A group of buttons on the computer screen of which only one
can be selected at a time (by clicking on it). Radio buttons are used a lot with interactive forms on World Wide Web pages.
remedial maintenance
Maintenance service that is needed to repair problems with the computer.
Rambus Inc.
The Mountain View, California, company which developed Rambus DRAM.
raster font
A bitmapped font. A font in which each character is formed from pixels arranged to make the shape of the character. Such an arrangement of pixels is called a bitmap.
Rapid Application Development
(RAD). A way of developing a system by completing a working part, implementing it, and adding more working parts every few months, instead of waiting to finish the entire project before putting the system into use. Otherwise, changes take place so fast in the computer industry that an application can be obsolete by the time it is implemented. Development tools such as visual programming and computer-assisted software engineering help with Rapid Application Development.
RAD
Rapid Application Development. A way of developing a system by completing a working part, implementing it, and adding more working parts every few months, instead of waiting to finish the entire project before putting the system into use. Otherwise, changes take place so fast in the computer industry that an application can be obsolete by the time it is implemented. Development tools such as visual programming and computer-assisted software engineering help with Rapid Application Development.
RAD tool
Rapid Application Development tool. Software that speeds up the development of applications.
radio
Wireless transmission of electric signals by way of electromagnetic waves, including the use of electromagnetic waves to transmit electric impulses that carry converted sound signals.
radix
1. The base of a system of numbers; decimal numbers are radix ten, binary numbers are radix two, and hexadecimal numbers are radix sixteen. 2. The positive integer by which the value of one digit place must be multiplied to give the value of the next higher digit place; for example, in a decimal system, each digit place is multiplied by 10 to arrive at the value of the next higher digit place, so the radix is 10.
Redundant Arrays of Independent Disks
(RAID) Originally "Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks". The use of two or more disk drives instead of one disk, which provides better disk performance, error recovery, and fault tolerance, and includes interleaved storage techniques and mirroring of important data. This approach was developed by a research project at the University of California, Berkeley.
