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 that 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. SGS Thomson MPEG Decoder), 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 MB/s for a standard ISA-based SVGA, up to 150 MB/s for a VESA-based or PCI-based one, while the sta ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Super Video Graphics Array
Super VGA (SVGA) or Extended VGA is a broad term that covers a wide range of computer display standards that extended IBM's VGA specification. When used as shorthand for a resolution, as VGA and XGA often are, SVGA refers to a resolution of 800 × 600. History In the late 1980s, after the release of IBM's VGA, third-party manufacturers began making graphics cards based on its specifications with extended capabilities. As these cards grew in popularity, they began to be referred to as "Super VGA". This term was not an official standard, but a shorthand for enhanced VGA cards which had become common by 1988. The first cards that explicitly used the term were Genoa Systems's SuperVGA and SuperVGA HiRes in 1987. Super VGA cards broke compatibility with the IBM VGA standard, requiring software developers to provide specific display drivers and implementations for each card their software could operate on. Initially, the heavy restrictions this placed on software develop ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Computer Buses
In computer architecture, a bus (historically also called a data highway or databus) is a communication system that transfers Data (computing), data between components inside a computer or between computers. It encompasses both Computer hardware, hardware (e.g., wires, optical fiber) and software, including communication protocols. At its core, a bus is a shared physical pathway, typically composed of wires, traces on a circuit board, or busbars, that allows multiple devices to communicate. To prevent conflicts and ensure orderly data exchange, buses rely on a communication protocol to manage which device can transmit data at a given time. Buses are categorized based on their role, such as system buses (also known as internal buses, internal data buses, or memory buses) connecting the Central processing unit, CPU and Computer memory, memory. Expansion buses, also called peripheral buses, extend the system to connect additional devices, including peripherals. Examples of widely ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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* (PCMCIA dissolved in 2009; Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that ru ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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PC Card
PC Card is a technical standard specifying an expansion card interface for laptops and personal digital assistants, PDAs. The PCMCIA originally introduced the 16-bit Industry Standard Architecture, ISA-based PCMCIA Card in 1990, but renamed it to PC Card in March 1995 to avoid confusion with the name of the organization. The CardBus PC Card was introduced as a 32-bit version of the original PC Card, based on the Peripheral Component Interconnect, PCI specification. CardBus slots are Backward compatibility, backwards compatible, but older slots are not Forward compatibility, forward compatible with CardBus cards. Although originally designed as a standard for memory-expansion cards for computer storage, the existence of a usable general standard for notebook peripherals led to the development of many kinds of devices including network cards, modems, and hard disks. The PC Card port has been superseded by the ExpressCard interface since 2003, which was also initially developed by t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Scan-Line Interleave
Scan-Line Interleave (SLI) is a multi-GPU method developed by 3DFX for linking two (or more) video cards or chips together to produce a single output. It is an application of parallel computing, parallel processing for computer graphics, meant to increase the processing power available for graphics. 3DFX's SLI technology was first introduced in 1998 with the Voodoo2 line of graphics accelerators. The original Voodoo Graphics card and the Voodoo5, VSA-100Lal Shimpi, Anand3DFX Voodoo5 5500 Anandtech, July 11, 2000.3DFX Interview with Peter Wicher Hot Hardware, December 15, 2001. were also SLI-capable. However, in the case of the former, it was only used in arcades, as well as professional applications via Primary Image's Piranha card, intended for use with simulations ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Video RAM
Video random-access memory (VRAM) is dedicated computer memory used to store the pixels and other graphics data as a framebuffer to be rendered on a computer monitor. It often uses a different technology than other computer memory, in order to be read quickly for display on a screen. Relation to GPUs Many modern GPUs rely on VRAM. In contrast, a GPU that does ''not'' use VRAM, and relies instead on system RAM, is said to have a unified memory architecture, or shared graphics memory. System RAM and VRAM have been segregated due to the bandwidth requirements of GPUs, and to achieve lower latency, since VRAM is physically closer to the GPU die. Modern VRAM is typically found in a BGA package soldered onto a graphics card. The VRAM is cooled along with the GPU by the GPU heatsink. Technologies * Dual-ported video RAM, used in the 1990s and at the time often called "VRAM" * SGRAM * GDDR SDRAM * High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) See also * Graphics processing unit * Tiled render ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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 in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Data
Data ( , ) are a collection of discrete or continuous values that convey information, describing the quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted formally. A datum is an individual value in a collection of data. Data are usually organized into structures such as tables that provide additional context and meaning, and 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 are commonly used in scientific research, economics, and virtually every other form of human organizational activity. Examples of data sets include price indices (such as the consumer price index), unemployment rates, literacy rates, and census data. In this context, data represent the raw facts and figures from which useful information can be extracted. Data are collected using technique ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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 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 lower bandwidth requ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Intel P5
The Pentium (also referred to as the i586 or P5 Pentium) is a microprocessor introduced by Intel on March 22, 1993. It is the first CPU using the Pentium, Pentium brand. Considered the fifth generation in the x86 (8086) compatible line of processors, succeeding the i486, its implementation and microarchitecture was internally called ''P5''. Like the Intel i486, the Pentium is instruction set compatible with the 32-bit i386. It uses a very similar microarchitecture to the i486, but was extended enough to implement a dual integer instruction pipelining, pipeline design, as well as a more advanced floating-point unit (FPU) that was noted to be ten times faster than its predecessor. The Pentium was succeeded by the Pentium Pro in November 1995. In October 1996, the Pentium MMX was introduced, complementing the same basic microarchitecture of the original Pentium with the MMX (instruction set), MMX instruction set, larger caches, and some other enhancements. Intel discontinued the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Intel 80486
The Intel 486, officially named i486 and also known as 80486, is a microprocessor introduced in 1989. It is a higher-performance follow-up to the i386, Intel 386. It represents the fourth generation of binary compatible CPUs following the Intel 8086, 8086 of 1978, the Intel 80286 of 1982, and 1985's i386. It was the first tightly-instruction pipeline, pipelined x86 design as well as the first x86 chip to include more than one million transistors. It offered a large on-chip Cache (computing), cache and an integrated floating-point unit. When it was announced, the initial performance was originally published between 15 and 20 VAX Unit of Performance, VAX MIPS, between 37,000 and 49,000 Dhrystone, dhrystones per second, and between 6.1 and 8.2 double-precision Whetstone (benchmark), megawhetstones per second for both 25 and 33 MHz version. A typical 50 MHz i486 executes 41 million instructions per second Dhrystone MIPS and SPECint, SPEC integer rating of 27.9.Chen, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |