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- Newsgroups: comp.arch
- Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!destroyer!caen!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!mips!munnari.oz.au!uniwa!DIALix!metapro!bernie
- From: bernie@metapro.DIALix.oz.au (Bernd Felsche)
- Subject: Re: Request Info Re Bus Trends & Intel 486s
- Message-ID: <1992Jul27.013814.25878@metapro.DIALix.oz.au>
- Keywords: Intel 486 Bus
- Organization: MetaPro Systems, Perth, Western Australia
- References: <rjmartin.711191773@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU> <1992Jul20.003506.23290@theus.rain.com> <id.TJRR.XR8@ferranti.com>
- Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 01:38:14 GMT
- Lines: 44
-
- In <id.TJRR.XR8@ferranti.com> peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva) writes:
-
- >In article <1992Jul20.003506.23290@theus.rain.com>
- > john@theus.rain.com (John Theus) writes:
- >> However, Futurebus+ is a backplane bus, not a desktop bus. [...]
-
- >Why is it that backplanes aren't more common on the desktop? Even for the PC
-
- In a word: "$"
-
- There are secondary reasons but....
-
- It's more expensive to produce a processor board to plug
- into a backplane, especially when the current technology
- requires more real estate than that available withing the
- standard form factor. This leads to complications such as
- "overhead" connectoions to provide those signals which the
- backplane bus does not pass.
-
- You can do it without overhead connections, even with
- "primitive" technology, by careful division of functional
- blocks and archtecture design. However, it costs more to
- make it that way than all on the one motherboard.
-
- >world, they're available (under the ugly name "passive motherboard"), and until
-
- Yes, you can now get a PC on a card to plug into a
- backplane, but only because the technology is now available
- and reasonably cheap.
-
- >the IBM-PC came out they were the norm for multi-board systems (you had either
- >single-board CPUs or S100 or equivalent). The only exception was the Apple II,
- >and then the IBM-PC. Is it just tradition or is there something that makes a
- >motherboard system inherently better?
-
- I too would like to see the return of the desktop backplane,
- but I know that I'm in the 5% (or less) minority of the
- market which knows the advantages and doesn't mind paying a
- small price to have them available.
- --
- +-----+ Bernd Felsche _--_|\ #include <std/disclaimer.h>
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