OCR GCSE ComSci glossary of terms Flashcards
Abstraction
The act of filtering out unimportant aspects aspects of a complicated problem and concentrating on only the aspects that are important.
Accumulator (Acc)
a REGISTER in the PROCESSOR that stores data from calculations as they are taking place, before results are sent back to the CACHE or RAM
Adress
The location of a BYTE of MEMORY. Some SECONDARY STORAGE devices can have multiple TERABYTES of memory- each byte will have an address.
Adware
A piece of MALWARE that, once installed on a COMPUTER, will show adverts or other spam to the user.
AI
Artificial Intelligence- the next generation of COMPUTER PROGRAMS that are so advanced they seem to be capable of independent thought and reasoning.
algorithm
A set of step-by-step instructions for solving a problem or completing a task.
Alpha-testing
Early-stage testing of a program by it’s developers to find BUGS and issues that need fixing.
ALU
Arithmetic & Logic unit: the part of the PROCESSOR that performs calculations, comparisons and logic.
Analogue
Representing DATA as a continuous quantity, e.g. recording a sound as a wave on a record or magnetising tape in a cassette.
Analogue-to-digital converter
A device that takes an ANALOGUE signal, e.g. a sound wave, and converts it to a DIGITAL recording.
Anti-malware
A program usually included in an OPERATING SYSTEM’S UTILITY SYSTEM SOFTWARE designed to protect a COMPUTER against MALWARE.
Application Layer
The first layer of the TCP/IP PROTOCOLS. Contains information about the APLICATION the PACKET of data
is for, e.g. email, web browser, file transfer etc.
Application software:
PROGRAMS installed on a COMPUTER such as email programs, web browsers or games. They rely on the OPERATING SYSTEM and SYSTEM MANAGERS for resources to run.
Append
To add data to something, especially LISTS, ARRAYS and TEXT FILES.
Argument
A piece of DATA given to a SUBROUTINE to use in place of a PARAMETER. The subroutine must be CALLED with the
same number of arguments as the number of parameters it is coded with.