set of scripts which you can
download for free, and they take care of automatically adding and removing
people from a mailing list - it also allows the list admin to set up various
policies which it enforces - it can automatically send all postings to a
moderator for review, or just postings which exceed a certain size, or only
allow postings from certain addresses - it can archive lists automatically, and
produce digests, which combine all the day's messages into one big email for
busy lists - these are just a few of the more major things it can do |
| the people who write it don't provide any of
the list services; you have to install it yourself if you want to use it - or
you can contact an ISP who runs it on their systems, and ask them to host the
list for you |
| you can find out more at
http://www.greatcircle.com/majordomo |
| Mask |
see
Transparency mask |
| Mb |
Megabyte - approximately one million bytes of
computer data (actually, it is 1K × 1Kb = 220 = 1024 ×
1024 = 1,048,576 bytes) |
| MDF |
Monitor Definition File - a file used in a
RiscPC to specify the parameters of the various modes that can be displayed on
a particular monitor, taking account of the monitor's own specific timings and
capabilities |
| MEMC |
MEMory Controller - the chip used on pre-RiscPC
Acorn computers to control the way the cpu and video controller accessed the
computer's memory |
| Metapage |
a web page that contains links to other web
pages |
| MHz |
MegaHertz or Millions of cycles per second -
this is most often used to refer to the speed of a computer's processor or
memory, e.g. the RiscPC 600 has a 30MHz processor which means that it can carry
out 30 million program steps each second |
| Midi |
Musical Instrument Digital Interface - a
defined standard for the physical link-up between musical instruments and
controllers, and also the format of the data transmitted |
| MIME |
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions -
Internet mail was originally designed to carry text messages composed of 7-bit
US ASCII characters - MIME extends the format of Internet mail messages to
include information about the type of data in the message (e.g. "this message
is a PostScript document", "this message is a GIF image", etc.) and provides
methods for encoding 8-bit data with arbitary line lengths into 7 bit printable
characters with restricted line lengths, which will be carried safely through
all mail systems, no matter how antiquated or restrictive they may be - MIME
makes multimedia mail possible, while retaining compatibility with the existing
Internet Mail distribution system - MIME is formally specified by Internet RFCs
1521 and 1522 |
| MIPS |
Million Instructions Per Second - a measure of
how fast a cpu is running in terms of the number of instructions it can execute
each second |
| Mirror site |
an FTP server which contains the same, or
similar, information as another somewhere else in the world - mirrors are often
set up to lessen transcontinental downloading |
| MJPEG |
Moving Joint Photographics Expert Group - a
version of the JPEG standard which is similar to the JPEG standard but uses
moving images rather than still pictures - it is used to prevent the blocking
which can occur with MPEG files |
| MMDS |
Multi-point Microwave Distribution System |
| MMX |
MultiMedia Extensions - a graphical enhancement
technology for use by Pentium-based computers |
| Mnemonic |
a code used in an assembler to represent a
machine code instruction |
| MNP |
Microcom Network Protocol - a system used by
modems to provide data compression and error correction for high speed data
transmission over phone lines - there are various standards of increasing speed
and complexity, e.g. MNP4 and MNP5 |
| Mode |
see Screen mode |
| Modem |
Abbreviation for
modulator-demodulator - a device which takes a serial stream of
computer data and converts it into audible tones that can be transmitted down a
telephone line that was originally design for carrying voice information - it
enables two computers to exchange data at a distance via the telephone
system |
| Moderator |
the person who runs a conference or newsgroup -
they have the responsibility of selecting which postings are used and which
not |
| Monitortype |
a computer variable that determines which
ranges of screen modes the computer will attempt to display on your
monitor |
| Mosaic |
a PC browser for the Web |
| Motherboard |
the main circuit board of a computer is
sometimes referred to as a motherboard, especially when, as in the RiscPC, many
of the functional parts of the computer are on separate PCBs (sometimes called
Daughterboards) that are plugged
into the main or motherboard |
| MPC |
Multimedia Personal Computer - the "standard"
multimedia computer used in the PC world |
| MPEG (1) |
Motion Picture Experts Group - a group of
technologists who are establishing an international standard for the
compression of moving video and its associated audio - MPEG compression uses
information from preceding and subsequent frames to allow further compression
than would otherwise be achievable |
| MPEG (2) |
a video that has been compressed using MPEG
techniques |
| MPEG (3) |
Moving Picture Expert Group - a file format
which was developed to cope with the large files which are generated when using
cameras and placing that film on disc - it checks surrounding frames and
removes parts of the picture which have not changed from the previous frame,
therefore saving space - this works fine for liner displaying, but when the
film needs to be edited, you can end up with black blocks in the middle of the
picture where the film was not started far enough back so that the data was not
read and so black squares appear - similar to pixelisation when a bit-mapped
image is enlarged - MJPEG was developed to cope with this and get around
it |
| MTBF |
Mean Time Between Failure - an indication of
how long, on average, it will be before a machine goes wrong |
| MUD |
Multi-User Dimension (or Multi User Dungeons
[and Dragons]) - a form of IRC where the participants take on a persona and do
role play activities |
| MUG |
Multi-User Game |
| Multimedia |
a blend of communications elements, usually
computer-based, which allow information in such forms as sound, speech, text,
still pictures, moving images and animations to be presented to the user so
that it can be accessed in an interactive way, the user selecting which
piece(s) of information to pursue |
| Multiplex |
a frequency band carrying several channels, and
sometimes additional data services, allowing a wide range of information to be
carried on one signal |
| Multisession |
information stored on a PhotoCD can be added to
at a later date with the appropriate (very expensive) equipment - in order to
read all the information on these CDs, you need a CD-ROM drive that is
multisession capable |
| Multisync monitor |
some monitors are designed (for cheapness) that
only display in certain modes - others can display a range of different modes -
they can synchronise onto a range of different frequency signals and are
therefore called 'multisync' monitors |
| Multitasking |
an operating system like RISC OS is capable of
running a number of different tasks all at the same time - this is multitasking
(actually, I think it's a bit of a con: the cpu can really only do one job at a
time but what it does is to do a little bit of each task every fraction of a
second) - there are two basic types of multitasking: preemptive and cooperative
(can anyone offer me a definition of those two?) |
| MUSE |
Multi-User Simulated Environment - place where
you can interact with other users |