Motherboard
During the late 1980s and 1990s, it became economical to move an increasing number of peripheralfunctions onto the motherboard (see below). In the late 1980s, motherboards began to include single ICs (called Super I/O chips) capable of supporting a set of low-speed peripherals: keyboard, mouse,floppy disk drive, serial ports, and parallel ports. As of the late 1990s, many personal computer motherboards supported a full range of audio, video, storage, and networking functions without the needfor any expansion cards at all; higher-end systems for 3D gaming and computer graphics typically retained only the graphics card as a separate component.
The early pioneers of motherboardmanufacturing were Micronics, Mylex, AMI, DTK, Hauppauge, Orchid Technology, Elitegroup, DFI, and a number of Taiwan-based manufacturers.
The most popular computers such as the Apple II and IBM PC hadpublished schematic diagrams and other documentation which permitted rapid reverse-engineering and third-party replacement motherboards. Usually intended for building new computers compatible with theexemplars, many motherboards offered additional performance or other features and were used to upgrade the manufacturer's original equipment.
The term mainboard is applied to devices with a singleboard and no additional expansions or capability. In modern terms this would include embedded systems and controlling boards in televisions, washing machines, etc. A motherboard specifically refers to a...
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