Packard Bell Electronics, Inc.
<company> A leading US computer vendor.
As recently as 29 November 1995 the Wall Street Journal reported that the
company was having financial difficulties and that one of its major suppliers of
CPUs, Intel, was about to make a large cash loan, so as to prevent loss of a
major customer. Packard Bell is a privately held company and the WSJ also
reported that NEC has been rumored to have bought a large minority block of
shares to help the company stay in business.
Its computers are sold in major retail outlets in the USA and are available as a
bundled package: desktop or tower 486 CPU, single 3.5 inch floppy disk drive,
CD-ROM, sound card, 14 inch colour monitor, and 4-8MB of RAM.
1995 end-of-year prices in Computer Currents magazine (a California Bay Area
bi-monthly giveaway publication) are US$1500 (approx. 1000 pounds) for a 486
desktop, with 8MB RAM, 420MB hard disk drive, single 3.5 inch floppy drive, 14
inch colour monitor, 2-speed CD-ROM, and 16-bit sound card.
Headquarters: Sacramento, California, USA.
(1996-01-02)
Nearby terms:
pa « PABX « PACE « Packard Bell Electronics, Inc.
» packed decimal » Packed Encoding Rules » packet
packed decimal
binary coded decimal
Nearby terms:
PABX « PACE « Packard Bell Electronics, Inc. «
packed decimal » Packed Encoding Rules » packet
» Packet Assembler/Disassembler
Packed Encoding Rules
<protocol, standard> (PER) ASN.1 encoding rules for producing a compact
transfer syntax for data structures described in ASN.1, defined in 1994.
PER provides a much more compact encoding then BER. It tries to represents the
data units using the minimum number of bits. The compactness requires that the
decoder knows the complete abstract syntax of the data structure to be decoded,
however.
Documents: ITU-T X.691, ISO 8825-2.
(1998-05-19)
Nearby terms:
PACE « Packard Bell Electronics, Inc. « packed
decimal «
Packed Encoding Rules » packet » Packet
Assembler/Disassembler » packet driver
packet
The unit of data sent across a network. "Packet" is a generic term used to
describe a unit of data at any layer of the OSI protocol stack, but it is most
correctly used to describe application layer data units ("application protocol
data unit", APDU).
See also datagram, frame.
(1994-11-30)
Nearby terms:
Packard Bell Electronics, Inc. « packed decimal «
Packed Encoding Rules « packet » Packet
Assembler/Disassembler » packet driver » Packet in
Plastic Grid Array
Packet Assembler/Disassembler
(PAD) Hardware or software device for splitting a data stream into discrete
packets for transmission over some medium and then reforming the stream(s) at
the receiver.
The term is most often used for interfaces to X.25 lines.
(1995-01-31)
Nearby terms:
packed decimal « Packed Encoding Rules « packet «
Packet Assembler/Disassembler » packet driver »
Packet in Plastic Grid Array » Packet InterNet
Groper
packet driver
<networking> IBM PC local area network software that divides data into
packets which it routes to the network. It also handles incoming data,
reassembling the packets so that application programs can read the data as a
continuous stream.
FTP Software created the specification for IBM PC packet drivers but Crynwr
Software dominate the market and have done the vast majority of the
implementations.
Packet drivers provide a simple, common programming interface that allows
multiple applications to share a network interface at the data link layer.
Packet drivers demultiplex incoming packets among the applications by using the
network media's standard packet type or service access point field(s).
The packet driver provides calls to initiate access to a specific packet type,
to end access to it, to send a packet, to get statistics on the network
interface and to get information about the interface.
Protocol implementations that use the packet driver can coexist and can make use
of one another's services, whereas multiple applications which do not use the
driver do not coexist on one machine properly. Through use of the packet driver,
a user could run TCP/IP, XNS and a proprietary protocol implementation such as
DECnet, Banyan's, LifeNet's, Novell's or 3Com's without the difficulties
associated with pre-empting the network interface.
Applications which use the packet driver can also run on new network hardware of
the same class without being modified; only a new packet driver need be
supplied.
There are several levels of packet driver. The first is the basic packet driver,
which provides minimal functionality but should be simple to implement and which
uses very few host resources. The basic driver provides operations to broadcast
and receive packets. The second driver is the extended packet driver, which is a
superset of the basic driver. The extended driver supports less commonly used
functions of the network interface such as multicast, and also gathers
statistics on use of the interface and makes these available to the application.
The third level, the high-performance functions, support performance
improvements and tuning.
http://www.crynwr.com/crynwr/home.html.
(1994-12-05)
Nearby terms:
Packed Encoding Rules « packet « Packet
Assembler/Disassembler « packet driver »
Packet in Plastic Grid Array » Packet InterNet
Groper » packet radio
Packet in Plastic Grid Array
<integrated circuit> (PPGA) The package used for Intel's Celeron Socket
370 CPU.
[Description?]
(1999-06-24)
Nearby terms:
packet « Packet Assembler/Disassembler « packet
driver «
Packet in Plastic Grid Array » Packet InterNet
Groper » packet radio » packet sniffer
Packet InterNet Groper
ping
Nearby terms:
Packet Assembler/Disassembler « packet driver «
Packet in Plastic Grid Array « Packet InterNet
Groper » packet radio » packet sniffer »
packet-switched
packet radio
<communications, radio> The use of packet switched communications
protocols in large networks (i.e not wireless LANs or Bluetooth) having wireless
links to terminals at least. Packet radio is split into amateur packet radio
(AX25) and General Packet Radio Service (GRPS).
(2001-05-12)
Nearby terms:
packet driver « Packet in Plastic Grid Array «
Packet InterNet Groper « packet radio »
packet sniffer » packet-switched » packet switching
packet sniffer
<networking, tool> A network monitoring tool that captures data packets
and decodes them using built-in knowledge of common protocols. Sniffers are used
to debug and monitor networking problems.
(1995-03-28)
Nearby terms:
Packet in Plastic Grid Array « Packet InterNet
Groper « packet radio « packet sniffer »
packet-switched » packet switching » Packet Switch
Node
packet-switched
packet switching
Nearby terms:
Packet InterNet Groper « packet radio « packet
sniffer «
packet-switched » packet switching » Packet
Switch Node » packet writing
packet switching
<communications> A communications paradigm in which packets (messages or
fragments of messages) are individually routed between nodes, with no previously
established communication path. Packets are routed to their destination through
the most expedient route (as determined by some routing algorithm). Not all
packets travelling between the same two hosts, even those from a single message,
will necessarily follow the same route.
The destination computer reassembles the packets into their appropriate
sequence. Packet switching is used to optimise the use of the bandwidth
available in a network and to minimise the latency. X.25 is an international
standard packet switching network.
Also called connectionless. Opposite of circuit switched or connection-oriented.
See also virtual circuit, wormhole routing.
(1999-03-30)
Nearby terms:
packet radio « packet sniffer « packet-switched «
packet switching » Packet Switch Node » packet
writing » PackIt
Packet Switch Node
(PSN) A dedicated computer whose purpose is to accept, route and forward packets
in a packet-switched network.
(1994-11-30)
Nearby terms:
packet sniffer « packet-switched « packet switching
«
Packet Switch Node » packet writing » PackIt »
PACT I
packet writing
<storage> A technique for writing CD-Rs and CD-RWs that is more efficient
in both disk space used and the time it takes to write the CD.
Adaptec's DirectCD is a packet writing recorder for Windows 95 and Windows NT
that uses the UDF version 1.5 file system.
[Is this true? How does it work?]
(1999-09-01)
Nearby terms:
packet-switched « packet switching « Packet Switch
Node «
packet writing » PackIt » PACT I » PACTOLUS
PackIt
<file format, tool> A file format used on the Apple Macintosh to
represent collections of Mac files, possibly Huffman compressed. Packing many
small related files together before a MacBinary transfer or a translation to
BinHex 4.0 is common practice.
(1994-11-30)
Nearby terms:
packet switching « Packet Switch Node « packet
writing «
PackIt » PACT I » PACTOLUS » PAD
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