In computer architecture, a bus is a communication system that transfers data between components inside a computer, or between computers. This expression covers all related hardware components and software, including communication protocols.
Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) is the 16-bit internal bus of IBM PC/AT and similar computers based on the Intel 80286 and its immediate successors during the 1980s. The bus was (largely) backward compatible with the 8-bit bus of the 8088-based IBM PC, including the IBM PC/XT as well as IBM PC compatibles.
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.
PC Card is a parallel peripheral interface for laptop computers and PDAs.
The Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA) was a group of computer hardware manufacturers, operating under that name from 1989 to 2009. Starting with the PCMCIA card in 1990, it created various standards for peripheral interfaces designed for laptop computers.
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.
PCI Express, officially abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X and AGP bus standards. It is the common motherboard interface for personal computers' graphics cards, sound cards, hard disk drive host adapters, SSDs, Wi-Fi and Ethernet hardware connections. PCIe has numerous improvements over the older standards, including higher maximum system bus throughput, lower I/O pin count and smaller physical footprint, better performance scaling for bus devices, a more detailed error detection and reporting mechanism, and native hot-swap functionality. More recent revisions of the PCIe standard provide hardware support for I/O virtualization.
SATA is a computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives. Serial ATA succeeded the earlier Parallel ATA (PATA) standard to become the predominant interface for storage devices.
A memory card is an electronic data storage device used for storing digital information, typically using flash memory. These are commonly used in digital portable electronic devices, such as Digital cameras as well as in many early games consoles such as the Nintendo Wii. They allow adding memory to such devices using a card in a socket instead of protruding USB flash drives.
CompactFlash (CF) is a flash memory mass storage device used mainly in portable electronic devices. The format was specified and the devices were first manufactured by SanDisk in 1994.
Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary, non-volatile, flash memory card format the SD Association (SDA) developed for use in portable devices.
A TV tuner card is a kind of television tuner that allows television signals to be received by a computer. Most TV tuners also function as video capture cards, allowing them to record television programs onto a hard disk much like the digital video recorder (DVR) does.
In computing, a POST card is a plug-in diagnostic interface card that displays progress and error codes generated during power-on self-test (POST) of a computer. It is used to troubleshoot computers that do not start up.
PCI-X, short for Peripheral Component Interconnect eXtended, is a computer bus and expansion card standard that enhances the 32-bit PCI local bus for higher bandwidth demanded mostly by servers and workstations. It uses a modified protocol to support higher clock speeds, but is otherwise similar in electrical implementation. PCI-X 2.0 added speeds up to 533 MHz, with a reduction in electrical signal levels.
PC/104 is a family of embedded computer standards which define both form factors and computer buses by the PC/104 Consortium. Its name derives from the 104 pins on the interboard connector (ISA) in the original PC/104 specification and has been retained in subsequent revisions, despite changes to connectors. PC/104 is intended for specialized environments where a small, rugged computer system is required. The standard is modular, and allows consumers to stack together boards from a variety of COTS manufacturers to produce a customized embedded system.
Universal Serial Bus 3.0, marketed as SuperSpeed USB, is the third major version of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) standard for interfacing computers and electronic devices. It was released in November 2008. The USB 3.0 specification defined a new architecture and protocol, named SuperSpeed, which included a new lane for a new signal coding scheme providing full-duplex data transfers that physically required five additional wires and pins, while preserving the USB 2.0 architecture and protocols and therefore keeping the original four pins and wires for the USB 2.0 backward-compatibility, resulting in nine wires in total and nine or ten pins at connector interfaces. The new transfer rate, marketed as SuperSpeed USB (SS), can transfer signals at up to 5 Gbit/s with nominal data rate of 500 MB/s after encoding overhead, which is about 10 times faster than High-Speed. USB 3.0 Type-A and B connectors are usually blue, to distinguish them from USB 2.0 connectors, as recommended by the specification. and by the initials SS.
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.
Thunderbolt is the brand name of a hardware interface for the connection of external peripherals to a computer. It was developed by Intel in collaboration with Apple. It was initially marketed under the name Light Peak, and first sold as part of an end-user product on 24 February 2011.
M.2, pronounced m dot two and formerly known as the Next Generation Form Factor (NGFF), is a specification for internally mounted computer expansion cards and associated connectors. M.2 replaces the Mini-SATA (mSATA) standard, which uses the PCI Express Mini Card physical card layout and connectors. Employing a more flexible physical specification, M.2 allows different module widths and lengths, which, paired with the availability of more advanced interfacing features, makes M.2 more suitable than mSATA in general for solid-state storage applications, particularly in smaller devices such as ultrabooks and tablets.
