<architecture, standard> (EISA) /eesa/ A bus standard for IBM compatibles that extends the ISA bus architecture to 32 bits and allows more than one CPU to share the bus. The bus mastering support is also enhanced to provide access to 4 GB of memory. Unlike MCA, EISA can accept older {XT bus architecture} and ISA boards. EISA was announced in late 1988 by compatible vendors as a counter to IBM's MCA in its PS/2 series. Although somewhat inferior to the MCA it became much more popular due to the proprietary nature of MCA. [Main sponsors? Open standard?] (1996-06-25)

Industry Standard Architecture

<architecture, standard> (ISA) A bus standard for {IBM compatibles} that extends the XT bus architecture to 16 bits. It also allows for bus mastering although only the first 16 MB of main memory is available for direct access. In reference to the XT bus architecture it is sometimes referred to as "AT bus architecture". Compare EISA, MCA. (1996-06-25)

Industry Standard Architecture

<hardware, architecture> (After the IBM PC XT) An eight-bit ISA bus architecture used by Intel 8086 and Intel 8088 systems in the IBM PC and IBM PC XT in the 1980s. It predates the 16-bit ISA architecture used on the Intel 80286 based machines. The XT bus has four DMA channels, of which three are brought out to the expansion slots. Of these three, two are normally allocated to machine functions: DMA channel Expansion Standard function 0 No dynamic RAM refresh 1 Yes add-on cards 2 Yes floppy disk controller 3 Yes hard disc controller (1997-09-15)

An industry standard is a technical standard used in technical contexts throughout an industry. It may also refer to:

The Extended Phenotype is a 1982 book by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, in which the author introduced a biological concept of the same name. The main idea is that phenotype should not be limited to biological processes such as protein biosynthesis or tissue growth, but extended to include all effects that a gene has on its environment, inside or outside the body of the individual organism.

In music, a standard is a musical composition of established popularity, considered part of the "standard repertoire" of one or several genres. Even though the standard repertoire of a given genre consists of a dynamic and partly subjective set of songs, these can be identified by having been performed or recorded by a variety of musical acts, often with different arrangements.

<storage> Memory above the first megabyte of address space in an IBM PC with an 80286 or later processor. Extended memory is not directly available in real mode, only through EMS, UMB, XMS, or HMA; only applications executing in protected mode can use extended memory directly. In this case, the extended memory is provided by a supervising protected-mode operating system such as Microsoft Windows. The processor makes this memory available through a system of global descriptor tables and local descriptor tables. The memory is "protected" in the sense that memory assigned a local descriptor cannot be accessed by another program without causing a hardware trap. This prevents programs running in protected mode from interfering with each other's memory. A protected-mode operating system such as Windows can also run real-mode programs and provide expanded memory to them. DOS Protected Mode Interface is Microsoft's prescribed method for an MS-DOS program to access extended memory under a multitasking environment. Having extended memory does not necessarily mean that you have more than one megabyte of memory since the reserved memory area may be partially empty. In fact, if your 386 or higher uses extended memory as expanded memory then that part is not in excess of 1Mb. See also conventional memory. (1996-01-10)

<software, storage> (XMM) The memory manager software implementing Extended Memory Specification, such as HIMEM or QEMM386. XMM's can usually also act as A20 handlers. (1996-01-10)