Glossary: F

Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970

U.S. federal law allowing people to inspect their credit records so that they may challenge erroneous information included in the computer files.

fam-firm

A term used by Alvin Toffler for a small contracting company of the future made up of information specialists and lacking a large class of middle managers to handle information needs.

family tree

A model for organizing a database in a hierarchical arrangement, with parent and children nodes.

fax machine

A machine that scans documents and transmits them to either computers or other fax machines over a phone line.

Federal Privacy Act of 1974

U.S. law enacted after Watergate invasions of privacy that limits the kinds of information the federal government can gather on private citizens to that which is "relevant and necessary."

fiber optic cable

A modern communications channel using light impulses traveling through clear glass fibers to transmit data safely at very high speeds.

fiber optics

Transmitting computer information or telephone signals in a digital form in cables made of glass fibers.

field

A basic unit of information contained in a record, such as a name or street address in a mailing list created as a database.

Fifth Generation project

A 10-year research project funded by the Japanese government to develop a new class of intelligent computers, discontinued in 1992 without achieving the results it had anticipated.

file management

Software for storing simple files, such as mailing lists for a small company, in which one file is accessed at a time.

file server

A term applied to both a host computer and its special software that makes programs and data available to individual workstations on a network.

file

A collection of records in a database related to each other.

final formatting

The final setup of the spreadsheet for printing or other form of presentation, including such characteristics as rounding numbers and adding currency signs.

flat file

A simple form of database consisting of one table of rows (records) and columns (fields) of data.

flatbed plotter

An output device that works on the vector principle. It accepts instructions from a computer about where to draw a line, how long it is to be, and where to stop or turn in another direction and moves its drawing pen accordingly.

flatbed scanner

An input device to digitize photographs and drawings as a set of dots, called pixels, so that they can be processed by computers.

floppy disk drive

Ahardware device that can read data inserted into it from diskettes or write information out onto diskettes. Early diskettes were flexible plastic and called "floppy." Most diskettes today are no longer floppy, but the term stuck for the disk drive that reads them, as opposed to a hard disk drive.

flowchart (flow diagram)

A graphic representation of an algorithm, often used in the design phase of programming to work out the logical flow of a program.

formula

A numerical or logical relation or function added to a cell that expresses a relationship between other cell values and changes its value if they do.

FORTRAN

The oldest high-level programming language, designed in the 1950s primarily for mathematical and scientific applications.

four-color process

The printing process used in color printing with laser printers, as well as in color book and magazine production. It is sometimes denoted by the initials CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black), standing for the three subtractive colors, plus black, that are blended to create colored materials in print.

fractal geometry

A field of mathematics pioneered by Benoit Mandelbrot that involves the study of a set of infinitely recursive mathematical functions which seem to mirror natural phenomena like leaf and cloud formation.

frame buffer

In raster graphics, a special area of RAM that holds the pixel contents of a computer screen.

Freedom of Information Act of 1970

U.S. law that guarantees citizens the right to see information collected about them by federal agencies like the IRS.

freeware

Software often made available free of charge on electronic bulletin boards and through user groups.

front-end system

"User friendly" software developed to stand between the user and a complicated operating system. Examples include Microsoft Windows for DOS and X Windows for Unix.

FTP (file transfer protocol)

A common Internet standard which supports transfer of files over the network.

full-motion video

A term applied to video movies that can be edited and shown on a computer after they are digitized.

function

A predefined relation built into the spreadsheet program that can be used as a formula for such purposes as averaging numbers or finding the maximum value in a group of cells.

function keys

Shortcut keys on the keyboard that are set up to send commands to the operating system, especially in MS-DOS systems.

fuzzy logic

A field of artificial intelligence in which computers analyze logical relationships that are more or less true, as contrasted to ordinary logic, where relations are more crisp.

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