Abbreviations: IT and Communications
The terms in this page are necessarily a bit technical. If setting questions, it's probably as well to give a bit of context.
For example: "In the field of data communications, what does ADSL stand for?"
| ADSL |
 |
Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line |
| AOL |
|
America OnLine (the name of a venerable Internet service provider) |
| ASCII |
|
American Standard Code for Information Exchange |
| ATM |
|
Automatic Telling Machine |
| BASIC |
|
Beginner's All–purpose Symbolic Instruction Code |
| BIOS |
|
Basic Input–Output System |
| Bit |
|
Binary digit |
| CMYK |
|
Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, blacK (in colour printing etc.) |
| COBOL |
|
COmmon Business Oriented Language |
| CSV |
|
Comma Separated Values (or Variables) |
| DOS |
|
Disc Operating System |
| DTP |
|
Desk–Top Publishing |
| EBCDIC |
|
Extended Binary–Coded Decimal Interchange Code |
| EDP |
|
Electronic Data Processing |
| ENIAC |
|
Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer |
| EPOS |
|
Electronic Point Of Sale |
| EPROM |
|
Erasable, Programmable Read–Only Memory |
| FORTRAN |
|
FORmula TRANslating (full name The IBM Mathematical Formula
Translating System) |
| FTP |
|
File Transfer Protocol |
| GIF |
|
Graphics Interchange Format |
| GIGO |
|
Garbage In, Garbage Out |
| HTML |
|
HyperText Markup Language |
| HTTP |
|
Hyper Text Transfer Protocol |
| IMAP |
|
Internet Message Access Protocol |
| ISP |
|
Internet Service Provider |
| JPEG |
|
Joint Photographic Experts Group |
| LAN |
|
Local Area Network |
| LEO |
|
|
| mips |
|
Millions of instructions per second |
| modem |
|
Modulator / Demodulator |
| MPEG |
|
Moving Picture Experts Group |
| OCR |
|
Optical Character Recognition (or Reader) |
| OS |
|
Operating System |
| PDF |
|
Portable Document Format |
| Pixel |
|
Picture element |
| PNG (file format) |
|
Portable Network Graphics |
| POP |
|
Post Office Protocol
|
| PROM |
|
Programmable Read Only Memory |
| QR |
|
Quick Response (code) |
| RAM |
|
Random Access Memory |
| ROM |
|
Read Only Memory |
| SMS |
|
Short Message Service |
| TCP/IP |
|
Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol |
| TIFF |
|
Tagged Image File Format |
| URL (internet) |
|
Uniform Resource Locator |
| USB |
|
Universal Serial Bus |
| VDU |
|
Visual Display Unit |
| VoIP |
|
Voice over Internet Protocol |
| VPN |
|
Virtual Private Network |
| WAN |
|
Wide Area Network |
| WYSIWYG |
|
What You See Is What You Get |
© Haydn Thompson 2017–24
