The Graphics Bus Wars

It started with the S-100 bus Before the PC, the open microcomputers used the S-100 bus, also known as the Altair bus, introduced in 1974 with the Altair 8800 microcomputer and designed by MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems). [1] It was named S-100 [2] after the 100-pin connector used for expansion cards. [3] The S-100 board bus interface pins were initially arranged by an unidentified engineer contracted by MITS, with the layout created quickly. As a result, the pin configuration was somewhat unstructured and not optimized for noise resistance. The placement of pins on both sides of the board was primarily determined by the simplest way to route all 8080 signals to the bus while minimizing the number of plated through-holes. This design was completed before the availability of modern CAD/CAM PCB layout tools, which now allow for more efficient and optimized circuit board designs. The Cromemco Dazzler, introduced in 1976, was a graphics card for S-100 bus computers and ... Read full article.