
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