Northwest Computer Engineering
The long, black one- or two-part connectors on all older "IBM-Compatible" PC motherboards, and many newer ones.
This is the "legacy" or old "standard" bus into which virtually all PC cards made previous to 1993 plug into. It is a relatively slow 16-bit bus...typically two to four megabytes-per-second, maximum.
The smaller white connectors on PC motherboards, prevalent since 1995. A much faster 32-bit or 64-bit bus for "IBM-Compatible" PC's. Most new cards for the PC use this bus. It is eight to sixteen times faster than the ISA Bus, and could be much faster than that in the future.
Recently the Apple Macintosh abandoned its somewhat propritary "NuBus" architecture in favor of the PCI Bus. The Digital Equipment "Alpha" systems also use the PCI Bus.
The PCI bus entirely replaced an earlier attempt at a PC high-speed bus, the "VESA" bus, mostly due to the fact that Intel Pentium chipsets support only the PCI Bus.
The most popular bus currently in use for new "big" computer hardware systems. A 32-bit bus used extensively in the process-control, automation, and test industries. Alternatively called the EuroBus. It's almost as fast as the PCI Bus.
An older, slower 24-bit and/or 32-bit bus used by the same industries as the VXI bus.
A "small-footprint" bus with identical electrical characteristics as the ISA Bus.
The 12 Megabit serial bus designed to replace virtually all low-to-medium speed peripheral device connections to Personal Computers, including keyboards, mice, modems, printers, joysticks, audio functions, monitor controls, etc. Heavily supported by hundreds of vendors and Microsoft. Almost all Personal Computer systems built in 1997 and on will use USB ports.
See USB for a more detailed description.
A very high-speed serial bus (400 Megabit - 1 Gigabit) which is the companion bus to the USB bus. This bus is designed to replace all external high-speed peripheral connections to Personal Computers, including Hard Disks, CDROM's, DVD's, Graphics Cards, High-speed Scanners, Direct Video, Monitors, and so on. Firewire, like USB, is very heavily supported throughout the Personal Computer Industry.