This chapter reviews for the reader some basic concepts and focuses on a few topics to provide a better understanding of some of the terms used in the following chapters. All of this should be cultural background you’ve already acquired, since the reader is expected to bring a working knowledge of C and Unix to this book, so there is no need to discuss the topics more deeply. However, two subjects—file and software types—need a more in-depth discussion and a clear definition, as they may lead to some confusion.
Hardware
First let’s review the most basic terminology:
A PC (Personal Computer) is a ...
