MACRO- A command that performs a sequence of commands. These can perform a set of commonly performed actions such as logging on to the internet.

MCA- Micro Channel Architecture. A fast PC expansion slot that never caught on.

MCGA- Multi-Colour Graphics Adapter.

MEMORY- Like the human equivalent, computer memory allows the computer to "remember" information. Memory is separated into two types- RAM and ROM. RAM retains information until it is deleted or lost when power is lost. ROM is stored permanently. An example of this is the Kickstart chips found in the Amiga. It is possible to buy memory in the form of memory boards and different varieties of SIMMS.

MENU BAR- A series of options that are displayed at the top of the screen when the right mouse button is held down.

MENU BUTTON- The right mouse button, so called because it displays the menu bar.

MICRO EMACS- The Amiga port of the once popular MEmacs text editor. It was bundled as standard in the Workbench distribution and has remained ever since. Whilst it is powerful the command driven editor is quite difficult to use and should be replaced by one of the better text editors available such as GoldED.

MIDI- Musical Instrument Digital Interface. A standard that allows computers and instrument to communicate with each other.

MEGA HERTZ (MHz)- A unit to describe how fast a computer is. It is not possible to give an exact measurement of how much faster one computer is compared to another due to other features, such as graphics cards and MMU. Therefore, a 60Mhz PC is not necessarily half the speed of a 120Mhz PC.

MIDI- Musical Instrument Digital Interface. A standard that allows computers and Instruments to control each other and swap information. Many PC soundcards have direct support for MIDI built into the sound card. The Amiga relies on software players.

MIPS- Millions of Instructions Per Second.

MMU- Memory Management Unit. A chip that comes with 68030,040 and 060 processors that allows the use of Virtual Memory. It also prevents crashed programs from affecting the operating system and the other software running. At present, it is not used on the Amiga (apart from 3rd party virtual memory). These functions would require being built into the OS and, according to RJ Mical would actually slow down the Amigas ability to multitask.

MNP- Microcom Network Protocol. A modem error correction system.

MODEM- MODulator DEModulator. A device that allow you to connect to other machine over a telephone line and get onto the Internet.

MODULATOR- A device that converted the Amiga's RGB and audio signal into either RF (Radio Frequency) or television and separate audio signals. This had to be brought separately for the A500, but came built in with the A600 and A1200.

MORE- The default text viewer given away with Workbench.

MOTHERBOARD- The main board inside your computer that includes the processor and kickstart chips.

MONITOR- The video display used to show the Amigas' visual output. These offer a higher quality display than the television display. To display all of the Amigas screenmodes a Multiscan monitor is required.

MOUSE- The device that controls the on-screen pointer, invented by Apple in 1984. The Amiga uses the 2 and 3 button models plugged into a special Mouse port at the back of the machine. PC mice can be used with special interfaces or software drivers.

MORE- A simple AmigaDOS text file viewer.

MOTHERBOARD- The main board in the Amiga. The motherboard on the Amiga 1200 contains all the parts required, including chip RAM, processor, Kickstart, and custom chipset.

MOUSE- A device created by Xerox and copied by Apple for their Lisa system. The mouse is represented on screen by a small pointer.

MPC- Multimedia PC. A standard devised by Microsoft to stabilise the market on to a standard system. This has been updated recently to include a Pentium processor and windows 95.

MPEG- Motion Picture Expert Group. A standard for animations, which saves an image and then updates the changes, made to each frame. This means that it is smaller than other animation formats. You need a very fast machine to run MPEG through software, or some kind of MPEG cartridge.

MULTIMEDIA- A computer that can display text, graphics and sound. In recent years, it has been used to describe any PC with speakers.

MULTITASKING- The ability to perform more than one task at the same time. The Amiga has been able to multitask since 1985, whilst the PC only learned to in 1995 and the Apple Mac still has not achieved this. The Amiga uses a specific type of multitasking known as "pre-emptive". This is allocated by the OS Kernel, the Amiga EXEC. Other consumer systems such as Windows 3.1 use a system known as "co-operative". This form of multitasking is controlled by each individual application. Co-operative multitasking had the disadvantage of being unstable, with badly written programs crashing.

MULTIUSER- A multi user operating system allows more than one person to use a computer with different preferences that is configured by the individual user. Most modern systems include multiuser support such as Windows NT, 98, Unix, and, with third party support, the AmigaOS.

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