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4. Glossary

DSP
Digital signal processor, main chip of SoundBlaster and similar cards.
Stereo-on-One
Two 8 bit digital-analog converters on a parallel port used for sound output in stereo, designed by Mark J. Cox. Supported by ModPlay 2.00, Inertia Player and others.
Disney Sound Source
Single mono D/A converter that can be muted by software. Further information wanted !
Dongle
Plug for parallel or serial port used for the protection of expensive software like AutoCAD. Without this plug the software doesn't work. INSIDE does not need a dongle !
AdLib
Old standard for sound cards. Most modern sound cards emulate AdLib.
PS/2 compatible parallel port
IBM PS/2 series computers have a parallel port that can be used for 8 bit data input instead of 8 bit data output. On modern mainboards with on-board parallel port this function can most likely be enabled in CMOS setup: change the Parallel Port Mode to Bidirectional, ECP, EPP or ECP+EPP instead of Standard. ECP and EPP are enhancements that include PS/2 compatibility but provide further functions, too.
Loopback-Plug
Program specific plug used for diagnosis of parallel, serial, or game ports. Norton Diagnostics is a very famous program that supports loopback plugs.
Hint: INSIDE can use a loopback plugs for game, serial, and parallel port analysis. See Appendix for wiring.
Paddle
A simple regulator that can be used to move something up and down or left and right on the screen, on principle just a variable resistor. Today such paddles are often included in expensive joysticks (Gravis Analog Pro) because they can be used in some games (e.g. throttle control in flight simulators).
Joystick
There are two different kinds of joysticks. On PCs analog joysticks are used nearly exclusive. They are on principle built up from two crossed paddles (one for the x and one for the y direction) and multiple fire buttons. You can connect 2 joysticks with 2 fire buttons each to a fully equipped game port. Some joysticks (e.g. Gravis Analog Pro) are specially designed for games like flight simulators and consist of one stick, one paddle, and four fire buttons. The second kind of joystick is the digital joystick. This joystick consists of four micro switches, one for each direction, and multiple fire buttons which have all only one function. Digital joysticks are used with computers like C64, Amiga and Atari, with special game cards it is also possible to connect one or two digital joysticks to a PC. These game cards emulate a normal game card with one or two analog joysticks. Digital joysticks can be connected directly to some Schneider/Amstrad PCs, as far as I know, they simulate some keyboard keys on these PCs.
MCB - Memory Control Block
Information block of 16 Bytes that is used by DOS for memory management. Each part of memory has got a MCB that contains data about size and owner of the memory block.
FCB - File Control Block
Information block of 36 or 43 Bytes that used by CP/M and DOS to access files. DOS versions 2.0 and above use Handles for file access, but FCBs may still be used. Obsolete.
MDA - Monochrome Display Adapter
Very simple display adapter from IBM, only 80x25 characters monochrome text can be displayed, no graphics possible.
FPU (NPU, 80x87, Co-Processor)
Additional processor for computers based on the 8086/8088 chips and their successors, that takes over floating point operations from the CPU (the main processor) and that accelerates calcu-lating intensive applications (e.g. graphic applications, Excel) considerably. In modern processors (e.g. 80486DX, Pentium) the co-processor is already included, in this case INSIDE displays "built-in". But not all new processors have on-chip co-processors, e.g. some older versions of the NexGen Nx586 don't.
RapidCAD
Intel 80486DX processor without L1-Cache in an 80386DX core. As the co-processor is already included in the core, the 80387 is replaced by a very simple chip that generates a single signal (FERR - FPU Error) if necessary.
CPUID
Machine instruction, invented by Intel, that allows to identify different CPUs. This instruction is available on all Pentium and PentiumPro processors and as well on Intel 486 SL Enhanced processors. Meanwhile processors of other manufacturers support this instruction. If CPUID is officially supported (one bit in the extended flag registers may be toggled), INSIDE displays this as "CPUID officially supported". If not, INSIDE executes CPUID (80386 and higher only) and traps the invalid opcode exception that occurs when CPUID is not supported. Whether CPUID was executed or not is shown as "CPUID executed without error".
MSR - Machine Specific Register
Several CPU registers (AMD K5/K6, Cyrix 6x86MX, IBM 386/486 SLC, IDT C6, Intel Pentium/Pentium Pro/Pentium II) for clock measurement, configuration and other purposes.
TSC - Time Stamp Counter
Special MSR for clock measurement (AMD K5/K6, Cyrix 6x86MX, IDT C6, Intel Pentium/Pentium Pro/Pentium II). The TSC is a 64 bit counter that is increased by one every clock cycle (i.e. on a iPentium-133, the counter is increased by approx. 133,000,000 every second). You can evaluate the processor clock by counting by how much the counter is increased in one second. The TSC is set to 0 when the computer is switched on or a hardware reset is performed.
Real Mode / Protected Mode / Virtual 8086 Mode (V86 Mode)
Three operating modes of 80386 and higher CPUs, with exception of the virtual 8086 mode also available on 80286. In real mode, the CPU behaves like an 8086/8088. In protected mode, the CPU's extensions, the virtual 8086 mode simulates real mode with the extensions of protected mode.
XMS
Extended Memory Specification - memory that is managed bay HiMem.SYS respectively HiDOS.SYS. The memory is accessed linearly in protected mode. Every XMS access means a change from real mode to protected mode and the other way round. This can take a long time, especially on 80286 CPUs and on newer CPUs with bad BIOSes.
EMS
Expanded Memory Specification (established by Lotus, Intel, and Microsoft) - originally an extension card that put memory into memory range from $C0000 to $EFFFF in small blocks. The memory was directly accessible without protected mode. Today EMS is emulated in most cases, the CPU is in virtual 8086 mode then. So-called NEAT chipsets produced by Chips & Technologies for 80286 (82C212) and 80386SX (82C812) processors can simulate an EMS card.
BGI
Borland Graphics Interface - a collection of drivers for Borland/Turbo C, C++, and Pascal that allows hardware independent graphic programming.
Virtual Share
At least Windows 3.11 for Workgroups and OS/2 simulate SHARE, even if SHARE was not loaded from DOS. (By the way: the Windows virtual driver is called VSHARE.386).
DPB - DOS Drive Parameter Block
see INSIDE, page "Drive Parameters"
FAT - File Allocation Table
DOS' file system
HPFS - High Performance File System
OS/2's file system
IFS - Installable File System.
Possibility to read and write data medias with other file systems than FAT, established with DOS 4. The most typical example is the CD-ROM, that doesn't use FAT but ISO 9600 or High Sierra. MSCDEX, NWCDEX or CorelCDX (or another program with the same function) in cooperation with the CD-ROM driver adapts these file systems to DOS. Another example are the numerous HPFS drivers that work usually similar. Network drivers work on principle like that, too, but they were already established in MS-DOS 3.1.
AMIS - Alternate Multiplex Interrupt Specification
Ralf Brown's proposition for a common interrupt for different programs. Alternative for the overloaded interrupt $2F with a more precise and extendable specificationand dynamic instead of fixed slot numbers.

Documentation: Copyright © 1997 by Hendrik Foken
Program: Copyright © 1997 by Alexander Foken