An illustrated Guide to I/O-busses
The older first and second generation CPU's ran at relatively low clock frequencies, and all system components could keep up with those speeds. Among other things, that allowed additional RAM to be installed in expansion slots in the PC, by installing an adapter in a vacant expansion slot. An adapter, where RAM was mounted. That would be unthinkable today. First in 1987, Compaq figured how to separate system bus from I/O bus, so they could run at different speeds.. This multi-bus architecture has been industry standard ever since. Modern PC's also have more than one I/O bus.
What does an I/O bus do? I/O busses connect the CPU to all other components, except RAM. Data are moved on the busses from one component to another, and data from other components to the CPU and RAM. The I/O busses differ from the system bus in speed. Their speed will always be lower than the system bus speed. Over the years, different I/O busses have been developed. On modern Pentium PC's, you will find at least two significant busses, and one less significant: ● The ISA bus, which is an older low speed bus. ● The PCI bus, which is a new high speed bus. ● The USB bus (Universal Serial Bus), which is a new low speed bus. As mentioned earlier, I/O busses are really derivatives from the system bus. On the system board it ends in a controller chip, which forms a bridge to the two other busses. The essential in modern PC's is fast busses. Let us compare the two primary I/O busses:
Bus Transmission time
Data volume per transmission
ISA
375 ns
16 bit
PCI
30 ns
32 bit
Clearly, there is a vast difference between the capacity of the two busses. All in all, the busses have a very central placement in the PC's data exchange. Actually, all components except the CPU communicate with each other and with RAM via the different I/O busses. Here you see a demonstration of this logic:
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