| Unix |
Described by one of its developers as "a weak pun on Multics" (which was an experimental, time-sharing operating system at Bell Labs in the 1960s), Unix took off in the early 1970s as a general-purpose operating system. Since much of the Internet is hosted on Unix machines, the OS took on a new surge of popularity in the early 1990s. Unix comes in many flavors--including Xenix, Ultrix, GNU, and Linux--and runs on a variety of platforms, which makes its development a subject of widespread discussion. But the truly great debate involves how to style the word itself: should it have an initial capital (Unix)? Or should it be in all caps (UNIX)? Since the operating system itself is case-sensitive, the debate rages. Bell Labs' implementation of Unix is trademarked in all caps; for the other implementations, it's optional. Mac OS X is our newest OS and is based on Unix.
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| URL - uniform resource locator or univer |
URLs are the Internet equivalent of addresses. How do they work? Like other types of addresses, they move from the general to the specific (from zip code to recipient, so to speak). Take this URL, for example:
http://www.missmac.com/gloss.html
First you have the protocol:
http:/
then the server address or domain:
/www.missmac.com
and finally the directory:
gloss.html
in which the file gloss.html resides.
Two debates rage: first, does the U stand for uniform or universal? Universal was the original definition of choice but was deemed by most to be too ambitious, and the more frequently used uniform was instated by the now-defunct URI Working Group. Second, is URL pronounced "you are ell," or does it rhyme with hurl? Both pronunciations are widely used.
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| USB - universal serial bus |
Imagine replacing all those ports on the back of your Mac--mouse, keyboard, serial, parallel, joystick, and more with a single port. Now imagine you can daisy-chain as many as 127 peripherals off that port and use them all at once. Finally, imagine that the port supports data transfer rates up to 12MB/sec, making it suitable for even high-bandwidth applications such as video. Imagine no more. USB, designed by a consortium of PC manufacturers including Compaq, Digital, and IBM, can do all this and more. USB-ready systems and peripherals hit the market en masse in 1997 and are now the industry standard. Apple implemented firewire which is able to transfer large amounts of data between computers and peripheral devices. Macs purchased today have both USB and firewire ports.
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