An Internet socket or network socket is an endpoint of a bidirectional inter-process communication flow across an Internel Protocol-ba sed computer network, for instance the Internet.
The term Internet sockets is also used as a name for an application programming interface or API for the TCP/IP protocol stack, given by the operating system. Internet sockets constitute a mechanism for delivering incoming data packets to the appropriate application process based on a combination of local and remote IP addressessand port numbers.
Chips
Chips became popular in the latter half of the 20th century because of their small size, low cost, high performance and ease to produce. A computer chip is a small electronic circuit, also known as an integrated circuit, which is one of the basic components of most kinds of electronic devices, especially computers. Computer chips are small and are made of semiconductors that is usually composed of silicon, on which several tiny components including transistors are embedded and used to transmit electronic data signals.
Slots
Expansion slots are located at the motherboard, and openings on the back of the computer allows the ports on the cards that go in the slots to be accessed. There are several types of expansion slots. Here are afew examples: AGP, PCIe (also known as PCIexpress), PCI and ISA.
Bus Lines
A bus is a subsystem that transfers data between computer components inside a computer or between computers in computer architecturing. Modern computer buses can use both parallel and bit-serial connections, and can be wired in either a multidrop (electrical parallel) or daisy chain topology, or connected by switched hubs, as in the case of Universal Serial Bus Port (USB).
Graphic Card
The images you see on your monitor are made of tiny dots called pixels. At most common resolution settings, a screen displays over a million pixels, and the computer has to decide what to do with every one in order to create an image. To do this, it needs a translator, something to take binary data from the CPU and turn it into a picture you can see.
Unless a computer has graphics capability built into the motherboard, that translation takes place on the graphics card. A graphics card's job is complex, but its principles and components are easy to understand.
Sound Card
A sound car enables a computer to produce and record original high-quality sound. It is an expansion board that helps manipulate and output sounds through a speaker. Sound cards are able to use two basic methods to translate digital data into analog sounds: 1.FM Synthesis - It imitates different musical instruments according to built-in formulas. 2. Wavetable Synthesis - It relies on recordings of actual instruments to produce sound and produces more accurate sound, but is more pricy.
Modem Card
A modem acts like a phone in your computer which allows you to connect to a network like a internet service provider over the phone line. It comes in landline and wireless varieties and functions to produce a signal that can be transmitted easily and decoded to reproduce the original digital data.
Network Interface Card
In computer networking, a Network Interface Card are more commonly known as NIC, provides the hardware interface between a computer and a network. A NIC technically is network adapter hardware in the form factor of an add-in card such as a PCI or PCMCIA card.
Plug and Play
In computing, plug and play is a term used to describe the characteristic of a computer bus, or device specification, which facilitates the discovery of a hardware component in a system, without needing physical device configuration, or user intervention in resolving resource conflicts.
Serial Port
In computing, a serial port is a serial communication physical interface through where information transfers in or out one bit at a time. Throughout most of the past of personal computers, data transfer through serial ports connected the computer to devices such as terminals and different peripherals.
Parallel Port
Parallel port is not only a simple tool but also a cheap tool for building computer controlled devices and projects. The primary function of a parallel port is to connect printers to computer and is specifically designed for this purpose. Thus it is often called as printer Port or Centronics port.
Universal Seriel Bus Port (USB)
Short for Universal Serial Bus, i is an external bus standard that supports data transfer rates of 12 Mbps. A single USB port can be used to connect up to 127 peripheral devices, such as mice, modems, and keyboards. USB also supports Plug-and-Play installation and hot plugging.
Firewire Port
Firewire ports are forms of a serial port that make use of FireWire technology to transfer data in high speed from one electronic device to another. Since 1995, the FireWire port has been in common use when Apple, Inc. first began to include the port on a number of digital camcorders. Today, the FireWire port is used on a number of other devices.
