Talk:Bus (computing)
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What does "yukki yukki bum" have to do with this exactly? 84.68.69.150 (talk) 11:47, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
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[edit] bus width
Question about definition of bus width. Is it just the bandwidth of the bus times the duration of a CPU cycle? It would be nice if that were defined so I'd know for sure.
The "bus width" is the number of data bits that can be simultaneously transferred. Usually that is identical to the number of data wires in the bus -- i.e., the number of wires in the data bus. The memory bus to a typical memory chip includes 8 wires in the data bus, 15 wires in the address bus, and 3 wires in the control bus, giving a 8 bit bus width. The various serial buses transmit 1 bit at a time, so they have a bus width of 1 bit (no matter if they transmit that bit on a single-ended wire, or differentially on 2 wires, and no matter whether or not there are other control wires associated with it). --75.19.73.101 23:18, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] article name
It's actually a more general term than computing. So this probably means moving. Or at least there needs to be another page, and have them linked together. Hmm. electrical bus perhaps? --drj
Do we really need separate articles for parallel bus, serial bus, internal bus, external bus? Can they be all covered here?
Any chance of some of Serial access, Serial transmission, Serial port merging?
"Buses" or "busses"? In American English at least, the former is the plural of "bus", while the latter is the third-person present tense of "to buss", meaning "to kiss".
[edit] RS-232
Is RS-232 a bus? Surely, it is not, it is strictly point-to-point and hence not a bus in any sense. The same goes for RS-422 and probably a few others too -- Egil
- A bus should connect more than two elements. I agree that RS 232 is not reasonably a "bus" and is never described as such in the EIA standard (at least the Rev C that I have). I'm taking it out. --Wtshymanski 15:57, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
[edit] CAN bus
Hello! I'm a newbie here and as I didn't find anything in Wikipedia about the controller area network (CAN) bus, I intended to create its entry. But I'm not sure if I should add a link to it in the Computer bus page or in the Electrical bus page. What do you suggest?
By the way, to have an idea about what is the CAN bus, look at: http://www.pcwebopedia.com/TERM/C/controller_area_network.html.
Thanks. -- Akira - Cleber Akira Nakandakare
- An article about CAN (controller area network) is a very welcome contribution. It definitely think it should be listed on the Computer bus page, under Examples of External Computer Buses, Serial -- Egil 07:06 21 May 2003 (UTC)
-
- done. --75.19.73.101 23:18, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] RS-232
I think that the view of RS-232 not being a bus is conceptual, as someone else suggested about CAT5 nework connections. As a specific example, Centronics parallel connections are supposedly point-to-point, but parallel scanners and parallel ZIP drives (not to menion SCSI-via-parallel and IDE-via-parallel) have been out for years, which can daisy-chain between the computer and a printer. There are multiplexers available to run several independent signals over a serial connection; these are litle different from USB hubs and the like. Scott McNay 01:43, 2004 Feb 26 (UTC)
- The PC-compatible world is full of stunts like that, but desparate work-arounds and expediencies in my opinion don't qualify the IBM PC parallel port as a "bus". It wasn't intended to be used as such, shucks, it wasn't even bidirectional till late in its evolution. --Wtshymanski 16:27, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
[edit] readability
The following was on the main page in a hidden (html) comment: This is not a technical encyclopedia; this is a general-purpose encyclopedia. Thus, I think we should make an effort to make things understandable by non-techs, if possible, without sacrificing correctness or details. copied across and removed from article page by VampWillow 20:51, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- A diagram is in order. I'll put it on my to-do list unless someone beats me to it. --Wtshymanski 16:27, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Asynchronous vs synchronous buses
The article says "All the equipment on the bus has to talk at the same speed, and thus shares a single clock." Surely this isn't true, since, for example the Motorola 68000 family implmeented asynchronous buses, where data transfer would vary in speed depending on how fast a peripheral chose to assert the "DTACK" (data transfer acknowledge) signal. --Wtshymanski 16:16, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Spectra and Multics
RCA Spectra machines did not run Multics...multics was in the GE and the Honeywell camp. Spectra was a pseudo IBM compatible system running operating systems TOS, TDOS and TSOS. I suspect the comments about the BUS could be correct...but for Spectra machines of those that ran Multics?
tg
I agree. But with either answer, it would probably not be the first such system. I don't know what the first would be, but I would guess that Burroughs D825 would be an early example. http://research.microsoft.com/~gbell/Computer_Structures__Readings_and_Examples/00000280.htm Perhaps this is too obscure to be illustrative. DHR 23:40, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Three Bus Structure
Do you guys think it'd be worth mentioning the three-bus architecture? As I understand it, it's an important model and is used a lot in computer systems. I could write a little about it if it's a good idea. Haddock420 12:33, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, please write a little about it. --75.19.73.101 23:18, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Article name
As nobody really calls the subject of this article a "computer bus" (do they?) I propose a name change, to "Bus (computing)" to fit in better with standard Wikipedia naming. Any comments? JulesH 09:50, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
I wholeheartedly agree - I was going to say exactly that. As nobody has responded within 5 days I'm renaming the page and setting the old name to be a redirect. I was going to edit all the links to here, but when I checked there were far too many for that to be viable. Perhaps a bot will sort that out later. Dan Pope 13:17, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
what is a another term for a computer bus? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.29.116.62 (talk)
[edit] Is Bus an Acronym?
is bus an acronym?.. if so what is the full form?... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.163.89.34 (talk • contribs) 13:00, 13 July 2007
I think it's important to clarify this one, particularly with references. Some people say it's short for Omnibus (latin for "for all"), wiki is the only source I've come across that mentions Bi-directional Universal Switch. I'll make it a project of mine for the next few days to find a source either proving or disproving it's acronym-ness. Alex Williams 23:51, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
- I don't think that the bus we are talking of here is an acronym. Here is a list of bus acronyms which possibly do not suit the article here.
--Ahsasin8 16:40, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Bus speeds for different devices
Some processors, such as the 68000, have provision for slow devices on the memory/IO bus and have a line (DTAK, for "data transfer acknowledge") which the peripheral will assert to signify it's had enough time to read/write the bus. So it's not strictly true that increasing bus speeds required increasing peripheral speeds, at least in the case of asynchronous bus designs. The whole world isn't an IBM PC, you know...or even an S100, for that matter. --Wtshymanski 18:53, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] PCI Express Bus Photo
The photograph nearest the top of the page states that the image is of a PCI Express bus... however the PCI Express article states that the PCI Express standard does not use a traditional bus, it uses lanes instead. -- 71.207.13.141 (talk) 05:16, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, but that's just on the electrical level. All the pins from different lanes are still arranged in a single strip. Hence why the connectors differ in size: they have a different number of lanes each. -- intgr [talk] 17:33, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- PCI Express is not a bus, neither is RS-232 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.55.0.135 (talk) 21:25, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Generalization
I think the whole organization of "bus" articles related to data buses needs to be re-vamped. The way I think about it, a computing bus as described in this article is just a specific case of a data bus. For that matter, there is a whole family of data buses not addressed: those used to connect special-purpose computers in aircraft, cars, and probably lots of other applications. For example, RS-422, RS-485, ARINC 429, MIL-STD-1553, and CAN, to name a few. By the way, the term bus in my experience is commonly used to describe point-to-point (two device) communication networks. I would like to see a citation for the "must connect more than two devices" assertion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.114.24.9 (talk) 05:13, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Data bus redirect?
Why does data bus redirect here? They are entirely separate things. You to combine a data, address and control bus (or multiplex them all) to make a bus that is described in this article. Rilak (talk) 11:12, 13 April 2008 (UTC)