Computer/Technical Jargon

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IA-32: Intel Architecture 32. Another name for x86-32.

IA-64: Intel Architecture 64. A 64-bit machine code found only on Intel Itanium CPU's. It is completely different than the machine currently used on your PC's CPU, which means your current programs will not run on the Intanium without some help. All Itanium CPU's have this help with something on them to translate old program's machine code to the IA-64 machine code. But since the two machine codes are so different, there is a major performance hit. Be that as it may, programs written for the IA-64 code are very powerful. The reason why IA-64 never took off is because of the cost of the equipment and cost of new software. Though still supported by Intel, it is all but dead.

IANA: Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. The international body that create and defines top-level domains, for instance the .com's. This organization is under the control of ICANN, but was once controled by the US Department of Defense.

ICANN: Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The organization charged with by the United States to oversee much of Internet's standards.

IDE: Intergrated Drive Eletronics. The is the controller within a drive. ATA drives are often and incorrectly called IDE drives. The interface is ATA, the controller is IDE.

IEEE: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. A non-profit organization that creates and defines standards. It has been around (in another form) since 1884 and some past presidents included Alexander Graham Bell. IEEE is now an international organization.

IEEE-1394: The technical name for what is usually called FireWire.

IEEE-802.11 The technical name for the Wi-Fi standard.

IEEE-802.16 The technical name for the WiMAX standard.

IEEE-802.20 A standard still in the works that is supposed to compete with WiMAX.

IEEE-802.3: The technical name for the ethernet standard.

i.Link: The name Sony uses for IEEE-1394, more often called Firewire.

IO address: Input/Output address. No computer can communicate directly to a device. The IO address is the location in memory the CPU goes looking for data the device wants to send, and then the CPU will place data there it wants to send to the device. IO adresses cannot be shared because there is no way to distinguish which device the data is meant for or from. Several IO addresses are reserved for system functions, such as where keyboard input is stored until processed.

IP: Internet Protocal. See TCP/IP.

IP address: A unique identification for every computer which is networked together by the TCP/IP standard. Although an IP address is most commonly thought of as an internet address, you do not need to be connected to the internet to have an IP address. Certain IP addresses are reserved for local networks, such as for homes or businesses. The most commonly used private IP address begin with 10 or 198. An IP address is 4 or 16 bytes long with each byte seperated by a period. The range of numbers in a byte is 0 to 255.

IRQ: Interupt Request. This is a method by which a device can let the CPU know it wants to talk to it. Which a device needs to talk to the CPU, it sends a signal through one of several IRQ wires. Really old computers supported only 8 and none can be shared. Later, 8 more were added. When the PCI slot was introduced with Plug 'n Play, a method of sharing IRQ lines was made. 4 devices could share one IRQ. Later, the whole system was redone to allow up to 255 different IRQ's.

ISA: Industry Standard Architechture. Also called 16-bit ISA. This is a expansion slot developed by IBM and derived from the short-lived PC slot, sometimes called 8-bit ISA. It operates at 8 MHz and originally was not Plug 'n Play compatible. Later, an EISA slot was created that was 32-bit. ISA was replaced by PCI slot when the Pentium was first introduced, though they appeared for quite a while afterwards. ISA slots are always black.

ISO: Internation Organization for Standardization. ISO is not an acronym, but rather a derivation of the Greek word ίσος (isos). This was done to attempt to maintain an international feel to the body. ISO creates and defines standards. A main difference between ISO and other standards bodies is that ISO defines standards thtt cover a broader range. The ISBN book standard is an ISO creation.

ISO-8859: A character encoding standard. Subsets of ISO-8859 include support for the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Cyrillic, Arabic, and Thai alphabets.

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