- Expansion bus
An expansion bus is made up of electronic pathways which move information between the code of a computer system, including the CPU and RAM, and peripheral devices. It is a collection of wires and protocols that allows for the expansion of a computer. [http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/E/expansion_bus.html]
History
Historically, computers have used an expansion bus called the ISA bus. ISA was supplanted by the
PCI bus , which was in turn supplanted by thePCI Express . For graphics cards,AGP replaced PCI and then migrated to PCI-express as well. There has been some talk of a new form factor for graphics cards that resembles a CPU socket. Users of the ISA bus had to have in depth knowledge of the hardware they were adding to properly connect the devices. However, the PCI bus made it much simpler, allowing for ease in assembly.Originally, the computer controlled the transfer of data, its efforts included interpreting, receiving, and sending out the data. Later on, a
bus mastering device was created. It essentially has the capability of controlling its own transfer of data to another device, allowing the computer to focus on other tasks. In essence this device freed up the computer, allowing for more efficiency. [http://www.pccomputernotes.com/system_bus/bus02.htm]References
* Management Information Systems for the Information Age, pg 262)
See also
*
Computer bus
*Expansion card
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
