15. "Pc motherboard"

^{PC motherboard}

A motherboard is a printed circuit board used in a personal computer. It is also known as the mainboard and occasionally abbreviated to mobo or MB. The term mainboard is also used for the main circuit board in this and other electronic devices. A typical motherboard provides attachment points for the one or more of the following: CPU, graphics card, sound card, hard disk controller, memory (RAM), and external peripheral devices.

All of the basic circuitry and components required for a computer to function sit either directly on the motherboard or in an expansion slot of the motherboard. The most important component on a motherboard is the chipset which consists of two components or chips known as the Northbridge and Southbridge. These chips determine, to an extent, the features and capabilities of the motherboard. As for the state of the so-called "IBM compatible PC" motherboard in the early 2000s, it contains the chipset, which controls the operation of the CPU, the PCI, ISA, AGP, and PCI-Express expansion slots, and (usually) the IDE/ATA controller as well. Most of the devices that can be attached to a motherboard are attached via one or more slots or sockets, although some modern motherboards support wireless devices using the IrDA, Bluetooth, or 802.11 (Wi-Fi) protocols.

CPU sockets

There are different slots and sockets for CPUs, and it is necessary for a motherboard to have the appropriate slot or socket for the CPU. Newer sockets, those with a three digit number, are named after the number of pins they contain. Older ones are simply named in the order of their invention, usually with a single digit.

Abbreviations PSI

[Protocol Control Information] - управляющая информация протокола (спецификация, предназначенная для обслуживания модулей данных, передаваемых вниз с вышестоящего уровня OSI; вместе с данными пользователя образует модуль данных протокола PDU) [Peripheral component Interconnected] - 32-разрядная системная шина с возможностью расширения до 64 разрядов, взаимодействие через которую происходит без участия центрального процессора, поддерживает технологию Plug-and-Play. ISA

[Industry-Standard Architecture] - архитектура, соответствующая промышленному стандарту. [Instruction-Set Architecture] - архитектура системы команд [Internet server application] - серверное приложение для Интернета

[Independent Computing Architecture] - протокол, обеспечивающий доступ по беспроводным соединениям 10Base-T к серверу, расположенномуЗ на расстоянии 40 м. Со скоростью передачи данных 1 Мбайт/с. AGP

[Accelerated Graphics Port] - порт ускоренной графики. IDE-

[Integrated Development Environment] - интегрированная среда разработки [Integrated Drive Electronics] - встроенный интерфейс накопителей (тип интерфейса периферийных устройств: жестких дисков, накопителей на компакт-дисках, стримеров и др.) [Integrated Device Electronics] - встроенный интерфейс (дисковых) устройств (тип интерфейса дисковых накопителей, в котором управляющая электроника размещается на самом дисководе, не требуя специальной адаптерной платы) АТА

[Asynchronous terminal adapter] - асинхронный терминальный адаптер

[Advanced Technology Attachment] - серия интерфейсов и протоколов, используемых для организации доступа к жестким дискам в портативных компьютерах.

^{Sound card}

A sound card is a computer expansion card that can input and output sound under program control.

A typical sound card includes a sound chip usually featuring a digital to analog converter that converts recorded or generated digital waveforms of sound into an analog format. This signal is led to a (earphone-type) connector where a cable to an amplifier or similar sound destination can be plugged in.

Also, a sound card has a "line in" connector where the sound signal from a cassette tape recorder or similar sound source can be connected to. The sound card can digitize this signal and store it (controlled by the corresponding computer software) on the computer's hard disk.

The third external connector a typical sound card has, is used to connect a microphone directly. Its sound can be recorded to hard disk or otherwise processed (for example, by speech recognition software or for Voice over IP).

One of the first manufacturers of sound cards for the IBM PC was AdLib, who produced a card based on the Yamaha YM3812 sound chip, aka the OPL2. This set the de facto-standard until Creative Labs produced the Sound Blaster card, which had a YM3812 plus a sound coprocessor (presumably an Intel microcontroller) which Creative creatively called a "DSP" which suggested it was a digital signal processor; several years passed before Creative released a card which could even record and playback sound at the same time, without even speaking about applying any real-time processing to it. The Sound Blaster, in tandem with the first cheap CD-ROM drives and evolving video technology, ushered in a new era of computer capabilities, in which they could play back CD audio, add recorded dialogue to computer games, or even play movies (but only short clips and in a very low quality form, incomparable with modern digital video).

Early soundcards could not record and play simultaneously. Most soundcards are now full-duplex.

In the late 1990s, many computer manufacturers began to replace plug-in soundcards with a codec integrated into the motherboard. Many of these used Intel's AC97 specification. Others used cheap ACR slots.

Driver architecture

To use a sound card, a certain operating system typically requires a specific device driver.

• Microsoft Windows uses proprietary drivers supplied by sound card manufacturers and supplied to Microsoft for inclusion in the distributions. Sometimes drivers are also supplied by the individual vendors for download and installation.

• The Linux kernel used in the Linux distributions have two different driver architectures, the Open Sound System and ALSA {Advanced Linux Sound Architecture). Both include drivers for most cards by default. Sound card manufacturers seldom produce stand-alone drivers for Linux.

• The USB specification defines a standard interface for sound cards to adhere to, allowing a single driver to work with the various USB sound cards on the market.