A motherboard is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in general-purpose computers and other expandable systems. It holds and allows communication between many of the crucial electronic components of a system, such as the central processing unit (CPU) and memory, and provides connectors for other peripherals. Unlike a backplane, a motherboard usually contains significant sub-systems, such as the central processor, the chipset's input/output and memory controllers, interface connectors, and other components integrated for general use.
The Tandy 1000 is the first in a line of IBM PC compatible home computer systems produced by the Tandy Corporation for sale in its Radio Shack and Radio Shack Computer Center chains of stores. Introduced in 1984, the product line was aimed at providing affordable but capable systems for home computing or education, with some of its Tandy specific features like graphics, sound and joystick port making it more appealing for home use.
In computing, PC Card is a configuration for computer parallel communication peripheral interface, designed for laptop computers. Originally introduced as PCMCIA, the PC Card standard as well as its successors like CardBus were defined and developed by the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA).
In computing, an expansion card is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an electrical connector, or expansion slot on a computer's motherboard to add functionality to a computer system. Sometimes the design of the computer's case and motherboard involves placing most of these slots onto a separate, removable card. Typically such cards are referred to as a riser card in part because they project upward from the board and allow expansion cards to be placed above and parallel to the motherboard.
The Apple IIe Card is a hardware emulation board, also referred to as compatibility card, which allows compatible Macintosh computers to run software designed for the Apple II series of computers. Released in March 1991 for use with the LC family, Apple targeted the card at its widely dominated educational market to ease the transition from Apple II-based classrooms, with thousands of entrenched educational software titles, to Macintosh-based classrooms.
The Amiga 3000, or A3000, is a personal computer released by Commodore in June 1990. It is the successor to the Amiga 2000 and its upgraded model Amiga 2500 with more processing speed, improved graphics, and a new revision of the operating system.
The Apple IIGS, the fifth and most powerful of the Apple II family, is a 16-bit personal computer produced by Apple Computer. While featuring the Macintosh look and feel, and resolution and color similar to the Amiga and Atari ST, it remains compatible with earlier Apple II models. The "GS" in the name stands for "Graphics and Sound", referring to its enhanced multimedia hardware, especially its state-of-the-art audio.
The Apple IIc, the fourth model in the Apple II series of personal computers, is Apple Computer's first endeavor to produce a portable computer. The result was a 7.5 lb (3.4 kg) notebook-sized version of the Apple II that could be transported from place to place — a portable alternative and complement to the Apple IIe. The c in the name stood for compact, referring to the fact it was essentially a complete Apple II computer setup squeezed into a small notebook-sized housing. While sporting a built-in floppy drive and new rear peripheral expansion ports integrated onto the main logic board, it lacks the internal expansion slots and direct motherboard access of earlier Apple II models, making it a closed system like the Macintosh. However, that was the intended direction for this model — a more appliance-like machine, ready to use out of the box, requiring no technical know-how or experience to hook up and therefore attractive to first-time users.
ExpressCard, initially called NEWCARD, is an interface to connect peripheral devices to a computer, usually a laptop computer. The ExpressCard technical standard specifies the design of slots built into the computer and of expansion cards to insert in the slots. The cards contain electronic circuits and sometimes connectors for external devices. The ExpressCard standard replaces the PC Card standards.
The 6551Asynchronous Communications Interface Adapter (ACIA) is an integrated circuit made by MOS Technology. It served as a companion UART chip for the widely popular 6502 microprocessor. Intended to implement RS-232, its specifications called for a maximum speed of 19,200 bits per second with its onboard baud-rate generator, or 125kbit/s using an external 16x clock. The 6551 was used in several computers of the 1970s and 1980s, including the Commodore PET and Plus/4. It was also used by Apple Computer on the Apple II Super Serial Card, and by Radio Shack on the Deluxe RS-232 Program Pak for their TRS-80 Color Computer.
Applied Engineering, headquartered in Carrollton, Texas, was a leading third-party hardware vendor for the Apple II series of computers from the early 1980s until the mid-1990s.
The Commodore 64 home computer used various external peripherals. Due to the backwards compatibility of the Commodore 128, most peripherals would also work on that system. There is also some compatibility with the VIC-20 and Commodore PET.
The Apple IIc Plus is the sixth and final model in the Apple II series of personal computers, produced by Apple Computer. The "Plus" in the name was a reference to the additional features it offered over the original portable Apple IIc, such as greater storage capacity, increased processing speed, and a general standardization of the system components. In a notable change of direction, the Apple IIc Plus, for the most part, did not introduce new technology or any further evolutionary contributions to the Apple II series, instead merely integrating existing peripherals into the original Apple IIc design. The development of the 8-bit machine was criticized by quarters more interested in the significantly more advanced 16-bit Apple IIGS.
The CMOS W65C51 Asynchronous Communications Interface Adapter (ACIA) provides an easily implemented, program controlled interface between microprocessor based systems and serial communication data sets and modems. It is produced by Western Design Center (WDC) and is a drop-in replacement for the MOS Technology 6551.
The Macintosh Quadra 605 is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from October 1993 to July 1996. The model names reflect a decision made at Apple in 1993 to follow an emerging industry trend of naming product families for their target customers – Quadra for business, LC for education, and Performa for home. Accordingly, the Performa 475 and 476 was sold in department stores and electronics stores such as Circuit City, whereas the Quadra was purchased through an authorized Apple reseller.
The Apple II line of computers supported a number of Apple II peripheral cards. In an era before plug and play USB or Bluetooth connections, these were expansion cards that plugged into slots on the motherboard. They added to and extended the functionality of the base motherboard when paired with specialized software that enabled the computer to read the input/output of the devices on the other side of the cable or to take advantage of chips on the board - as was the case with memory expansion cards.
Apple II system clocks, also known as real-time clocks, were devices in the early years of microcomputing. A clock/calendar did not become standard in the Apple II line of computers until 1986 with the introduction of the Apple IIGS. Although many productivity programs as well as the ProDOS operating system implemented time and date functions, users would have to manually enter this information every time they turned the computer on. Power users often had their Apple II's peripheral slots completely filled with expansion cards, so third party vendors came up with alternative approaches with products like the Serial Pro and No-Slot Clock.
The Apple Communication Slot, or Comm Slot, is an internal expansion data interface (slot) found in Apple Macintosh computers from the early to mid-1990s. It was designed as an inexpensive way to add communication expansion cards like network adapters or modems to Macs and Power Macs.
The Amiga 1200, or A1200, is a personal computer in the Amiga computer family released by Commodore International, aimed at the home computer market. It was launched on October 21, 1992, at a base price of £399 in the United Kingdom and $599 in the United States.
The Serial Input/Output system, universally known as SIO, was a proprietary peripheral bus and related software protocol stacks used on the Atari 8-bit family to provide most input/output duties for those computers. Unlike most I/O systems of the era, such as RS-232, SIO included a lightweight protocol that allowed multiple devices to be attached to a single daisy-chained port that supported dozens of devices. It also supported plug-and-play operations. SIO's designer, Joe Decuir, credits his work on the system as the basis of USB.
