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VME History

The VME bus descends from the VERSAbus, a bus design published by Motorola, Inc., in 1980 to support the needs of the MC68000 line of microprocessors. The bus timing relationships and some signal names still reflect this heritage, although the VME bus is used by devices from many manufacturers today.

The original VERSAbus design specified a large form factor for pluggable cards. Because of this, it was not popular with European designers. A bus with a smaller form factor but similar functions and electrical specifications was designed for European use, and promoted by Motorola, Phillips, Thompson, and other companies. This was the VersaModule European, or VME, bus. Beginning with rev B of 1982, the bus quickly became an accepted standard.


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