| Term | Description |
|---|
| F/T | Full Time
|
| FAB | Computer-Chip Fabrication Plant
|
| FAC | File Access Code
|
| FAMOS | Floating Gate Avalanche MOS
|
| FANS | Future Air Navigation System
|
| FAP | File Access Protocol
|
| FAPI | Family Application Program Interface
|
| FAQ | Frequently Asked Question
|
| FARNET | Federation of American Research Networks [Internet]
|
| FASIC | Function and Algorithm-Specific Integrated Circuit
|
| FAT | File Allocation Table
|
| FAX | Facsimile
|
| FAX/Data modem | A modemwhich can handle FAX protocols and also transmit data. Some older modems canonly either send faxes or receive them; most can do both. |
| FBC | Find By Content
|
| FC/AL | Fiber Channel/Arbitrated Loop
|
| FC/EL | Fiber Channel/Enhanced Loop
|
| FCB | File Control Block
|
| FCC | Federal Communications Commission
|
| FCC: | File Carbon Copy
|
| FCCSET | Federal Coordinating Council for
Science, Engineering and Technology
|
| FCI | Flux Changes per Inch
|
| FCL | Fibre Channel Loop
|
| FCPGA | Flip Chip Pin Grid Array [Intel]
|
| FCR | FIFO Control Register
|
| FCRAM | Fast-Cycle RAM
|
| FCS | Fiber Channel Standard + Frame Check Sequence
|
| FD | Floppy Disk + Floppy Drive + Full Duplex
|
| FDC | Floppy Disk Controller
|
| FDDI | Fiber Digital Device Interface +
Fiber Distributed Data Interface
|
| FDHD | Floppy Drive High Density
|
| FDISK | Fixed Disk
|
| FDM | Frequency Division Multiplexing
|
| FDMA | Frequency Division Multiple Access
|
| FDSL | (See DSL)
|
| FDX | Full Duplex
|
| FEC | Forward Error Correction
|
| FECN | Forward Explicit Congestion Notification
|
| FED | Field Emission/Emitter Display
|
| FEFO | First-Ended, First-Out
|
| FEP | Front End Processor
|
| FEPI | Front End Programming Interface
|
| FEPROM | Flash EPROM
|
| FERAM | Ferroelectric RAM
|
| FESDK | Far East Software Development Kit [Microsoft]
|
| FET | Field Effect Transistor
|
| FF | Flip-Flop + Form Feed
|
| FFDC | First Failure Data Capture [IBM]
|
| FFS | Fast File System
|
| FFST | First Failure Support Technology [IBM]
|
| FFT | Fast Fourier Transform + Final Form Text [IBM]
|
| FG | Floating Gate
|
| FGREP | Fixed Global Regular Expression Print [Unix]
|
| FHS | Fan Heat-Sink
|
| FHSS | Frequency-Hopping Spread Spectrum
|
| FIA | File Integrity Assessment
|
| FIB | Forwarding Information Base
|
| FIF | Fractal Image Format
|
| FIFO | First-In, First-Out
|
| File | A program, document, utility-anything that isn't hardwareon a computer. A file might contain a memo, a drawing done in a graphicsapplication, or a program itself. |
| File Server | A computer thatprovides networkedcomputers with access to shareable resources. A dedicated file server can beused only as a file server while it is on the network. A non-dedicated fileserver can be used simultaneously as a file server and a workstation. |
| File Sharing | Provisions in the networkingsystemsoftware which allow more than one user to access the same file. |
| FILO | First-In, Last-Out
|
| Finder | An essential component of the Macintoshsystem software. The Finder provides the interface to the Macintosh. It isthe program that is running when you start the Macintosh which allows you toview lists of and manipulate files. |
| FINDSTR | Find Strings
|
| FIP | File Processor Buffering
|
| FIPS | Federal Information Processing Standard
|
| FIR | Fast Infrared + Finite Impulse Response
|
| FireWire | An incredibly fast type of serial port that offers many of the best features of SCSI at a lower price. Faster than most types of parallel port, a single FireWire port is capable of chaining many devices without the need of a terminator. FireWire is similar in many respects to USB but is significantly faster and somewhat more expensive. It is heavily used for connecting audio/video devices to computers, but is also used for connecting storage devices like drives and other assorted devices like printers and scanners. |
| Firmware | Programs written permanently into ROMchips. |
| FIRST | Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams
|
| FITS | Flexible Image Transport System
|
| FIU | Fingerprint Identification Unit [Sony]
|
| FIX | Federal Internet Exchange
|
| Fixed Disk | See harddisk. |
| fixed width | As applied to a font, fixed width means that every character takes up the same amount of space. That is, an "i" will be just as wide as an "m" with empty space being used for padding. The opposite is variable width. The most common fixed width font is Courier. |
| Fixed-width Font | Also called amonospaced font. A fontin which all characters have uniform widths, such as Courier. Contrast with proportionalfont. |
| FK | Foreign Key
|
| FLA | Four Letter Acronym
|
| flash | Flash memory is similar to RAM. It has one significant advantage: it does not lose its contents when power is lost; it has two main disadvantages: it is slower, and it eventually wears out. Flash memory is frequently found in PCMCIA cards. |
| FLC | Ferro-electric Liquid Crystal
|
| FLD | Field
|
| FLL | FoxPro Link Library [Microsoft Fox Pro]
|
| Floating Point Unit (FPU) | A coprocessorthat provides hardware routines for mathematical function, to be used with a CPUthat does not have those functions built in. The 680x0and 80x86line of CPU chips had FPU chips available. Current CPUs (such as the PowerPCand the Pentiumchips) incorporate floating point functions and do not need a separate FPU. |
| floppy | An extremely common type of removable disk. Floppies do not hold too much data, but most computers are capable of reading them. Note though that there are different competing format used for floppies, so that a floppy written by one type of computer might not directly work on another. Also sometimes called "diskette". |
| Floppy Disk | A diskwhich is covered with protective packaging and can be removed from its drive.Currently, floppy disks are generally 3.5 inches wide. The protective coveringon 3.5"_disks_is_hardplastics_prompting_some_to_think_that_these_are_hard_disks_but_theyare_not.__The_media_inside_is_the_same_floppy_material_as_that_insidethe_older_5.25" disks. Floppy disks also come in different densities and caremust be taken to use a disk of appropriate density or data may be lost from thedisk. Floppy disks are noted for their relatively slow speed, small capacity,and low price. |
| FLOPS | Floating Point Operations Per Second
|
| Flow Control | Also calledhandshake. The processes used to regulate the rate at which information istransferred from one device to another. One device sends a signal to the otherwhen information can be transferred. |
| FMD | Fluorescent Multilayer Disk
|
| FMRI | Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
|
| FMS | Forms Management System
|
| FMT | Format
|
| FMV | Full Motion Video
|
| FNT | Font
|
| FOCUS | Forum of Control Data Users
|
| FOD | Fax On Demand
|
| FOG | First Osborne Group
|
| FOIP | Fax Over Internet Protocol
|
| FOIRL | Fiber Optic Inter Repeater Link [IEEE]
|
| Folder | A graphical representation of adirectoryor subdirectory. On the Macintoshand some other graphical user interfaces (GUIs).Folders contain files and other folders. |
| FOLDOC | Free On-Line Dictionary Of Computing
|
| Font | A set of letters, numbers,punctuation marks, and symbols that are a given size and design. Some fonts canbe scaled to any size while others are a fixed size. Outline fonts, TrueTypefonts and PostScriptfonts are examples of scaleablefonts. |
| Font Cartridge | A fontcontained in a cartridge that physically plugs into your printer. Fontcartridges are used by laser printers such as those in the HP LaserJet family,but some dot-matrix printers also use font cartridges. |
| Font Family | A group designation that describes the generallook of a font.For example, the Roman font family contains proportionatelyspaced fonts with serifs. |
| Font size | See pointsize |
| Footer | Text that appears at the bottomof document pages when they are printed. Compare with header. |
| Foreground | The area of the Screenthat the active windowoccupies. Contrast with background. |
| Format | (1)Preparing a diskfor use by your hardware and operating system. Also called Initializing. Whenthe computer initializes a disk, it also destroys any information already there(just as recordinging on a cassette tape replaces what was previously there withwhat you record). (2)Formatting also refers to the way text is set up on a page(underlining, bold, indenting, etc.) (3)The way information is structured in afile, often specific to a particular application. |
| FORTH | (Programming Language)(See HLL)
|
| FORTRAN | Formula Translator (Programming Language)(See HLL)
|
| FOSE | Federal Office Systems Exposition
|
| FOSI | Format Option Specification Instance
|
| FOSSIL | Fido/Opus/Seadog Standard Interface Layer
|
| FPC | Floating Point Calculation
|
| FPCE | Floating-Point C Extension (specification)
|
| FPGA | Field Programmable Gate-Array
|
| FPLA | Field Programmable Logic-Array
|
| FPM | Fast Page Mode
|
| FPP | Fixed Path Protocol + Floating Point Processor
|
| FPR | Floating-Point Register
|
| FPS | Favorite Picture Selection + Frames Per Second
|
| FPT | Forced Perfect Termination
|
| FPU | Floating Point Unit
|
| FPX | FlashPix (format) [Kodak]
|
| FQDN | Fully Qualified Domain Name [Internet]
|
| FRAD | Frame Relay Access Device +
Frame Relay Assembler/Disassembler
|
| FRAG | Fragment + Fragmentation
|
| FRAM | Ferroelectric Random-Access Memory
|
| FRC | Functional Redundancy Checking
|
| FRED | Frame Editor + Front-End to Dish
|
| FreeBSD | A free variant of Berkeley UNIX available for Alpha and x86 based machines. It is not as popular as Linux. |
| Freeware | Softwarethat is provided without charge. Contrast with shareware. |
| FRPI | Flux Reversals Per Inch
|
| FS | File Separator
|
| FSB | Front Side Bus
|
| FSD | File System Driver [OS/2]
|
| FSE | Full Screen Editor
|
| FSF | Free Software Foundation [Internet]
|
| FSK | Frequency Shift Keying
|
| FSN | Full Service Network
|
| FSO | Free Space Optics
|
| FSP | File Service Protocol
|
| FSR | Free System Resources
|
| FST | Flat Square Tube (monitor)
|
| FTAM | File Transfer, Access and Management +
File Transfer and Access Method
|
| FTL | Flash Transition Layer [Intel]
|
| FTM | Flat Tension Mask [Zenith]
|
| FTP | File Transfer Protocol [Internet]
|
| FTPD | File Transfer Protocol Daemon
|
| FTS | Federal Telecommunication System
|
| FTTB | Fiber To The Basement
|
| FTTC | Fiber To The Curb
|
| FTTN | Fiber To The Neighborhood
|
| FTX | Fault Tolerant Unix
|
| FUI | File Update Information
|
| FUNC | Function
|
| function keys | On a computer keyboard, the keys that start with an "F" that are usually (but not always) found on the top row. They are meant to perform user-defined tasks. |
| FVT | Full Video Translation +
Functional Verification Test
|
| FWTK | Firewall Toolkit
|
| FXP | File Exchange Protocol
|
| FYI | For Your Information
|
