V
* Vampire Tap
* Vaporware
* VAX: Virtual Address Extension
* VCACHE
* VDU: Visual Display Unit
* Vector Processor
* VGA: Video Graphics Array
* VHDL: VHSIC Hardware Description Language
* VHSIC: Very High Speed Integrated Circuit
* Video Adapter
* Video Board
* Video Card
* Video Display Board
* Video Memoryor Video RAM
* Virtual Memory
* VL-Bus: VESA Local-Bus
* VME64
* VMEBus: VERSAmodule Eurocard Bus
* Volatile Memory
* Voltage Regulator
* VPU: Visual Processing Unit
* VRAM: Video RAM
* VSB: Vestigial Sideband
vampire tap
A vampire tap (also called a piercing tap) is a device for physically connecting a station (i.e. a PC, a printer, or another device) to a network that uses 10BASE-5 cabling. This device clamps onto the cable, forcing a spike through a hole drilled through the outer shielding to contact the inner conductor while other spikes bite into the outer conductor. Vampire taps allow new connections to be made on a given physical cable while the cable is in use. This allows administrators to expand bus-topology network sections without interrupting communications.
Also called a piercing tap.
vaporware
Vaporware (also spelt as vapourware) is software or hardware which is announced by a developer well in advance of its release, but which then fails to emerge, either with or without a protracted development cycle. The term implies deception, or at least a negligent degree of optimism; that is, it implies that the announcer knows that product development is in too early a stage to support responsible statements about its completion date, feature set, or even feasibility.
VAX: Virtual Address Extension
VAX (an acronym from Virtual Address eXtension) is a 32-bit computing architecture that supports an orthogonal instruction set (machine language) and virtual addressing (i.e. demand paged virtual memory). It was developed in the mid-1970s by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). DEC was later purchased by Compaq, which in turn was purchased by Hewlett-Packard.
VCACHE
VCACHE is the 32-bit driver disk cache in Windows 9x and Windows ME that replaces MS-DOS Smartdrv and has the capability of dynamically changing depending on the available disk space and memory an application requires. VCACHE replaces the Smartdrive system used in older versions of Windows, whereas SmartDrive is a 16-bit driver.
VDU: Visual Display Unit
Visual Display Unit (VDU) includes a keyboard for input data and a screen for displaying output. The oldest and most popular type of VDU screen is the cathode-ray tube (CRT), which uses essentially the same technology as a television screen. Other types use plasma display technology and liquid-crystal displays.
Vector Processor
A vector processor, or array processor, is a CPU design that is able to run mathematical operations on multiple data elements simultaneously. This is in contrast to a scalar processor which handles one element at a time. The vast majority of CPUs are scalar (or close to it). Vector processors were common in the scientific computing area, where they formed the basis of most supercomputers through the 1980s and into the 1990s. Today almost all commodity CPU designs include some vector processing instructions, typically known as SIMD. Video game consoles and consumer computer-graphics hardware in particular rely heavily on vector processors in their architecture.
VGA: Video Graphics Array
Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a display standard for IBM PCs.VGA can be seen as an enhancement of and successor to the previous EGA and CGA graphics adapters. MCGA, also produced by IBM, is a simpler version of the VGA hardware.
VHDL: VHSIC Hardware Description Language
VHSIC Hardware Description Language (VHDL) is commonly used as a design-entry language for FPGAs and ASICs in electronic design automation of digital circuits.
VHSIC: Very High Speed Integrated Circuit
Very High Speed Integrated Circuit (VHSIC) is a very high-speed computer chip that uses a large-scale integration (LSI) and a very large scale integration (VLSI) technology. The abbreviation was coined by the US Department of Defense in the 1980s, in a project that led to the development of the VHDL language.
video adapter
Video adaptor is also known as graphics accelerator, video card, video board, video display board, display adapter, or graphics adapter. It is a component of a computer to convert a logical representation of an image stored in memory to a signal that can be used as input for a display medium, most often a monitor utilising a variety of display standards. The graphics card may be a stand-alone expansion card but is often also built into the computer.
video board
Video baord is also known as graphics accelerator, video card, video display board, display adapter, video adapter, or graphics adapter. It is a component of a computer to convert a logical representation of an image stored in memory to a signal that can be used as input for a display medium, most often a monitor utilising a variety of display standards. The graphics card may be a stand-alone expansion card but is often also built into the computer.
video card
Video card is also known as graphics accelerator, video board, video display board, display adapter, video adapter, or graphics adapter. It is a component of a computer to convert a logical representation of an image stored in memory to a signal that can be used as input for a display medium, most often a monitor utilising a variety of display standards. The graphics card may be a stand-alone expansion card but is often also built into the computer.
video display board
Video display board is also known as graphics accelerator, video card, video board, graphics card, display adapter, video adapter, or graphics adapter. It is a component of a computer to convert a logical representation of an image stored in memory to a signal that can be used as input for a display medium, most often a monitor utilising a variety of display standards. The graphics card may be a stand-alone expansion card but is often also built into the computer.
Video memory or video RAM
Video memory, also known as video RAM, is installed on a video adapter, which is a feature in most modern video adapters. This means that they have their own microprocessor that is capable of manipulating bit maps and graphics objects. Before an image can be sent to a display monitor, it is first represented as a bit map in an area of video memory called the frame buffer. The amount of video memory, therefore, dictates the maximum resolution and color depth available.
Virtual memory
Virtual memory or virtual memory addressing is a feature of computer systems wherin "permanent" data storage is used to assist in handling processing functions, thereby freeing more RAM or main memory (i.e. "active" or "fast" memory) to be used by running software. The use of virtual memory, though slower than if more RAM were added, allows a computer system to handle larger files and operate with more memory "headroom" than the computer actually physically possesses.
VL-Bus: VESA Local-Bus
VESA Local-Bus (VL-Bus or VLB) is a local bus architecture created by the Video Electronics Standards Association ( VESA ). VLB is mostly used in personal computers based on the Intel 80486 CPU. VESA Local Bus worked alongside the ISA bus; it acted as a high-speed conduit for memory-mapped I/O and DMA, while the ISA bus handled interrupts and port-mapped I/O. VLB has been replaced by a competing local bus architecture called PCI.
VME64
VME64, an expanded version of VMEbus, provides 64-bit data transfer and addressing. The regular VMEbus standard accommodates 32-bit address and data buses. Data transfers are 32, 16 and 8 bytes wide. The VME64 standard utilises this unused bandwidth to enable 64-bit block transfers. The lower 32 bits are placed on the regular D0 to D31 and the upper 32 bits placed on the idle address bus A01 to A31.
VMEbus: VERSAmodule Eurocard bus
VME bus, now also known as VERSAmodule Eurocard bus, is a backplane interconnection 32-bit bus system building on the Motorola VERSAbus standard. It is standardized by the IEC as ANSI/IEEE 1014-1987 and widely used in industrial, commercial and military applications with over 300 manufacturers of VMEbus products worldwide. VME64 is an expanded version that provides 64-bit data transfer and addressing.
volatile memory
Volatile memory is a type of memory that loses its contents when the power is turned off. All RAM (except the CMOS RAM used for the BIOS) is volatile. In contrast, the nonvolatile memory does not lost its contents when power off such as ROM.
voltage regulator
Voltage regulator is a small device or circuit that regulates the voltage fed to the microprocessor. The voltage regulator reduces the 5 volts used by a PC to the lower voltage(below 3.5 volts) required by the microprocessor.
VPU: Visual Processing Unit
Visual Processing Unit (VPU), also known as Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) is the microprocessor of a graphics card (or graphics accelerator) for a personal computer or game console. Modern VPUs or GPUs are very efficient at manipulating and displaying computer graphics, and their highly-parallel structure makes them more effective than typical CPUs for a range of complex algorithms.
VRAM: Video RAM
Video RAM (VRAM) is a special-purpose memory used by video adapters for better graphic performance. VRAM can be accessed by two different devices simultaneously: RAMDAC to access the VRAM for screen updates and the video processor to provide new data.
VSB: Vestigial Sideband
Vestigial sideband (VSB) is a type of amplitude modulation technique that encodes data by varying the amplitude of a single carrier frequency. Portions of one of the redundant sidebands are removed to form a vestigial sideband signal. Television broadcasts (regardless of NTSC, PAL, or SECAM analog video format) use this method if the video is transmitted in AM, due to the enormous bandwidth used. It may also be used in digital transmission, such as the ATSC-standardized 8-VSB. The Milgo 4400/48 modem used vesitigial sideband and phase-shift keying to provide 4800 bit/s transmission over a 1600 Hz channel.