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U-BOOT(pronounced "you-boot")
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An abbreviation for Universal Bootloader, a project that provides firmware with full source code under GPL that is used on the
AmigaOne. Many CPU architectures are supported: PowerPC(MPC5xx, MPC8xx, MPC82xx, MPC7xx, MPC74xx, 4xx), ARM(ARM7, ARM9,
StrongARM, Xscale), MIPS(4Kc,5Kc), x86, and so on as detailed at
http://u-boot.sourceforge.net/ and hosted at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/u-boot.
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UMTS (pronounced "U-M-T-S")
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Acronym for Universal Mobile Telephone System. |
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UNI (pronounced "you-nee")
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Abbrevation for Unidirectional Port.
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UNIDIRECTIONAL PORT (abbreviation "UNI")
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An older parallel port standard for PCs also known as Centronics that only supports uni-directional communication between the
PC and attached devices (such as a printer).
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UNINTERRUPTABLE POWER SUPPLY (abbreviation "UPS") |
A way of ensuring that even if the mains power supply fails, the current supply to your computer continues, but it is only
effective for a limited time depending on the size of the battery used to maintain the supply. In some cases it is only a few
minutes, but it is generally long enough to save what you are working on and shut down in a controlled manner. The more
sophisticated UPS systems used by large commercial computers can only use the battery supply until such time as a diesel
powered generator is fired up to take over, but this should not be emulated using small petrol generators as the current
isn't stable enough for computer use and may damage the internals of the computer.
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UNIVERSAL MOBILE TELEPHONE SYSTEM (abbreviation "UMTS")
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A digital mobile telephone technology to deliver lightning-fast broadband connections, making streaming audio and video
content a reality. This is the technology behind the third generation of digital mobile phones.
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| UNIVERSAL
SERIAL BUS (abbreviation
"USB") |
A
plug and play type connection for computer peripherals, ranging from
printers and scanners through to mice and keyboards. It has the advantage
that peripherals can be connected and disconnected while the system is
operational ("hot swapping"). The latter is essential when
connecting PDAs for data synchronisation or data transfer. In most cases a
computer will have only one or two USB ports, so a hub may be required to
add additional ports. |
| UNIX
(pronounced "U-nicks") |
An effective resource-sharing multi-processing
Operating System developed by AT&T during the early 70's, but because AT&T was not
allowed to sell computer products at this time, it released copies of it for educational
purposes. Hence the popularity of UNIX spread, and some years later, with the release of
Version 7, AT&T decided to restrict access to the source code. UNIX then split into
two distinct streams: 4.x BSD originating from the University of California at Berkeley,
where Version 7 was ported to the DEC-VAX architecture, while System V, now moving into
the business world, was the result of AT&T's modifications to Version 7. Both streams
are slowly coming together again as the POSIX standard takes over.
• Amiga: Amiga UNIX was one of the first
releases of SVR4, and is acknowledged to be a complete implementation with full support
for networking, virtual memory and X-Windows. However, it needs at least 100Mb of hard
disk space, and about 10Mb of RAM, but there is a smaller version (without all the bells
and whistles) called MINIX that was written by Professor Andrew Tanenbaum in 1987 for
teaching purposes and requires much less resource. In effect AmigaDOS is not all that
different in its capabilities so unless you must have UNIX, stick with AmigaDOS.
However, the latest developments on the Amiga front have been based on
Linux.
• PC: Over recent
years, a popular implementation of Unix
in this environment is LINUX.
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| UNSNAPSHOT |
Unless the snapshot option has been used to make
an icon always appear in the same place within a window, WorkBench decides dynamically
where each icon should be placed. If the snapshot command has previously been used on an
icon, UnSnapshot lets you cancel that position and leave it to WorkBench to dynamically
place it once again. |
| UPLOADING |
The process of transferring programs and/or data
files from one computer to another device or computer. In the case of a BBS, uploading
refers to files that you transfer from your computer to the BBS. In most cases, this will
earn you credits which either give you more time or the ability to download more files.
The same terminology applies when using the Internet. |
| UPPERCASE |
Capitalised letters of a font, obtained by
pressing the keyboard keys and one of the SHIFT keys (up-arrow keys above the Alt keys) at
the same time. Uppercase letters may also be obtained by pressing the keyboard keys when
the red light of the Caps Lock key is on. |
| UPS
(pronounced
"U-P-S") |
Acronym for Uninterruptable Power Supply. |
| USENET |
A
worldwide bulletin board system that can be accessed through the Internet
or through many online services. |
| UTILITY |
Used to describe programs which perform
generalised functions, often of a utilitarian nature. There are literally thousands of
utility programs and many are found in the Public Domain. |