Fall 2014 – Adapter Interfaces Exercise

Happy Final Week of the 2nd Semester! Today we’re going to investigate Adapter Interfaces. Use the provided links to answer the following study questions. Write your answers in a Microsoft Word or Google Docs document, and place a copy of the document onto the server in the StudentsTempFiles > Marmolejo NetOp > Student Drop Folder > 5.0 – Adapter Interfaces by the end of class tomorrow. Feel free to work in pairs, but make sure you each turn in your own separate Word document.

ISA – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_Standard_Architecture

1. The ISA standard supports two bus widths, what are they (in bits)?

2. What interface is directly descended from ISA?

3. Is ISA still in use?

4. What interfaces currently in use are derived from ISA?

5. What is EISA, and how does it relate to ISA?

PCI – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventional_PCI

6. What does PCI stand for?

7. What two bus widths does the PCI standard support?

8. What types of devices can you connect in a PCI expansion slot?

9. What is the peak transfer rate for a 32-bit PCI slot (in MB/second)?

10. What is the difference between a “Full-size” PCI card, and a “Low-profile” PCI card?

AGP – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerated_Graphics_Port

11. What type of card is primarily used in AGP expansion slots?

12. What drawback of the PCI bus led to the development of the AGP standard?

13. What is the maximum bandwidth (in MB/second) of the AGP bus?

14. Is AGP still in use today?

PCIe – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCIe

15. What improvements did the PCIe interface introduce over the PCI and AGP interfaces?

16. What is a “Lane”, as defined by the PCIe standard?

17. What are the five form factors of PCIe cards?

18. What is the relationship between a PCIe slot’s form factor and the number of lanes it contains?

19. What is the maximum number of lanes currently in common use?

20. What is the maximum bandwidth (in MB/second) of the PCIe v3.0 per lane?

21. What type of expansion cards can be used in a PCIe slot? Which is the most common?