Definitions for building your first computer.
AGP card and slot: Accelerated Graphics Port, a high speed video card, requiring a dedicated port. See Parts of the Motherboard.
BIOS: Basic Input Output System, its program controls keyboard, monitor, disk drives, and keeps track of hardware settings. Controls the boot sequence.
Booting up: starting your computer and its operating system.
Bundled: parts sold together as a group. For instance, motherboard and chip sold together; or CPU, heatsink, and fan.
Burn-in: a test period, usually 24 to 72 hours, where equipment has electrical current applied continuously.
Case exhaust fan: fan that draws air from inside the case, is separate from power supply fan.
Celeron: brand of CPU sold by Intel
CPU: Central Processing Unit, the microprocessor, now made by Intel or AMD. See Installing the CPU.
DOS Shell: a user interface that made MS-DOS easier to cope with. A mouse could be used to select commands from a menu.
Heatsink and fan: cooling apparatus for the CPU. Heatsink is usually a finned aluminum block. Fan sits on top of it.
Motherboard: the mainboard, into which all other devices feed info. See Parts of the Motherboard.
PCI card and slot: Peripheral Component Interconnect, most expansion cards, for sound, video capture, additional USB and Firewire ports, are PCI. See Parts of the Motherboard.
Power supply fan: draws air from the power supply, and some from the case. Once was the only fan computers had.
RAM: Random Access Memory, holds data in use by the operating system and software, before and after it passes to the CPU.
ZIF: Zero Insertion Force, a socket for CPU in which the chip falls neatly into place with no pushing. Modern CPU sockets are ZIF.