Prior to the invention of the microprocessor, the CPU of a digital computer consisted of multiple circuit boards in a card-cage case with components connected by a backplane containing a set of interconnected sockets into which the circuit boards are plugged In very old designs, copper wires were the discrete connections between card connector pins, but printed circuit boards soon became the standard practice. History Mainboard of a NeXTcube computer (1990) with microprocessor Motorola 68040 operated at 25 MHz and a digital signal processor Motorola 56001 at 25 MHz, which was directly accessible via a connector on the back of the casing. This model follows the Baby AT (form factor), used in many desktop PCs.

Motherboard for a personal desktop computer showing the typical components and interfaces which are found on a motherboard. Similarly, the term mainboard describes a device with a single board and no additional expansions or capability, such as controlling boards in laser printers, television sets, washing machines, mobile phones, and other embedded systems with limited expansion abilities. As the name suggests, this board is often referred to as the 'mother' of all components attached to it, which often include peripherals, interface cards, and daughterboards: sound cards, video cards, network cards, host bus adapters, TV tuner cards, IEEE 1394 cards, and a variety of other custom components.ĭell Precision T3600 System Motherboard, used in professional CAD Workstations.

Motherboard means specifically a PCB with expansion capabilities. Unlike a backplane, a motherboard usually contains significant sub-systems, such as the central processor, the chipset's input/output and memory controllers, interface connectors, and other components integrated for general use.

It holds and allows communication between many of the crucial electronic components of a system, such as the central processing unit (CPU) and memory, and provides connectors for other peripherals. For other uses, see Motherboard (disambiguation).Ī motherboard (also called mainboard, main circuit board, MB, mboard, backplane board, base board, system board, mobo or in Apple computers logic board) is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in general-purpose computers and other expandable systems.

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