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ASCII

(Encyclopedia)ASCII or American Standard Code for Information Interchange, a set of codes used to represent letters, numbers, a few symbols, and control characters. Originally designed for teletype operations, it h...

Hideyoshi

(Encyclopedia)Hideyoshi (Hideyoshi Toyotomi) hēdāōˈshē [key], 1536–98, Japanese warrior and dictator. He entered the service of Nobunaga as his sandal holder and rose to become his leading general. After Nob...

sale, in law

(Encyclopedia)sale, in law, transfer of ownership in return for money. An exchange of goods for goods is termed barter, but the distinction between sale and barter is mainly technical; laws that govern one govern t...

data communications

(Encyclopedia)data communications, application of telecommunications technology to the problem of transmitting data, especially to, from, or between computers. In popular usage, it is said that data communications ...

Crick, Francis Harry Compton

(Encyclopedia)Crick, Francis Harry Compton, 1916–2004, English scientist, grad. University College, London, and Caius College, Cambridge. Crick was trained as a physicist, and from 1940 to 1947 he served as a sci...

Visby

(Encyclopedia)Visby wĭzˈbē [key], city (1990 pop. 20,990), capital of Gotland co., SE Sweden, on Gotland Island and on the Baltic Sea. It is an industrial center and a popular resort and has a modern ice-free po...

Leo III, Byzantine emperor

(Encyclopedia)Leo III (Leo the Isaurian or Leo the Syrian), c.680–741, Byzantine emperor (717–41). He was probably born in N Syria (rather than in Isauria, as once thought). He held diplomatic and military post...

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 1st Baron

(Encyclopedia)Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 1st Baron, 1800–1859, English historian and author, b. Leicestershire, educated at Cambridge. After the success of his essay on Milton in the Edinburgh Review (Aug., 1825...

information storage and retrieval

(Encyclopedia)information storage and retrieval, the systematic process of collecting and cataloging data so that they can be located and displayed on request. Computers and data processing techniques have made pos...

hostage

(Encyclopedia)hostage, person held by another as a guarantee that certain actions or promises will or will not be carried out. During periods of internal turmoil, insurgents often seize hostages; recent examples in...