Curlie

Buses

An electrical connection which allows two or more wires or lines to be connected together. Typically, all circuit cards receive the same information that is put on the Bus. Only the card the information is "addressed" to will use that data. This is convenient so that a circuit card may be plugged in "anywhere on the Bus." All computers and most telephone systems use buses of some type. Computer buses are typically open. Telephone system buses are typically closed.

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AGP

Accelerated Graphics Port Based on PCI, but is designed especially for the throughput demands of 3-D graphics. AGP introduces a dedicated point-to-point channel so that the graphics controller can directly access main memory.

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EIDE

Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics. The most modern interface to hard disks, CD ROM drives, etc. It is connected directly to the motherboard. Ultra DMA is the latest and fastest protocol in EIDE.

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EISA

In a computer a "bus" is an electrical channel for getting information and commands in and around the computer. It is the way the central microprocessor running the computer gets its information and commands to the various peripheral devices or device controllers, such as video cards, hard disk cards, etc.

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Fibre Channel

A set of standards developed by ANSI. Fibre Channel (FC) is intended to provide a practical and inexpensive means of rapidly "transferring data between workstations, mainframes, supercomputers, desktop computers, storage devices, displays and other peripherals", according to the Fibre Channel Association (FCA). Fibre Channel standards support a number of speeds, including 133 million bits per second (Mbps), 266 Mbps, 530 Mbps, and 1 gigabit per second (Gbps). The transmission media can include coaxial cable, as well as either monomode or multimode fiber. FC's speed of data transmission is due not only to the fundamental nature of the transmission system, but also to the fact that FC is a serial link technology. In other words, FC is a new I/O (input/output) interface over which data is streamed in serial fashion across an established link.

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HIPPI

High Performance Parallel Interface In 1989, researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratories began work on a standard for high-speed, point-to-point data transport between supercomputers. The result of that effort was HIPPI, which later became known as HIPPI-800 and which was standardized by the ANSI X3T9.3 committee as X.3.183-1991.

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I2C

I2C (Inter-IC) is a multi-master bus. Multiple chips can be connected to the same bus and each one can act as a master by initiating a data transfer. Used especially in video devices such as computer monitors, televisions and VCRs.

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I2O

Known as Intelligent I/O. A new input/output bus architecture. The I2O Special Interest Group (SIG) is responsible for the development of this innovation.

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IEEE 1394

IEEE 1394, formerly FireWire. A 1995 Macintosh/IBM PC serial bus interface standard offering high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data services. 1394 can transfer data between a computer and its peripherals at 100, 200, or 400 Mbps, with a planned increase to 2 Gbps. Cable length is limited to 4.5 m but up to 16 cables can be daisy-chained yielding a total length of 72 m. It can daisy-chain together up to 63 peripherals in a tree-like structure (as opposed to SCSI's linear structure). It allows peer-to-peer device communication, such as communication between a scanner and a printer, to take place without using system memory or the CPU. It is designed to support plug-and-play and hot swapping. Its 6-wire cable is not only more convenient than the SCSI cables but can supply up to 60 watts of power, allowing low-consumption devices to operate without a separate power cord.

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ISA

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MCA

Micro Channel Architecture MCA was the 32-bit bus IBM used inside some of its computers in the late 1980s, most notably the Personal System/2 (PS/2) line. It was a proprietary bus, and IBM required clone manufacturers to pay royalties to use the bus in their machines. It was also incompatible with previous buses, and was quickly replaced by other technologies, such as PCI.

This is an informational category.

Sites submitted here should give articles and information about the MCA bus technology in general, rather than presenting particular products.

Product sites should be submitted to the Computers/Hardware category, or to a Shopping category, instead of being submitted here.

PCI

Peripheral Component Interconnect A 32 bit local bus inside a PC or a Mac designed by Intel for the PC.

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PCI Express

Bus specification designed to supersede PCI. PCI Express (PCIe) provides several improvements over its predecessor:

It enables Quality of Service (QoS) which is a means to prioritise more time critical traffic (like an audio or video stream) to reduce break up.
Supports multiple lanes that can be aggregated for a single link to provide increased bandwidth. (Each lane can transmit up to 2.5gb/sec, and the protocol supports up to 32x)
Uses a point-to-point bus topology where a shared switch replaces the shared bus that PCI used.

NB: PCI-Express is sometimes referred to as 3rd generation I/O (3GIO)architecture.

Please only submit sites providing information on the PCI Express bus specification to this category.

PCMCIA

Personal Computer Memory Card International Association Standardizes packages for memory and input/output (modems, LAN cards, etc.) for computers, laptops, palmtops, etc. For each there is a specific set for each bus to use. As a bus it is the network/or circuitry's placement in which all the devices are attached to it and all signals pass through each device, but only the targeted device will receive and recognize the signal intended for it. The PCMCIA bus is 8 bits wide and doesn't allow for direct memory access (DMA) transfers, or bus mastering. The newest version called the CardBus addresses these issues.

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RS-232

SCSI

SCSI is a "stand alone" independent communications channel. It can work with any operating systems such as Unix and all its versions, Microsoft Windows and so forth. It is the channel of choice. Many motherboards now are being designed to incorporate SCSI. It's an intelligent peripheral I/O interface with a standard, device independent protocol that allows many different peripheral devices to be attached to the host's SCSI port. Allows up to 8, 16 or 32 addresses on the bus depending on the width of the bus. Devices can include multiple hosts (initiators) and peripheral devices (targets) but must include a minimum of one of each. SCSI provides a high-speed, intelligent interface that allows an easy connection for up to 16 devices (8 devices for Narrow SCSI) on a single bus. These devices may be hard disks, floppy disks, CDs, tape drives, printers and scanners to name a few. Peripherals may be mounted in the computer or in an external enclosure. Total SCSI cable length is dependent on the type of SCSI. For more information see SCSI-1 X3.131-1986.

So if the product you need to submit fits the above description and the company is a Manufacturer of the product, then this is the correct category.

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USB

Universal Serial Bus (USB). A standard promoted by Intel for communication between an IBM PC and external peripherals over an inexpensive cable using biserial (in two rows or series)transmission. USB works at 12 Mbps with specific cost consideration for low cost peripherals. It supports up to 127 devices and both isochronous and asynchronous data transfers. Cables can be up to 5 meters long and it includes built-in power distribution for low power devices. It supports daisy chaining through a tiered star multidrop topology.

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VME

Developed by Motorola, Signetics, Mostek and Thompson CSF, VersaModule Eurocard bus is a 32-bit bus. Widely used in industrial, commercial and military applications. VME64 is an expanded version that provides 64-bit data transfer and addressing.

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