CAD (or CADD) Computer Aided Drafting (or Computer Aided Design & Drafting) The process by which a computer program is used to generate a drawing. CAD is used in the construction of many complex items including buildings, roads, spacecraft, autos, appliances, electrical, etc.
CAS Column Address Strobe. A term used to describe a certain kind of RAM design.
CAS 2 (latency) This denotes that two clock cycles are needed to address a column of a memory chip. CAS 2 memory is preferable to CAS 3 memory, and is often more expensive. You can sometimes set the CAS latency of your SDRAM memory in your BIOS - do not adjust these settings without knowing which kind of RAM you have installed.
CAS 3 (latency) This denotes that three clock cycles are needed to address a column on a memory chip.
CAT3 Category 3 cable standard CAT3 cable is certified to run at up to 16 MHz. You can achieve speeds of up to 10 Mbps on Cat 3 cable.
CAT4 Category 4 cable standard CAT4 cable is certified to run at up to 20 MHz with speeds of up to 16 Mbps, such as with the 16 Mbps token-ring standard.
CAT5 Category 5 cable standard This is the latest copper wire standard. It uses an RJ-45 plug like Cat 3 and 4 (and 4-pair wire), but it is certified to run up to 100 MHz and is suitable for 100 Mbps wiring standards (if pinned-out correctly).
CCD Charge Coupled Device. Photosensitive CCD's are used in scanners, digital cameras video cameras. The CCD basically reads the image by storing a group of charges based on the image that it is exposed to.
CSS Cascading Style Sheets. You can use CSS to define a one or more styles on a single web page or group of web pages. The styles determine how information is displayed in browsers.
CD-ROM Compact Disc, Read Only Memory. An optical storage medium that makes use of the technology that created audio CD-ROM recordings. A CD-ROM disc cannot be further written to.
CD-RW Compact Disc, Rewriteable. An optical storage medium developed from CD-ROM technology that can be overwritten multiple times, reusable.
CISC Complex instruction-set computing. Pronounced "sisk." A microprocessor architecture that favors robustness of the instruction set over the speed with which individual instructions are executed. The Intel 486 and Pentium are both examples of CISC microprocessors.
CLEC Competitive Local Exchange Carriers.
CMOS Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor. This chip in your PC stores all of the hardware information required by your OS, including date, time, drive settings, boot options, etc. It is powered by a battery on your mainboard, keeping the settings even without power applied to the system.
CMYK Cyan Magenta Yellow blacK. Also known as four-color separation. A color specification definition typically used for printing. (See also RGB).
COBOL COmmon Business-Oriented Language This programming language was developed in the 1960's by several computer companies and the US Department of Defense.
CODEC Compression / Decompression.
CPU Central Processing Unit. This is the main chip in your PC which is responsible for all calculations. Intel is the primary manufacturer of CPU's, along with AMD and IBM. CPU's are identified by technology, then speed. For example: A Pentium III 550 is Pentium III design, built to run at 550mhz.
CRC Cyclical Redundancy Check. CRC is a term used to describe the error-checking procedure used during copying or transferring files. CRC errors are usually either a transfer error or physical drive sector failure.
CRT Cathode Ray Tube. CRT is a common term used to denote a display monitor.
CSEL Cable Select. This is basically Plug and Play ATA. You plug in your ATA/IDE hard drives and set them to CSEL (Cable Select) and they determine whether they are master or slave automatically. This may not work with multiple drives that are not compatible, so drives should be set to the appropriate master or slave setting.
CSS Cascading Style Sheets.
CSU/DSU Channel Services Unit / Data Services Unit. This is a device used in communications involving internal networks (LAN's) linking to WAN's or the Internet.
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