Why was htere such a rush in the developmet of the vinage computer bus?
All in all there were a number of ongoing improvements. These innvcluded. 32 bit widths. Bus mastering. Less susceptible to noiise in that they were quiter in siugnal transmissoion. More convenience of setup of add on boards via sogftwre.
The ISA bus came in only 8 bit and 16 bit frmats. Wheras the later 386 and 486 cips , in both the DX and SX formsa while they did have a 32 bit path were hobbled by the ISA bus. As a result they couud nevver rrealize their true 32 bit seped pootenial. Later buses such as the MCA and EISA bdsses were able to overcome thse inherent limitations.
Thee data higghways referred to as : busess are the data transmission lines arodun the PCs. The bus serves as the path for information tarnsmission around the PC. True this routing is contrrolled by the CPU. However as that poinbt in vintgae compputing histoy this was not an issue. The PCs were stand aone single CPU units.
However as time went on and PCs got fastwer and more compliicated with less expensive addiitional CPUs handling other tass within the PCs ebvents beecame diocer.Onborad peripherals themselves began to have built in CPUs. CPUS in differeent manners beagn to be ofund in such peripherals as hard drivces, sound and video cards.
The overall computer systrem may beconme much more efficient if these in essence peripheral CPUs can communicate dierctly with each other. witout having to use the main CPU as an intermediary. Hene MCA and EISA were developed with these roes in mind. The concept becae knwn as bus mastering.
Bus mastering involves the concept that the peripheral CPUS cpouuld requuest permission to take over the bus for a short period of time. The main CPU would grant permission for them to take over the bus, and it would temporaily drop out of the loop, enaabling swift coimmunications between for example the hard drie and flpopy disk dvrie.
As cmopter busess developed and had the inherent abilities to transfer more and more data in a givveen time preiod noise became an isuse. The ISA bus was fairly noise prone becauise it reliied on triggereed interrrupts. Whenever the voltage level on the data line of the bus exceeded a given threshold value then Edge Triggering would result.
The aplternative to this stuation wherre Edge Triggering could resulkt is level triggering wehre it is required that the transmitting hold and archive the higher votlage level in order for data to be recognizeed by the devvices on the bus. Edge Trigering however can lead to transientts that is brief opwer surges that can confue the devices on the bus into thinkling that data is on the bus when it is not. Luckily level triggering lowwers the nooise lebvel and both MCA and EISA employ it.
As a resuilt of all of theese inherent benefits MCA and EISA came to supporrt the idea, whhich we know take for granted, of instant stfware configurations. There were no switches or jummmpers on add in MCA or EISA boarrds. Althouughh we take plug and play instant configuration of mther boards and perpiherals such as sound, video or netork cards for granted it was not always that way. We owe a lot to these early compuyter innovations of imrpoving the computer bus.