TLAs from DAA through DZZ

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z

Digital to Analog Convertor
An interface chip that converts the digital numbers from the computer to a analog current or voltage. The opposite of DAC is ADC.

DEC

Digital Equipment Corporation
The company (a.k.a. Digital) that sells VAX and VMS.

DES

Data Encription Standard
A standard how to encript data. DES was thought to be safe until a few scientists cracked the code. I wonder whether hackers ever had a problem with DES?

DDJ

Doctor Dobb's Journal
Find out all about it at the ddj www-site.

DFT

Discrete Fourier Transform
A Fourier transformation that is performed on sampled data and in in general implemented with the FFT algorithm.

DLL

Dynamic Link Library
A peice of code (and data) that is linked at runtime instead of compile time. Greatest advantage is that DLLs are concurent accassible (if the DLL allows it) by other/multiple programs.

DMA

Direct Memory Access
A specialized (coprocessor) chip or controller that handles memory-memory and io-memory transfers (semi-) parallel to the CPU. A DMA controller sometimes also takes care of refreshing dynamic RAM chips.

DNS

Dynamic Name Server
A computer/server converting internet names to their IP numbers. The same server also serves as a gateway in many cases.

DOP

Direction Of Projection
A term used in projection of 3D objects onto a 2D computer display to denote the direction of projection (this is important for the clipping of objects that are in front or in the back). See also COP.

DOS

Disk Operating System
A piece of software that takes care of interfacing with floppy and/or harddiscs. A few known disc operating systems are: MS-DOS, PC-DOS, UNIX and CP/M.

DPU

Display Processing Unit

Display Processor Unit
A specialized processor (or processing unit) for drawing lines, filling rectangles/polygons and other complicated drawing and rendering tasks. A DPU speeds up the displaying of complex drawings by an order of magnitude. See also CPU, MPU and FPU.

DTD

Document Type Descriptor
A HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) entity to describe the document type you are looking at right now. It is usual in the following format (for details see HTML documentation like obtainable at: http://www-uk.hpl.hp.co.uk/people /dsr/):

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0 Level 1 //EN">

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