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Bus Mouse
A bus mouse is a variety of PC computer mouse which is attached to the computer using a specialized interface (originally, the Microsoft InPort interface developed for Microsoft's original mouse product). In the late 1980s, mice were not integrated with IBM-compatible personal computers, and the specialized bus interface (implemented via an ISA add-in card) was one of two popular ways to connect a mouse; serial interfaces were the other method. In addition to Microsoft, Logitech also made bus mouse interface cards. When the IBM PS/2 was introduced, it included a motherboard mouse interface which was integrated with the keyboard controller (still called the PS/2 mouse interface long after the PS/2 brand was withdrawn); this fairly quickly drove the bus mouse design out of the marketplace. The bus mouse lived on in the NEC PC-98 family of personal computers in Japan. See also * BIOS interrupt call * PS/2 port The PS/2 port is a 6-pin mini-DIN connector used for co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Mouse
A computer mouse (plural mice, sometimes mouses) is a hand-held pointing device that detects two-dimensional motion relative to a surface. This motion is typically translated into the motion of a pointer on a display, which allows a smooth control of the graphical user interface of a computer. The first public demonstration of a mouse controlling a computer system was in 1968. Mice originally used two separate wheels to track movement across a surface: one in the X-dimension and one in the Y. Later, the standard design shifted to utilize a ball rolling on a surface to detect motion. Most modern mice use optical sensors that have no moving parts. Though originally all mice were connected to a computer by a cable, many modern mice are cordless, relying on short-range radio communication with the connected system. In addition to moving a cursor, computer mice have one or more buttons to allow operations such as the selection of a menu item on a display. Mice often also featur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Logitech
Logitech International S.A. ( ; often shortened to Logi) is a Swiss multinational manufacturer of computer peripherals and software, with headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Newark, California. The company has offices throughout Europe, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas, and is one of the world's leading manufacturers of input and interface devices for personal computers (PCs) and other digital products. It is a component of the flagship Swiss Market Index. The company develops and markets personal peripherals for PC navigation, video communication and collaboration, music and smart homes. This includes products like keyboards, mice, tablet accessories, headphones and headsets, webcams, Bluetooth speakers, universal remotes and more. Its name is derived from ''logiciel'', the French word for software. History Logitech was founded in Apples, Vaud, Switzerland, in 1981 by Stanford alumni Daniel Borel and Pierluigi Zappacosta, and former Olivetti engineer Giacom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I/O Address
Memory-mapped I/O (MMIO) and port-mapped I/O (PMIO) are two complementary methods of performing input/output (I/O) between the central processing unit (CPU) and peripheral devices in a computer. An alternative approach is using dedicated I/O processors, commonly known as channels on mainframe computers, which execute their own instructions. Memory-mapped I/O uses the same address space to address both main memory and I/O devices. The memory and registers of the I/O devices are mapped to (associated with) address values. So a memory address may refer to either a portion of physical RAM, or instead to memory and registers of the I/O device. Thus, the CPU instructions used to access the memory can also be used for accessing devices. Each I/O device monitors the CPU's address bus and responds to any CPU access of an address assigned to that device, connecting the data bus to the desired device's hardware register. To accommodate the I/O devices, some areas of the address bus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ISA Card
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. Originally referred to as the PC bus (8-bit) or AT bus (16-bit), it was also termed ''I/O Channel'' by IBM. The ISA term was coined as a retronym by competing PC-clone manufacturers in the late 1980s or early 1990s as a reaction to IBM attempts to replace the AT-bus with its new and incompatible Micro Channel architecture. The 16-bit ISA bus was also used with 32-bit processors for several years. An attempt to extend it to 32 bits, called Extended Industry Standard Architecture (EISA), was not very successful, however. Later buses such as VESA Local Bus and PCI were used instead, often along with ISA slots on the same mainboard. Derivatives of the AT bus structure ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
COM Port
COM (communication port) is the original, yet still common, name of the serial port interface on PC-compatible computers. It can refer not only to physical ports, but also to emulated ports, such as ports created by Bluetooth or USB adapters. History The name for the COM port started with the original IBM PC. IBM had called the four well-defined communication RS-232 ports the "COM" ports, starting from COM1 through COM4. In BASICA and PC DOS you can open these ports as "COM1:" through "COM4:", and all PC compatibles using MSDOS used the same denotation. Most PC-compatible computers in the 1980s and 1990s had one or two COM ports. By 2007, most computers shipped with only one or no physical COM ports. Today few consumer-grade PC-compatible computers include COM ports, though some of them do still include a COM header on the motherboard. After the RS-232 COM port was removed from most consumer-grade computers, an external USB-to-UART serial adapter cable was used to compen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
8250 UART
The 8250 UART (universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter) is an integrated circuit designed for implementing the interface for serial communications. The part was originally manufactured by the National Semiconductor Corporation. It was commonly used in PCs and related equipment such as printers or modems. The 8250 included an on-chip programmable bit rate generator, allowing use for both common and special-purpose bit rates which could be accurately derived from an arbitrary crystal oscillator reference frequency. The chip designations carry suffix letters for later versions of the same chip series. For example, the original 8250 was soon followed by the 8250A and 8250B versions that corrected some bugs. In particular, the original 8250 could repeat transmission of a character if the CTS line was asserted asynchronously during the first transmission attempt. Due to the high demand, other manufacturers soon began offering compatible chips. Western Digital offered WD8250 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mouse Systems
Mouse Systems Corporation (MSC), formerly Rodent Associates, was founded in 1982 by Steve Kirsch. The company was responsible for bringing the mouse to the IBM PC for the first time. History Mouse Systems' optical mouse, wired to a Sun workstation and an Atari 400 running ''Missile Command'', attracted many observers at the October, 1982 Mini/Micro '82 conference in Anaheim, attended by over people—and won a "best new product" award. In 1982, MSC acquired rights to PCPaint from Microtex Industries, the first mouse-driven image manipulation program for the IBM PC, written in assembly language by Doug Wolfgram. Mouse Systems wanted the software re-developed to look more like Apple's MacPaint so Wolfgram brought in co-developer John Bridges and together they re-wrote the program in C with an updated user interface. Millions of copies were shipped, primarily bundled with all their mice until the early 1990s. KYE Systems, producer of the Genius brand of mice, acquired Mouse Sy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BIOS Interrupt Call
BIOS interrupt calls are a facility that operating systems and application programs use to invoke the facilities of the Basic Input/Output System firmware on IBM PC compatible computers. Traditionally, BIOS calls are mainly used by DOS programs and some other software such as boot loaders (including, mostly historically, relatively simple application software that boots directly and runs without an operating system—especially game software). BIOS runs in the real address mode (Real Mode) of the x86 CPU, so programs that call BIOS either must also run in real mode or must switch from protected mode to real mode before calling BIOS and then switching back again. For this reason, modern operating systems that use the CPU in Protected mode or Long mode generally do not use the BIOS interrupt calls to support system functions, although they use the BIOS interrupt calls to probe and initialize hardware during booting. Real mode has the 1MB memory limitation, modern boot loaders ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PC-9801
The , commonly shortened to PC-98 or , is a lineup of Japanese 16-bit and 32-bit personal computers manufactured by NEC from 1982 to 2000. The platform established NEC's dominance in the Japanese personal computer market, and, by 1999, more than 18 million units had been sold. While NEC did not market these specific machines in the West, it sold the NEC APC series, which had similar hardware to early PC-98 models. The PC-98 was initially released as a business-oriented personal computer which had backward compatibility with the successful PC-8800 series. The range of the series has expanded, and in the 1990s it was used in a variety of industry fields including education and hobbies. NEC succeeded in attracting third-party suppliers and a wide range of users, and the PC-98 dominated the Japanese PC market with more than 60% market share by 1991. IBM clones lacked sufficient graphics capabilities to easily handle Japan's multiple writing systems, in particular kanji with its tho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Keyboard
A computer keyboard is a peripheral input device modeled after the typewriter keyboard which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches. Replacing early punched cards and paper tape technology, interaction via teleprinter-style keyboards have been the main input method for computers since the 1970s, supplemented by the computer mouse since the 1980s. Keyboard keys (buttons) typically have a set of characters engraved or printed on them, and each press of a key typically corresponds to a single written symbol. However, producing some symbols may require pressing and holding several keys simultaneously or in sequence. While most keys produce characters (letters, numbers or symbols), other keys (such as the escape key) can prompt the computer to execute system commands. In a modern computer, the interpretation of key presses is generally left to the software: the information sent to the computer, the scan code, tells it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Motherboard
A motherboard (also called mainboard, main circuit board, mb, mboard, backplane board, base board, system board, logic board (only in Apple computers) or mobo) 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. ''Motherboard'' means specifically a PCB with expansion capabilities. As the name suggests, this board is often referred to as the "mother" of all components attached to it, which often include peripherals, interface cards, and daughterboards: sound cards, video cards, network cards, host bus adapters ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IBM PS/2
The Personal System/2 or PS/2 is IBM's second generation of personal computers. Released in 1987, it officially replaced the IBM PC, XT, AT, and PC Convertible in IBM's lineup. Many of the PS/2's innovations, such as the 16550 UART (serial port), 1440 KB 3.5-inch floppy disk format, 72-pin SIMMs, the PS/2 port, and the VGA video standard, went on to become standards in the broader PC market. The PS/2 line was created by IBM partly in an attempt to recapture control of the PC market by introducing the advanced yet proprietary Micro Channel architecture (MCA) on higher-end models. These models were in the strange position of being incompatible with the IBM-compatible hardware standards previously established by IBM and adopted in the PC industry. However, IBM's initial PS/2 computers were popular with target market corporate buyers, and by September 1988 IBM reported that it had sold 3 million PS/2 machines. This was only 18 months after the new range had been introduced. Mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
