Computer terminology has become an important source for many terms that have entered our general vocabulary in English and Spanish, such as 'cyberspace', 'hypertext', 'telecommunication' and 'videogame'. Most of these terms result from the combination of a word and a classical element originating from Greek and Latin; i.e.'auto-', 'bi-', 'cyber-', 'mega-', 'meta-','mono-', 'tele-', etc. These terms are generally called compounds. This paper intends to analyze some of these classical elements from a contrastive perspective and to describe specifically two pairs of examples that are etymologically related in English and Spanish:'mono-' and 'uni-', on the one hand, and 'micro-' and 'mini-' on the other. The analysis is based on the main problems affecting the translation into Spanish of some examples of neoclassical compounds related to computer terminology in English.