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Feature Connector
The feature connector was an internal connector found mostly in some older ISA, VESA Local Bus, and PCI graphics cards, but also on some early AGP ones. It was intended for use by devices which needed to exchange large amounts of data with the graphics card without hogging a computer system's CPU or data bus, such as TV tuner cards, video capture cards, MPEG video decoders (e.g. RealMagic), and first generation 3D graphic accelerator cards. Early examples include the IBM EGA video adapter. Several standards existed for feature connectors, depending on the bus and graphics card type. Most of them were simply an 8, 16 or 32-bit wide internal connector, transferring data between the graphics card and another device, bypassing the system's CPU and memory completely. Their speeds often far exceeded the speed of normal ISA or even early PCI buses, e.g. 40 MByte/s for a standard ISA-based SVGA, up to 150 MByte/s for a VESA-based or PCI-based one, while the standard 16 bit ISA bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enhanced Graphics Adapter
The Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA) is an IBM PC graphics adapter and de facto computer display standard from 1984 that superseded the CGA standard introduced with the original IBM PC, and was itself superseded by the VGA standard in 1987. In addition to the original EGA card manufactured by IBM, many compatible third-party cards were manufactured, and EGA graphics modes continued to be supported by VGA and later standards. History EGA was introduced in October 1984 by IBM,High-Resolution Standard Is Latest Step in DOS Graphics Evolution, ''InfoWorld'', June 26, 1989, p. 48News Briefs, Big Blue Turns Colors, ''InfoWorld'', October 8, 1984 shortly after its new PC/AT. The EGA could be installed in previously released IBM PCs, but required a ROM upgrade on the mainboard. Chips and Technologies first product, announced in September 1985, was a four chip EGA chipset that handled the functions of 19 of IBM's proprietary chips on the original Enhanced Graphics Adapter. By that No ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Buses
In computer architecture, a bus (shortened form of the Latin '' omnibus'', and historically also called data highway or databus) is a communication system that transfers data between components inside a computer, or between computers. This expression covers all related hardware components (wire, optical fiber, etc.) and software, including communication protocols. Early computer buses were parallel electrical wires with multiple hardware connections, but the term is now used for any physical arrangement that provides the same logical function as a parallel electrical busbar. Modern computer buses can use both parallel and bit serial connections, and can be wired in either a multidrop (electrical parallel) or daisy chain topology, or connected by switched hubs, as in the case of Universal Serial Bus (USB). Background and nomenclature Computer systems generally consist of three main parts: * The central processing unit (CPU) that processes data, * The memory that holds the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zoomed Video Port
In computing, a zoomed video port (often simply ZV port) is a unidirectional video bus allowing a device in a PC card slot to transfer video data directly into a VGA frame buffer, so as to allow laptops to display real-time video. The standard was created by the PCMCIA to allow devices such as TV tuners, video inputs and MPEG coprocessors to fit into a PC card form factor and provide a cheap solution for both the laptop manufacturer and consumer. The ZV port is a direct connection between the PC card slot and VGA controller. Video data is transferred in real time without any buffering, removing the need for bus mastering or arbitration. The ZV port was invented as an alternative to such methods as the VAFC (VESA Advanced Feature connector). ReferencesDefinition and technical detail from winbookcorp.com ( |
PC Card
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). It was originally designed as a standard for memory-expansion cards for computer storage. The existence of a usable general standard for notebook peripherals led to many kinds of devices being made available based on their configurability, including network cards, modems, and hard disks. History The PCMCIA 1.0 card standard was published by the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association in November 1990 and was soon adopted by more than eighty vendors. It corresponds with the Japanese JEIDA memory card 4.0 standard. SanDisk (operating at the time as "SunDisk") launched its PCMCIA card in October 1992. The company was the first to introduce a writ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scan-Line Interleave
Scan-Line Interleave (SLI) from 3dfx is a method for linking two (or more) video cards or chips together to produce a single output. It is an application of parallel processing for computer graphics, meant to increase the processing power available for graphics. SLI from 3dfx was introduced in 1998 and used in the Voodoo2 line of graphics accelerators. However, the original Voodoo Graphics card and the VSA-100 were also SLI-capable. Nvidia Corporation reintroduced the SLI acronym in 2004 (though it now stands for Scalable Link Interface). NVIDIA's SLI, compared to 3dfx's SLI, is modernized to use graphics cards interfaced over the PCI Express bus. Function 3dfx's SLI design was the first attempt, in the consumer PC market, at combining the rendering power of two video cards. The two 3dfx cards were connected by a small ribbon cable inside the PC. This cable shared graphics and synchronization information between the cards. Each 3dfx card rendered alternating horizontal lines ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Video RAM
Dual-ported video RAM, or VRAM, is a dual-ported variant of dynamic RAM (DRAM), which was once commonly used to store the framebuffer in graphics adapters. Note that most computers and game consoles do not use this form of memory, and dual-ported VRAM should not be confused with other forms of video memory. History It was invented by F. Dill, D. Ling and R. Matick at IBM Research in 1980, with a patent issued in 1985 (US Patent 4,541,075). The first commercial use of VRAM was in a high-resolution graphics adapter introduced in 1986 by IBM for its RT PC system, which set a new standard for graphics displays. Prior to the development of VRAM, dual-ported memory was quite expensive, limiting higher resolution bitmapped graphics to high-end workstations. VRAM improved the overall framebuffer throughput, allowing low cost, high-resolution, high-speed, color graphics. Modern GUI-based operating systems benefitted from this and thus it provided a key ingredient for proliferation o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Expansion Card
In computing, an expansion card (also called an expansion board, adapter card, peripheral card or accessory card) is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an electrical connector, or expansion slot (also referred to as a bus slot) on a computer's motherboard (see also backplane) to add functionality to a computer system. Sometimes the design of the computer's case and motherboard involves placing most (or all) 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. Expansion cards allow the capabilities and interfaces of a computer system to be extended or supplemented in a way appropriate to the tasks it will perform. For example, a high-speed multi-channel data acquisition system would be of no use in a personal computer used for bookkeeping, but might be a key part of a system used for ind ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Data
In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted. A datum is an individual value in a collection of data. Data is usually organized into structures such as tables that provide additional context and meaning, and which may themselves be used as data in larger structures. Data may be used as variables in a computational process. Data may represent abstract ideas or concrete measurements. Data is commonly used in scientific research, economics, and in virtually every other form of human organizational activity. Examples of data sets include price indices (such as consumer price index), unemployment rates, literacy rates, and census data. In this context, data represents the raw facts and figures which can be used in such a manner in order to capture the useful information out of it. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Analog Television
Analog television is the original television technology that uses analog signals to transmit video and audio. In an analog television broadcast, the brightness, colors and sound are represented by amplitude, instantaneous phase and frequency, phase and frequency of an analog signal. Analog signals vary over a continuous range of possible values which means that Noise (electronics), electronic noise and interference may be introduced. Thus with analog, a moderately weak signal becomes Noise (video), snowy and subject to interference. In contrast, picture quality from a digital television (DTV) signal remains good until the signal level drops below digital cliff, a threshold where reception is no longer possible or becomes intermittent. Analog television may be wireless (terrestrial television and satellite television) or can be distributed over a cable network as cable television. All broadcast television systems used analog signals before the arrival of DTV. Motivated by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intel P5
The Pentium (also referred to as P5, its microarchitecture, or i586) is a fifth generation, 32-bit x86 microprocessor that was introduced by Intel on March 22, 1993, as the very first CPU in the Pentium brand. It was instruction set compatible with the 80486 but was a new and very different microarchitecture design from previous iterations. The P5 Pentium was the first superscalar x86 microarchitecture and the world's first superscalar microprocessor to be in mass productionmeaning it generally executes at least 2 instructions per clock mainly because of a design-first dual integer pipeline design previously thought impossible to implement on a CISC microarchitecture. Additional features include a faster floating-point unit, wider data bus, separate code and data caches, and many other techniques and features to enhance performance and support security, encryption, and multiprocessing, for workstations and servers when compared to the next best previous industry standard proces ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intel 80486
The Intel 486, officially named i486 and also known as 80486, is a microprocessor. It is a higher-performance follow-up to the Intel 386. The i486 was introduced in 1989. It represents the fourth generation of binary compatible CPUs following the 8086 of 1978, the Intel 80286 of 1982, and 1985's i386. It was the first tightly- pipelined x86 design as well as the first x86 chip to include more than one million transistors. It offered a large on-chip cache and an integrated floating-point unit. A typical 50 MHz i486 executes around 40 million instructions per second (MIPS), reaching 50 MIPS peak performance. It is approximately twice as fast as the i386 or i286 per clock cycle. The i486's improved performance is thanks to its five-stage pipeline with all stages bound to a single cycle. The enhanced FPU unit on the chip was significantly faster than the i387 FPU per cycle. The intel 80387 FPU ("i387") was a separate, optional math coprocessor that was installed in a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
