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Topic: MicroChannel architecture


In the News (Thu 31 Dec 09)

  
  MicroChannel architecture
MicroChannel architecture (in practice almost always shortened to MCA) was a proprietary 16 or 32-bit parallel computer bus created by IBM in the 1980s for use on their new PS/2 computers.
MicroChannel was an attempt to address, once and for all, the problems that had come to plague the PC bus (later known as ISA).
It was not compatible with either EISA or XT bus architecture so older cards cannot be used with it.
www.ebroadcast.com.au /lookup/encyclopedia/mi/Microchannel.html   (704 words)

  
 Micro Channel architecture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Micro Channel architecture (in practice almost always shortened to MCA) was a proprietary 16 or 32-bit parallel computer bus created by IBM in the 1980s for use on their new PS/2 computers.
Micro-Channel architecture was designed by IBM engineer Chet Heath and first introduced on the PS/2 series of machines in 1987; it slowly spread to IBM's entire computer line.
Most of the problems were not a big issue in the early days of IBM PC computers, but came to the surface as the range of tasks and peripherals, and number of manufacturers for PCs grew.
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/MicroChannel_architecture   (1277 words)

  
 Computer system having a bridge between two buses with a direct memory access controller and an alternative memory ...
A Microchannel bus has improved performance characteristics with respect to the ISA bus, and certain devices have been designed to take advantage of the Microchannel architecture.
For example, a Microchannel compatible master 64 and a slave 66 are coupled to the expansion bus 62 in the embodiment of FIG.
Since it is compatible with the Microchannel architecture, the DMA control circuit 74 also has the ability to control DMA transfers with ISA compatible devices.
www.freepatentsonline.com /5621902.html   (3269 words)

  
 Please title this page. (Page 1)
MicroChannel Architecture is IBM's answer to the failings of its older PC bus, which is now referred to as the ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) bus.
MicroChannel is a complete diversion from the original bus.
The Micro Channel architecture consists of an address bus, a data bus, an arbitration bus, a set of interrupt signals, and support signals.
www.ece.unh.edu /courses/ece707_4/mca.html   (4892 words)

  
 Microchannel Bus Overview by Quatech
MicroChannel was introduced in 1987 by IBM as a solution to the inadequacy of the ISA bus.
However, because MicroChannel (MCA) was prohibitively expensive, and since it was not backward compatible with older systems, the bus never caught on.
It merits brief discussion here because design features first implemented in the MicroChannel architecture are at the heart of all subsequent bus designs.
www.quatech.com /support/comm-over-mca.php   (387 words)

  
 Glossary B
The bus is often divided into two channels, a control channel to select where data is located [address bus], and the other to transfer the data [data bus or I/O bus].
(B) When bus architecture is used in a network, all terminals and computers are connected to a common channel that is made of twisted wire pairs, coaxial cable, or optical fibers.
Ethernet is a common LAN architecture using a bus topology.
www.validationstation.com /glossary/glossaryb.htm   (1436 words)

  
 Superior Emulsion Formation in Microchannel Architecture   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-02)
The microchannel emulsification process adds discontinuous phase droplets to the continuous phase, one droplet at a time, in multiple parallel channels.
The microchannel approach permits precise control of mixing energy, mixing time, and heating/cooling energy, all of which stay constant during process scale-up.
Microchannel emulsification could be beneficial for a wide range of industrial and consumer applications, including pharmaceuticals, food products, adhesives, and personal care products.
aiche.confex.com /aiche/s06/techprogram/P41683.HTM   (381 words)

  
 Bus-Evol
The I/O Processor was the ancestor to the channel architecture used in IBM mainframes.
Because multiple bus masters are supported by microchannel, multiple CPU subsystems can (with the appropriate operating system and software support) operate concurrently.
Earlier architectures used "through-hole" mounting which were holes drilled through the system board (hence the name) and then the chips were mounted into holders which were soldered into these holes.
www.tavi.co.uk /ps2pages/ohland/Bus-Evol.html   (1735 words)

  
 LCblog | Avalon: Microsoft's microchannel | Jun 18th 2004 11:11am
The demise of Windows would be one hell of a sea change, but Joel's essay is creating a lot of waves because he's made a very strong case that it could happen.
I think Avalon sounds a lot like microchannel, and that makes Longhorn equivalent to the PS/2: marvelously engineered, but destined to be late, unpopular and ultimately one of the biggest mistakes in its creator's history.
Nevertheless IBM did recover from its microchannel episode, and even microchannel technology itself was ultimately assimilated into the PCI bus that remains at the heart of modern PC architecture.
www.looselycoupled.com /blog/lc00aa00040.html   (812 words)

  
 

Footnotes on Educational Technology Center micros

ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) is the more formal name of the bus used on the PC and XT machines (8 bits wide), and AT's and PS/2 models below the PS/2 model 50 (16 bits wide).
Although our PS/2 model 70 holds a full 2 megabytes (upgraded to 6 MB early in 1994), 64K are reserved for the double-sized BIOS (which the model 80 also has, but whose resulting memory loss it doesn't report) Less than the full 6 megabytes is therefore available on the model 70.
Since the Microchannel requires all adapters plugged into it to handle bus-mastering, and to cooperate with reporting and reconfiguration of their parameters by software, these adapters are not interchangeable with the more common ISA adapters.
www.ics.uci.edu /~archive/documentation/machines/mchn-ftnotes.html   (866 words)

  
 Apparatus for adapting message protocols for a switch network and a bus - Patent 5742761
Existing bus-based architecture is extended to perform parallel and clustering functions by enabling the interconnection of thousands of processors.
In the case of the MicroChannel the result is that 8 taps is the maximum number of allowable bus taps to permit bus operations to occur at 200 ns cycle times.
Node 0 is comprised of processor P300 and MC Bus B500, Node 1 is comprised of processor P301 and MC Bus B501, Node 2 is comprised of processor P302 and MC Bus B502, and Node n is comprised of processor P30n and MC Bus B50n, where is is theorectically an unbounded positive integer.
www.freepatentsonline.com /5742761.html   (19570 words)

  
 What is Micro Channel Architecture? - A Word Definition From the Webopedia Computer Dictionary
It is called a bus architecture because it defines how peripheral devices and internal components communicate across the computer's expansion bus.
Introduced by IBM in 1987, MCA was designed to take the place of the older AT bus, the architecture used on IBM PC-ATs and compatibles.
For a variety of reasons, however, the industry never accepted the new architecture.
www.webopedia.com /TERM/M/Micro_Channel_Architecture_MCA.html   (84 words)

  
 Extended Industry Standard Architecture
The Extended Industry Standard Architecture (in practice almost always shortened to EISA and frequently pronounced "eee-suh") is a bus standard for IBM compatible computers.
It was announced in late 1988 by PC clone vendors as a counter to IBM's use of its proprietary MicroChannel Architecture (MCA) in its PS/2 series.
EISA extends the ISA bus architecture to 32 bits and allows more than one CPU to share the bus.
www.mrsci.com /Motherboard/Extended_Industry_Standard_Architecture.php   (247 words)

  
 midframe
The MCA was a proper channel architecture incorporating lots of the features for which add-in cards were necessary on the PC.
Naturally, it failed miserably given the difficulty of persuading prospects that a company which had, at the time, made such a dog’s breakfast of its own fortunes would be a good company to advise the prospect’s organization.
The architecture underlying the lower (Common Transport Semantic layer) levels of the Networking Blueprint.
www.sdsusa.com /dictionary/glossAZ/m.htm   (6941 words)

  
 Bus Architecture
Traditional microcomputer architecture has an internal bus that links the CPU with RAM, and an external bus that allows input/output and storage devices to connect to the system bus via expansion slots.
The bus in a computer system is simply a collection of physical ‘pathways’ wires that convey electrical signals between the various units in the computer.
IBM developed a new 32-bit bus architecture known as Microchannel Architecture (MCA) with the aim of increasing data transfer rates.
online.nmit.vic.edu.au /police/hardware/resource7.htm   (1011 words)

  
 2.4.3 config
The Extended Industry Standard Architecture (EISA) bus was developed as an open alternative to the IBM MicroChannel bus.
The EISA bus saw limited use between 1988 and 1995 when it was made obsolete by the PCI bus.
MicroChannel Architecture is found in some IBM PS/2 machines and laptops.
www.linux-sxs.org /upgrading/config243/24general1.html   (1068 words)

  
 Installing Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 For Intel x86 - System Requirements
Debian 3.0 supports eleven major architectures and several variations of each architecture known as 'flavors'.
The system bus is the part of the motherboard which allows the CPU to communicate with peripherals such as storage devices.
Your computer must use the ISA, EISA, PCI, the Microchannel Architecture (MCA, used in IBM's PS/2 line), or VESA Local Bus (VLB, sometimes called the VL bus).
www.debian.org /releases/woody/i386/ch-hardware-req.en.html   (2129 words)

  
 MicroChannel Architecture
Ultimately, a set of these vendors defined a "standard" bus known as ISA, "Industry Standard Architecture." Later enhanced to "EISA." "VESA" was a further extension of this to an Intel 486-oriented bus.
MCA (Micro Channel Architecture) was IBM's attempt to take things over again.
The main difference is that I2O has a fairly sizable group of participants, including Microsoft, Intel, and a variety of other vendors.
cbbrowne.com /info/footmca.html   (473 words)

  
 PNNL Seeks Maxi Space Exploration Via Mini Technology
Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., which is operated by Battelle for the Department of Energy, will launch the development of a lightweight and extraordinarily compact system for NASA applications.
Microchannel technology generally has at least one dimension that is 200 microns or less in size — a human hair is about 20-50 microns.
Brooks admits that these capabilities are still conceptual, but says that by demonstrating the next generation of microchannel technology for ISPP, researchers may be able to advance these capabilities as well.
www.spacedaily.com /news/spacetravel-05zf.html   (823 words)

  
 Linux.com Article DB: Why is Linux Even In the Running? - 1/1
In 1981 before IBM came out with their first PC, they were faced with a decision, The decision to use proprietary architecture, or to use an open architecture.
Their reason was to get to market in a short period of time to try and capture market share.
Maybe the Open Source community should consider a name change to "Open Source Architecture" to help clarify the concept to those who may be new to the idea.
linux.omnipotent.net /article.php?article_id=7016   (551 words)

  
 HP: Giving away blade technology - TechUpdate - ZDNet   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-02)
Car manufacturers create, warrant, and support their individual models which are built to spec with parts from a variety of licensed suppliers and they allow the addition of aftermarket components from their licensees.
By initially licensing the architecture, HP opened the door to third party participation and will recoup fees for the licenses.
Beyond the obvious, widespread third-party support for its architecture could sustain HP's servers for a significantly longer time than might be possible for a proprietary system.
techupdate.zdnet.com /techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2846572,00.html   (759 words)

  
 VOICE Newsletter 04/2002 - The SCSI Workshop - Part 2: Practise
With the introduction of the first generation of microchannel systems in 1987 by IBM it showed that the formerly used mass storage subsystems, which were mainly based on the old ST412/506 standard, were simply too slow and too error-prone for the new premium PS/2 models.
The performance of the newly developed Microchannel was beyond everything the ISA architecture could ever have offered, so the old MFM harddisks quickly turned out to be a bottleneck.
Because of the variety of controllers with different standards that has evolved throughout those years and the special technical characteristics of the MCA bus there are some peculiarities to be taken into account if you consider upgrading a machine based on the Microchannel architecture with a new harddisk or a new controller.
www.os2voice.org /VNL/past_issues/VNL0402H/vnewsf6.htm   (2438 words)

  
 Computer Glossary
ISA - Industry Standard Architecture - The peripheral I/O bus architecture first used in the IBM PC AT.
This bus architecture is used only for Intel x86 and compatible based computers (286, 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium II, Pentium III).
MCA - Microchannel Architecture - IBM's peripheral I/O bus for the PS/2 PCs, also used in the RS/6000 series.
www.aaxnet.com /info/glocomp.html   (2130 words)

  
 Read about Computers, Hardware, Buses, MCA from Thumbshots.net
Links to information about the MicroChannel Architecture (MCA) bus, as used in many IBM PS/2, RS/6000, AS/400, and 370 machines.
Although mainly directed at the MicroChannel systems (model 50 and above) there may be the occasional snippet about the lower end ISA-based systems as well.
IBM's answer to the failings of its older PC bus, which is now referred to as the ISA bus, article discusses the problems and short falls it had.
www.thumbshots.net /webguide.aspx?cat=Computers/Hardware/Buses/MCA   (150 words)

  
 Re: MCA and Linux
I've just finished installing Red Hat 6.0 on a microchannel architecture (MCA) based NCR Model 3410 (NCR Class 3355) PC using the BusLogic BT 646S SCSI adapter although any supported MCA SCSI adapter should work on your MCA system.
The imperfect procedure below is one way how you can do the same to complete the Red Hat 6.0 installation for a SCSI based Microchannel system Hopefully, I didn't forget something major because I did this from memory after several attempts at the MCA installation..
Modify the configuration and create a very slim alternate microchannel configuration for just the hardware needed to complete the install.
www.dedserius.com /ncr3410configlinux.php3   (1217 words)

  
 The Technology Liberation Front: Open Standards vs. IBM - Remembering the MicroChannel Architecture
The future of the mainframe business was definitely looking grim, but its PC division - the future of computing - had already lost its dominance in the PC market and was struggling to sell its OS/2 operating system.
But its open (non-IP protected) architecture meant that the PC was easily “cloned.” According to this site, Compaq was “the first with an 80386-based machine in 1986.
IBM attempted to re-establish control over the PC platform in 1987 with a homegrown replacement for the DOS operating system, OS/2, and the introduction of the PS/2 based on the proprietary MicroChannel architecture.
www.techliberation.com /archives/016280.php   (654 words)

  
 2.1. Supported Hardware
Debian 4.0 supports twelve major architectures and several variations of each architecture known as “flavors”.
If you are looking for information on any of the other Debian-supported architectures take a look at the Debian-Ports pages.
Despite the architecture name "i386", Debian Sarge has dropped support for actual 80386 processors (and their clones), which were supported by earlier releases
d-i.alioth.debian.org /manual/en.i386/ch02s01.html   (656 words)

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