A-B

An ASCII control character is used to acknowledge the reception and acceptance of a transmission block.

address

An address is a character string that uniquely identifies the physical location of an input or output circuit. In a processor, an address can also identify a memory location.

alarm

An audible and/or visible means of indicating to the operator an equipment malfunction, process deviation, or abnormal condition requiring a response.

alias

A logical name for a variable in a device or memory. Similar to a tag.

application

A machine or process monitored and controlled by a controller or the use of computer-based or controller-based routines for specific purposes.

backplane

A backplane is an interconnecting device that may or may not have intelligence, but typically has sockets that cards or boards plug in to.

baud

A unit of signaling speed equal to the number of discrete conditions or signal events per second. Where one bit is encoded on each signaling event, the number of baud is the same as the number of bits per second.

BCC

Block Check Character (BCC) is an error-checking method developed to improve error detection in data communications. The BCC is added to the end of each block of data before the block is transmitted.

block of data

A contiguous sequence of data (bits or bytes) that has a defined size.

bridge device

A module or device that converts communications from one protocol or network to another.

bus

A single path or multiple parallel paths for power or data signals to which several devices may be connected at the same time. Depending on the product, it could be a network, a driver, or both.