What is a spider?

The transistor, which essentially is a solid-state electronic switch, replaced the much less suitable vacuum tube. Because the transistor consumed significantly less power, a computer system built with transistors was much smaller, faster and more efficient than a computer system built with vacuum tubes.

Reduced Instruction Set Computer - a type of microprocessor that relies on simple instructions which can be used to build more complicated ones.

IBM also created it's own version of DOS called PC-DOS.nn

An Extended Capabilities Port is about 10 times faster than the old standard one, but it is used the same way a regular parallel port is.

The Intel 8080 was a jazzed-up calculator chip. It was included in microcomputer kits which were little more than demonstration tools and did little except blink lights. Besides the 8080 chip, the Altair included a power supply, a front panel with a large number of lights and 256 bytes (not kilobytes) of memory. The kit sold for {$395} and had to be assembled.

Before IBM created its personal computer, two types of computer systems, Apple II and CP-M, dominated the microcomputer world. Neither of these systems were PC compatible, or Mac-compatible (the two primary standards in place today). The original IBM PC became a new standard in the microcomputer industry. Since then, hundreds of millions of PC-compatible systems have been sold, as the original PC grew into a large family of computers and peripherals. More software has been written for this computer family than for any other system on the market.

A new type of disc developed by Constellation 3D Inc. These discs can hold up to to 140 GB of data.