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29-letter words containing a, e, r, t, i, o

  • extended memory specification — (storage)   (XMS) The specification describing the use of IBM PC extended memory in real mode for storing data (but not executable code). Memory is made available by extended memory manager (XMM) software. The XMM functions are accessible through interrupt 2FH.
  • extended video graphics array — (hardware, graphics)   (EVGA) A display standard introduced by VESA in 1991. It offers a maximum resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels (non-interlaced) and a 70 Hz refresh rate. EVGA should not be confused with the older EGA (Enhanced Graphics Array) or XGA (eXtended Graphics Array).
  • extraordinary general meeting — a meeting specially called to discuss a particular item of a company's business, usually one of some importance. The meeting may be called by a group of shareholders or by the directors
  • familial hypercholesterolemia — an inherited metabolic disorder caused by a lack or malfunction of receptors for the low-density lipoproteins that activate removal of cholesterol from the blood. Abbreviation: FH.
  • federation of the west indies — West Indies (def 2).
  • federative republic of brazil — official name of Brazil.
  • fibre channel-arbitrated loop — (hardware, standard)   (FC-AL) A fast serial bus interface standard intended to replace SCSI on high-end servers. FC-AL has a number of advantages over SCSI. It offers higher speed: the base speed is 100 megabytes per second, with 200, 400, and 800 planned. Many devices are dual ported, i.e., can be accessed through two independent ports, which doubles speed and increases fault tolerance. Cables can be as long as 30 m (coaxial) or 10 km (optical). FC-AL enables self-configuring and hot swapping and the maximum number of devices on a single port is 126. Finally, it provides software compatibility with SCSI. Despite all these features FC-AL is unlikely to appear on desktops anytime soon, partly because its price, partly because typical desktop computers would not take advantage of many of the advanced features. On these systems FireWire has more potential.
  • field-programmable gate array — (hardware)   (FPGA) A gate array where the logic network can be programmed into the device after its manufacture. An FPGA consists of an array of logic elements, either gates or lookup table RAMs, flip-flops and programmable interconnect wiring. Most FPGAs are reprogrammable, since their logic functions and interconnect are defined by RAM cells. The Xilinx LCA, Altera FLEX and AT&T ORCA devices are examples. Others can only be programmed once, by closing "antifuses". These retain their programming permanently. The Actel FPGAs are the leading example of such devices. Atmel FPGAs are currently (July 1997) the only ones in which part of the array can be reprogrammed while other parts are active. As of 1994, FPGAs have logic capacity up to 10K to 20K 2-input-NAND-equivalent gates, up to about 200 I/O pins and can run at clock rates of 50 MHz or more. FPGA designs must be prepared using CAD software tools, usually provided by the chip vendor, to do technology mapping, partitioning and placement, routing, and binary output. The resulting binary can be programmed into a ROM connected to the FPGA or downloaded to the FPGA from a connected computer. In addition to ordinary logic applications, FPGAs have enabled the development of logic emulators. There is also research on using FPGAs as computing devices, taking direct advantage of their reconfigurability into problem-specific hardware processors.
  • floating-point representation — the representation of numbers by two sets of digits (a, b), the set a indicating the significant digits, the set b giving the position of the radix point. The number is the product arb, where r is the base of the number system used
  • french revolutionary calendar — Revolutionary calendar.
  • general purpose interface bus — IEEE 488
  • generic routing encapsulation — (networking, protocol)   (GRE) A protocol which allows an arbitrary network protocol A to be transmitted over any other arbitrary network protocol B, by encapsulating the packets of A within GRE packets, which in turn are contained within packets of B. Defined in RFC 1701 and RFC 1702 (GRE over IP).
  • genetically modified organism — genetically modified organism: an organism or microorganism whose genetic material has been altered by means of genetic engineering.
  • geographic information system — (application)   (GIS) A computer system for capturing, storing, checking, integrating, manipulating, analysing and displaying data related to positions on the Earth's surface. Typically, a GIS is used for handling maps of one kind or another. These might be represented as several different layers where each layer holds data about a particular kind of feature (e.g. roads). Each feature is linked to a position on the graphical image of a map. Layers of data are organised to be studied and to perform statistical analysis (i.e. a layer of customer locations could include fields for Name, Address, Contact, Number, Area). Uses are primarily government related, town planning, local authority and public utility management, environmental, resource management, engineering, business, marketing, and distribution.
  • get one's knickers in a twist — Also, knickerbockers [nik-er-bok-erz] /ˈnɪk ərˌbɒk ərz/ (Show IPA). loose-fitting short trousers gathered in at the knees.
  • gorno-altai autonomous region — an autonomous region in the Russian Federation, in the Altai territory bordering China and Mongolia. 92,000; 35,753 sq. mi. (92,600 sq. km). Capital: Gorno–Altaisk.
  • hang it (or them or 'em) up — to retire or quit
  • hardware description language — (language)   (HDL) A kind of language used for the conceptual design of integrated circuits. Examples are VHDL and Verilog.
  • hot swapable routing protocol — (spelling)   Incorrect spelling of incorrect expansion of HSRP - Hot Standby Routing Protocol.
  • in a corner/in a tight corner — If you are in a corner or in a tight corner, you are in a situation which is difficult to deal with and get out of.
  • in a majority/in the majority — If a group is in a majority or in the majority, they form more than half of a larger group.
  • in character/out of character — If someone's actions are in character, they are doing what you would expect them to do, knowing what kind of person they are. If their actions are out of character, they are not doing what you would expect them to do.
  • incremental constraint solver — A system in which a constraint solver is given constraints one at a time by an inference engine (as is found in Prolog). The solver adds the new constraint to an initially empty set of solved constraints. If the new constraint is consistent with the solved constraints it will be added to the set. If it was inconsistent, the inference engine backtracks. This is the basis of Constraint Logic Programming.
  • individual retirement account — a savings plan that offers tax advantages to an individual depositor to set aside money for retirement. Abbreviation: IRA.
  • information management system — (database)   (IMS, IMS/VS, IMS/ESA) A database system from IBM consisting of IMS/Data Base and IMS/Data Communications.
  • integrated accounting package — all-in-one software that enables businesses to carry out accounting procedures
  • integrated systems laboratory — (company)   A joint project of Control Data Corporation and NCR Corporation, established in 1973 and dissolved in 1976. Integrated Systems Laboratory developed Software Writer's Language. Address: Escondidio, California, USA.
  • interface definition language — (IDL) 1. An OSF standard for defining RPC stubs. 2. Part of an effort by Project DOE at SunSoft, Inc. to integrate distributed object technology into the Solaris operating system. IDL provides the standard interface between objects, and is the base mechanism for object interaction. The Object Management Group's CORBA 1.1 (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) specifies the interface between objects. IDL (Interface Definition Language) is the base mechanism for object interaction. The SunSoft OMG IDL CFE (Compiler Front End) version 1.2 provides a complete framework for building CORBA 1.1-compliant preprocessors for OMG IDL. To use it you write a back-end. A complete compiler of IDL would translate IDL into client side and server side routines for remote communication in the same manner as Sun's current RPCL compiler. The IDL compiler front end allows integration of new back ends which can translate IDL to various programming languages. Several companies including Sunsoft are building back ends to the CFE which translate IDL into target languages, e.g. Pascal or C++, in the context of planned CORBA-compliant products. IDL requires C++ 2.1. Not to be confused with any of the other IDLs. E-mail: <[email protected]>. Telephone: Mache Creeger, SunSoft, Inc. +1 (415) 336 5884.
  • intermedia interchange format — A Standard Hypertext Interchange format from IRIS.
  • international code of signals — a system of maritime signals adopted by many of the maritime nations of the world, using flag, semaphore, and Morse codes in which letters or letter combinations are given arbitrary designations readily understood without requiring translation.
  • international system of units — an internationally accepted coherent system of physical units, derived from the MKSA (meter-kilogram-second-ampere) system, using the meter, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela as the basic units (SI units) respectively of the fundamental quantities of length, mass, time, electric current, temperature, amount of substance, and luminous intensity. Abbreviation: SI.
  • juvenile rheumatoid arthritis — rheumatoid arthritis that begins before puberty, often preceded by such symptoms as fever, patchy rash, and weight loss.
  • lassen volcanic national park — a national park in N California, in the S Cascade Range, including Lassen Peak. 163 sq. mi. (422 sq. km).
  • law of independent assortment — the principle, originated by Gregor Mendel, stating that when two or more characteristics are inherited, individual hereditary factors assort independently during gamete production, giving different traits an equal opportunity of occurring together.
  • like bees to/round a honeypot — If something attracts people like bees to a honeypot or like bees round a honeypot, it attracts people in large numbers.
  • like taking candy from a baby — very easy to accomplish
  • link access protocol balanced — (protocol)   (LAPB) X.25 layer 2 (data link layer) protocol.
  • long day's journey into night — a play (1956) by Eugene O'Neill.
  • longitudinal redundancy check — (storage, communications)   (LRC, Block Redundancy Check) An error checking method that generates a longitudinal parity byte from a specified string or block of bytes on a longitudinal track. The longitudinal parity byte is created by placing individual bytes of a string in a two-dimensional array and performing a Vertical Redundancy Check vertically and horizontally on the array, creating an extra byte. This is an improvement over the VRC because it will catch two errors in the individual characters of the string, beyond the odd errors.
  • lotus development corporation — (company)   A software company who produced Lotus 1-2-3, the Symphony spreadsheet and Lotus Notes for the IBM PC. Disliked by the League for Programming Freedom on account of their lawsuits. Quarterly sales $224M, profits $10M (Aug 1994). Telephone: +1 (617) 225 1284.
  • management information system — a computerized information-processing system designed to support the activities and functions of company management. Abbreviation: MIS.
  • mark-sweep garbage collection — Each cell has a bit reserved for marking which is clear initially. During garbage collection all active cells are traced from the root and marked. Then all cells are examined. Unmarked cells are freed.
  • mecklenburg-western pomerania — a state in NE Germany. 8842 sq. mi. (22,900 sq. km). Capital: Schwerin.
  • metadata information partners — The Metadata Company
  • microelectromechanical system — (hardware)   (MEMS) The integration of mechanical structures (moving parts) with microelectronics. MEMS devices are "custom" designed for a purpose which requires a mechanical action to be controlled by a computer. Applications include sensors, medical devices, process controls. See also nanotechnology.
  • modified frequency modulation — (storage)   (MFM, Modified FM, or sometimes "Multiple Frequency Modulation") A modification to the original frequency modulation scheme for encoding data on magnetic disks. MFM allows more than 1 symbol per flux transition (up to 3), giving greater density of data. It is used with a data rate of between 250-500 kbit/s on industry standard 3.5" and 5.25" low and high density diskettes, and up to 5 Mbit/s on ST-506 hard disks. Except for 1.44 MB floppy disks, this encoding is obsolete. Other data encoding schemes include GCR, FM, RLL. See also: PRML.
  • monday-morning quarterbacking — wisdom after the event, esp by spectators
  • mordovian autonomous republic — an autonomous republic in the Russian Federation in Europe. 9843 sq. mi. (25,493 sq. km). Capital: Saransk.
  • more trouble than it is worth — If you say that someone or something is more trouble than they are worth, you mean that they cause you a lot of problems or take a lot of time and effort and you do not achieve or gain very much in return.
  • multics relational data store — (database)   (MRDS) The first commercial relational database, implemented as part of Multics by Jim Weeldreyer and Oris Friesen of Honeywell Phoenix in about 1977. MRDS included a report writer called LINUS written by Jim Falksen.
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