ALT KEY
For calling extra functions. Conveniently placed where you?d expect to find the Shift key, it enables you to delete entire documents when all you wanted was a capital L.

BIOS
Legal term for the method used by IBM to settle out-of-court with its competitors over copyright ?problems?.

BOOTING
Arcane term for the aching delay as the PC dutifully checks that it?s got all its bits and pieces.

COMMAND DRIVEN
Term used to describe the way a data management package works. You tell it to do one thing and it does something else.

COMMS PORT
Russian submarine base.

COMMUNICATIONS
Method of combining incompatible software working to incompatible standards to produce difficult to understand results.

COMPATIBLE PRICE CUTS
Examples of largesse on the part of manufacturers of PC-compatible microcomputers. Nothing to do with IBM price cuts. See ?IBM PRICE CUTS?

DAISYWHEEL
Plastic device with detachable petals. See ?DAISYWHEEL PRINTER?

DAISYWHEEL PRINTER
Slow, letter quality output device designed to seriously impair the hearing of people who work near it, thus ensuring all communications are printed, not spoken.

DATA PROCESSING DEPARTMENT
Part of a large company whose job is to discourage the use of Personal Computers.

DEAD MOUSE
Tracker ball.

EASILY EXPANDABLE
Minimum price configuration is unsuitable for practical use.

EASY TO INSTALL
Difficult to install, but the instruction manual has pictures.

EASY TO USE
Not very powerful.

ELECTRONIC MAIL
Method of sending messages, junk mail, recipes etc between PC users rather than letting talk to each other.

ERGONOMICALLY DESIGNED
Has highly unusual appearance and costs more.

EUROPEAN HEADQUARTERS
The only branch of a US software company not to employ any knowledgeable product support staff.

EXECUTIVE CURSOR CONTROL
Joystick.

EXPANSION SLOTS
Sparse resource quickly used up by clock/calendars, games adaptors and mouse cards.

FIXED DISK DEVICE
Difficult to back up storage device sold by IBM to make it easy for PC users to lose large amounts of valuable data.

FLIGHT SIMULATOR
Microsoft game which mimics a light aircraft - said to be the ultimate test for PC compatibility. Doesn?t work on the AT.

FLEXIBLE
Difficult to use.

FLOPPY DISK
Long playing vinyl record left out in the sun.

FUNCTION KEYS
Outmoded hardware devices passed over by software authors in favour of complex combinations of Control keys and mnemonic codes.

GRAPHICS GAME
Describes matchstick men fighting upside down pound signs.

HANDS ON TRAINING
Where groups of would-be users huddle round a single PC for two days and watch someone else use it.

HIGH LEVEL OF FUNCTIONALITY
Does some of the things it?s claimed to.

IBM?S HIGH RESOLUTION COLOUR GRAPHICS
On the PC - black and white.

IBM COMPATIBLE
Term used to describe a microcomputer that might run some PC software.

IBM PRICE CUTS
Reduction of prices so that they?re only slightly more expensive than rival products. See ?COMPATIBLE PRICE CUTS?

INTEGRA TED SOFTWARE
Package with several functions - spreadsheet, graphics, and word processing, that only comes on 4 floppy disks.

JUSTIFICATION
Method used in a personalised, word processed letter to make it look like a word processed letter.

LETTER QUALITY MATRIX PRINTER
Output device that produces print quality that?s unsuitable for real correspondence.

LOCAL AREA NETWORK
Highly complicated communications system that surrenders local control of personal computing to remote data processing department and makes it easy to lose everyone?s data in one go.

MOUSE
Hand-held controller that?s even more embarrassing for status conscious executives to use that a keyboard. See DEAD MOUSE.

MULTIFUNCTION BOARD
Add-in card for a PC packed with features you don?t need or with all the useful features that should have been included with the basic PC.

MATRIX PRINTER
Output device that produces print quality that even its makers say is unsuitable for correspondence.

NEW VERSION
Software release or hardware product that does most, but not all, of what the original version was supposed to do. See also MULTIFUNCTION BOARD.

NEXT VERSION
Not-available release of a software package that?s claimed to do all of the things claimed for the original product. Often turns out to be a NEW VERSION, see above.

NUM LOCK
One of the mysteries on the PC keyboard. Until you start typing you don?t know whether it?s switched on or not.

OPERATING SYSTEM
Difficult to understand piece of software which is supposed to be ?transparent? to PC users.

PORTABLE PC
No such thing.

POWERFUL
Very difficult to use.

POWERFUL U.S. FINANCIAL PLANNING PACKAGE
Doesn?t display or print out pound signs.

RAM
Male sheep.

RECOMMENDED FOR HARD DISK USE
A program that comes on 12 floppy disks.

SMOOTH SCROLL1NG
Slightly less juddery movement of text up and down the screen.

SERIAL PORT
A hardware device that goes snap, crackle and then pops.

SHARED PRINTER
Expensive peripheral that?s always being used by someone else.

SIMPLE TO INSTALL
Installation procedure likely to invalidate IBM warranty.

SYS REQ KEY
Brand new IBM key on the AT that doesn?t do anything.

TOTAL BUSINESS SOLUTION
Jargon used by computer salesmen to make you believe they understand what you?re buying.

USER
A four letter word. Used by manufacturers to describe someone who falls foul of their products.

UTILITIES
?Extra? pieces of software more complicated than the problems they?re supposed to help you solve.

VAPOUR WARE
Idea in a computer entrepreneur?s mind and ad agency?s copy for a product that doesn?t actual exist.

VERSION II
Re-packaged program that does all that was promised for the original product, but not as much as is claimed for it in the brochure. See NEW VERSION. NEXT VERSION.

VOICE INPUT
A (pause) way (pause) of (pause) talking (pause) to (pause) computers (stop). Voice training courses are recommended to help PC users project over the thundering of daisywheel printers. See DAISYWHEEL PRINTER.

WINCHESTER
An old English town.

WINDOWS
Software device designed to confuse the hell out of lay end-users by letting them run five programs simultaneously.

WRITE-PROTECTED
Run out of ink.

WYSIWYG
Pronouced ?wizzywig?. Usually describes word processing package that lets you display fancy typefaces on the screen, but won?t work with any of your printers