What is the ISA expansion slot?

Answer 1

ISA is the precursor to PCI. Standing for "Industry Standard Architecture" It was common from the early 1980s to the mid 1990s. ISA was a typically inelegant solution for the time, and required one to know exactly what one was doing- PnP was rare, even for so called "ISA PnP" peripherals. In the end, the combination of flexibility, ease of use, and greater capability allowed PCI to supersede ISA.

Answer 2

An ISA slot is an early type of expansion slot used to connect peripheral cards to a computer's motherboard. ISA stands for Industry Standard Architecture. The original ISA bus slot was 8-bit to coincide with the 8-bit data width of the Intel 8088 processor. In 1984, when the 80286 was introduced, the bus width was doubled to 16 bit. When 32 bit buses were required, the ISA slot was superseded by the PCI slot.

Answer 3

ISA expansion slots are 8-bit and 16-bit bus slots found in older computers. They were first introduced in the original IBM PC (8-bit only) in 1981. 16-bit ones were introduced in the IBM PC AT in 1984. Because of the PC 99 standard introduced by Intel and Microsoft, computers introduced after January 1, 2000 cannot have ISA slots and be certified to run Windows at the same time, so they are only found in older or special-purpose hardware these days.