jumper

In electronics and particularly computing, a jumper is a short length of conductor used to close, open or bypass part of an electronic circuit. They are typically used to set up or configure printed circuit boards, such as the motherboards of computers. The process of setting a jumper is often called strapping. A strapping option is a hardware configuration setting usually sensed only during power-up or bootstrapping of a device (or even a single chip). Design Jumper pins (points to be connected by the jumper) are arranged in groups called jumper blocks, each group having at least one pair of contact points. An appropriately sized conductive sleeve called a jumper, or more technically, a shunt jumper, is slipped over the pins to complete the circuit. A two-pin jumper only allows to choose between two Boolean states, whereas a three-pin jumper allows to select between three states.