DATABASE- A program that stores records of information.

DATATYPE- An object-orientated system that comes as standard with Workbench 3+. This allows any datatype aware program to load any format as long as a datatype is available. This has been especially useful with the development of the PNG format- datatype-aware software that may be 2-3 years old can load this format without an upgrade.

DE-ARCHIVE- Uncompressing a file to its original size.

DEBUG- The act of removing "bugs" or errors from software

DEFAULT TOOL- When a picture, text file, or any other project is saved it will also save information on the path of the file that created it. When the file is double-clicked the Amiga will launch the suitable program to view the file. The default tool can be altered by highlighting the icon and selecting "Information" in the Tools menu.

DELETE- To remove unwanted files or parts of a document.

DEPTH GADGET- A button in the drag bar which allows you to move a window or screen to the front or back of the display.

DENISE- One of the Amiga's custom chips that handles video output, mose input and some timings.

DEVICE- All the drives in your Amiga are devices, eg CD drive, disk drive or hard drive. These are referred to under names such as DF0: (internal disk drive), CD0: (CD drive) etc.

DH0: -The most common name for the boot hard drive partition on the Amiga. Many users favour it's similarity to the name for the floppy drive, DF0: The letters stand for Drive Hard 0

DIG- Display Independent Graphics. A programming concept that a program does not need to care what it is being displayed on as the monitor driver will take care of it. Similar to RTG.

DIGITAL CONVERGENCE- Amiga users first heard of digital convergence at the World of Amiga show 1998. Like Multimedia, Digital Convergence is little more than a buzzword that refers to certain characteristics. People use multimedia to describe a PC that can display graphics and play sound. So why isn't the C64 or Spectrum capable of multimedia? Similarly Digital Convergence is a buzzword that could have been used to describe the original A1000.

DIGITISER- A device that grabs images or animations from a chosen source, such as a TV or video and imports them into the computer.

DIRECTORY- A drawer which can hold files inside, making your hard/disk drive appear more organised.

DISKCOPY- The AmigaDOS command for copying disks. Surprisingly.

DISKDOCTOR- A program included with earlier versions of Workbench that attempted to recover data on a disk. It did not work that well and prompted hundreds of virus scares by renaming the disk "Lazarus."

DISK DRIVE- A device that comes as standard with all Amiga computers. Most Amigas use the Double-Density variety which store 880K of information.

DISKSALV- A drive recovery program that could validate, undelete, and generally get back your precious data. A vast improvement on DiskDoctor.

DITHERING- The Mixing of colours to appear that there are more colours displayed than are actually present.

DMA- Direct Memory Access.

DOS- Disk Operating System.

DOT MATRIX PRINTER- These work by a group of pins which strike the paper through an inked ribbon.

DOUBLE-CLICK- As the name suggests, this is the click of the mouse button twice. This can be used to launch software.

DOUBLESCAN- The display is "doubled" to show twice as many pixels. Amiga users are more familiar with it as interlace.

DOWNLOAD- The copying of a file from another machine to your own.

DPA- Data Protection Act.

DPI- Dots Per Inch. This measures the quality of the printers resolution by the number of dots per inch that it can print.

DRAG- The process of moving an onscreen object. used in conjunction with the term "drag and drop."

DRAG BAR- The area of a window or screen that is used to resize or move the display.

DRAM- Dynamic Random Access Memory.

DRAWER- The Amiga's name for a directory.

DRIVER- A software file that contains information of how to use a particular device, such as a printer or CD-ROM drive.

DSP- Digital Sound Processor.

D-to-A- Digital to Analogue

DTP- Desk Top Publishing.

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