Hardware
Solder
What does BIOS actually stand for?
Basic Input/Output System
In modern x86-64 (AMD64) architecture, even though registers are 64-bit, the CPU does not actually use all 64 bits for virtual addressing (usually only 48 or 57 bits). Because of this, the architecture requires all virtual addresses to be in a specific "form" where the most significant unused bits must match the sign bit (bit 47 or 56). What is the technical term for an address that follows this rule, and what happens to the CPU if a program attempts to use a "non-conforming" address?
Canonical Form (or Canonical Address). The CPU will trigger a General Protection Fault (#GP).
In 3D rendering, what is the name of the buffer used to manage image depth coordinates in hardware, ensuring that objects closer to the camera are drawn "in front" of objects further away?
The Z-Buffer (also Depth Buffer)
In IPv4, what is the specific reserved IP address used for the Loopback interface, allowing a machine to communicate with itself.
127.0.0.1
On a high-end motherboard/GPU, what are the small square surface mounted components responsible for converting the high voltage from the PSU to the low voltage required by the silicon?
Inductors or Chokes
When a GPU driver crashes in Windows 10 or 11 but the screen flickers and recovers without a full system reboot, it is because of this specific Microsoft driver framework introduced in Windows Vista.
WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model)
Cosmic has GPUs with both GDDR6 and HBM2 (High Bandwidth Memory). While GDDR6 is soldered as individual chips around the GPU on the PCB, HBM2 is stacked vertically. To connect the HBM2 stacks to the GPU die with the thousands of traces required for its massive 1024-bit (or wider) bus, a specific thin layer of silicon is placed between the substrate and the chips. What is the name of this silicon bridge or routing layer?
The Silicon Interposer.
Modern Ray Tracing in games don't render the entire scene with rays. Instead, it uses a hybrid approach where the geometry is first drawn using traditional triangles, and rays are only cast for reflections or shadows. What is the technical name for the traditional, non-ray-traced method of rendering 3D scenes?
Rasterization
When a client initiates a TCP connection, it follows a Three-Way Handshake aka SYN, SYN-ACK, and ACK. However, if a server receives a packet for a port that is closed, it doesn't just ignore it; it sends a specific TCP flag back to the client to immediately terminate the connection attempt. What is this flag?
RST (Reset).
The Pentium II used a slot 1 interface. What was the name of the specific plastic cartridge that housed the CPU and its L2 cache chips?
S.E.C.C (Single Edge Contact Cartridge)
The OS uses a hidden file on the storage drive to pretend it has more RAM than it actually does. While commonly called a Page File, what is the specific name for the hardware/software process of translating "Virtual Addresses" used by a program into "Physical Addresses" on the RAM sticks?
Paging (or Address Translation via the MMU / Memory Management Unit)
Most modern PC High Definition Audio codecs use Delta-Sigma modulation. However, high-end "audiophile" hardware often uses a discrete circuit design that avoids oversampling by using a string of high-precision resistors to convert binary values directly into voltage. What is the specific name of this ladder circuit architecture?
R-2R Ladder (or Resistor Ladder).
When a GPU calculates the color of a specific pixel, it often looks at the pixels immediately surrounding it to determine things like texture filtering or anti-aliasing. What is the specific term for a 2×2 group of pixels processed together by the GPU to calculate horizontal and vertical texture coordinate gradients?
A Quad (or Pixel Quad).
Standard Ethernet frames have a Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) of 1,500 bytes. If your friend wants to increase efficiency on his local storage server by using Jumbo Frames, what is the conventional byte size he would set the MTU to?
9,000 bytes.
DDR3 and DDR4 DIMMs have the same number of millimeters in length, but they are physically incompatible. Beyond the pin count (240 vs 284), what specific physical design change was introduced to the bottom "contact" edge of a DDR4 module to reduce insertion force and improve contact?
The Curved (or "Crowned") edge. (The pins in the center are longer than the pins on the ends, creating a slight "V" or convex shape.
To get a modern 64-bit OS to run an old 32-bit application, Windows uses a specific "compatibility layer" or subsystem. What is the four-letter acronym for this layer?
WoW64 (Windows on Windows 64-bit)
Charles Babbage is the "Father of the Computer," but his Analytical Engine (designed in 1837) was the first to describe a general-purpose computer. It was divided into two main physical components that directly correlate to the CPU and RAM of a modern PC. What were the specific names Babbage gave to these two components?
The Mill (CPU) and The Store (RAM/Memory).
Standard ray tracing usually follows a predictable path (camera to light). Path Tracing is unbiased because it uses a specific mathematical simulation to randomly sample light paths until they converge into a clean image. What is the name of this statistical method, named after a famous casino city, used to calculate the complex integrals of light bouncing in a scene?
Monte Carlo Integration (or Monte Carlo Method)
Your friend is trying to host a game server from the 90s. He sets up Port Forwarding, but it still won't work because of his ISP. What is the specific name of the Carrier Grade technology where an ISP puts multiple customers behind a single public IP address, effectively breaking traditional port forwarding?
CGNAT (Carrier-Grade Network Address Translation).
When looking at a GPU or CPU die under a microscope, there will be a dense ring of pads around the edge of the silicon. What is the specific technical name for the structures that act as the interface between the internal logic of the chip and external pins?
I/O Bond Pads
In high-performance computing and GPU communication, the CPU needs to be told when the hardware has finished a task. Old-school hardware used Pin-based Interrupts, but modern PCI-Express devices use a software-defined method that writes a small message directly to a specific memory address to signal the CPU. What is this specific technology called?
MSI or MSI-X (Message Signaled Interrupts).
Every modern high-end CPU and GPU has a unique, unforgeable identity built into the hardware that is created by tiny, random physical variations in the silicon during manufacturing. This is used for encryption keys and DRM. What is the specific 3-letter technical name for this "Digital Fingerprint" that is essentially a silicon-based biometric?
PUF (Physical Unclonable Function).
When a GPU is rasterizing a triangle, it must determine if a pixel is inside or outside the triangle's boundaries. However, modern GPUs don't just check the center of the pixel; they use "Sub-pixel Precision" to prevent jittering.
In a standard modern GPU (like an RTX 40-series or RX 7000-series), the coordinate system for a single pixel is typically divided into a fixed-point grid. To what specific n-bit precision (or how many sub-pixel positions) is a modern GPU’s Rasterizer usually limited when calculating the position of a vertex within a pixel?
8-bit precision (resulting in a 256×256 sub-pixel grid).
This is the protocol that essentially "runs the internet" by exchanging routing information between large networks (Autonomous Systems). When a massive internet outage occurs because a provider accidentally "claims" they own IP addresses they don't, what is the specific 3-letter name of this protocol, and what is the term for this specific type of routing error?
BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) and BGP Hijacking (or Route Leak).