| A | B |
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| Bus | a parallel collection of conductors that carry data or control signals from one unit to another |
| Data Bus | a bidirectional pathway linking the cpu to memory and I/O devices |
| Address Bus | a pathway that carries data generated by the cpu to the various memory and I/O elements of the computer |
| PC Bus | the bus architechture used in the first IBM PCs originally an 8-bit bus expanded to a 16-bit bus |
| ISA | industry standard architechture, the 8-bit and 16-bit, original connectors used in PCs run at a bus speed of 8MHz |
| EISA | extended industry standard architechture, 16-bit but ISA was extended to 32 bits |
| PCI | periphial system interconnect, a high-performance 32/16-bit bus |
| Plug and Play | standard that was supposed to make adding peripherals to your systems as easy as plugging them in and using them |
| Bandwidth | a measure in some amount of bits per second of the amount of data, that can be sent over a particular cable, interface, or bus |
| Bus Master | any class of microprocessor unit with the ability to take control of the system buses of a computer |
| Bus Speed | a measurement usually in MHz of how many times data can be transferred over the bus per second |
| Expansion Slot | any time of slot in a computer that you can plug an expansion card into generally its linked to ISA, EISA, PCI, and PCMCIA |
| Legacy | describes older computer systems, hardware, and software |
| FireWire | high speed serial bus, allows for connection of up to 63 devices. primarily used for digital video |
| Adapter | a device that allows one system to connect to and work with another |
| Interrupt | a signal that gets the attention of the CPU and is usually generated when I/O is required |
| Jumper | asmall plug placed over pins (or removed from pins) to configure hardware settings |
| DMA | specialized circuitry or a dedicated microprocessor that transfers data from adapters to memory without using the CPU |
| I/O Address | a three-digit hexadecimal number used to identify and signal a peripheral device like a serial port, parellel port, or sound card |
| AGP | is based on the PCI architechture and is designed specifically to speed up 3D graphics |
