PC Technology Resources

Industry Organizations, Standards, Formats

    by Douglas Dixon

• PC Technology
• Standards Organizations
• PC Storage Formats
• PC Interface / Communications Formats
• PC Networking Formats
• RFID

See also:

Digital Video Editing References  (FireWire / DV)  
DVD Authoring References  (Optical formats)
Web Streaming Media Resources  (Streaming formats)
Wireless / Handheld / PDA Media Resources  (Wireless formats)

PC Technology References

PC Webopedia
    webopedia.internet.com

Microsoft Windows Vista
    www.microsoft.com/Windowsvista

Microsoft - Windows XP
    www.microsoft.com/windowsxp

Microsoft - DirectX
    www.microsoft.com/directx

Adam Perer's DirectX eXperience
    www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Way/3390/index.html

OpenGL.org
    www.opengl.org

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Standards Organizations

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
    www.nist.gov

International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
    www.iso.org

International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)
    www.iec.ch

International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
    www.itu.int

European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA)
    www.ecma-international.org

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PC Storage Formats

International Recording Media Association (IRMA)
    www.recordingmedia.org

Media-Tech Association
    www.media-tech.net

SDHC Cards -- SD 2.0 High Capacity

• SD Card Assoc. specification 2.0 for SDHC - SD High-Capacity
• 4 to 32 GB, 9 MB/sec
• Larger capacity: FAT 12/16 to FAT 32 - 4, 8 GB
• Higher data speed: Speed Class 2, 4 6 (MB/sec)
• Not backwards compatible with legacy SD devices -- only 2 GB or less
• www.sdcard.org/sdhc/index.html
• www.sandisk.com/sdhc/SDHC.pdf

U3 - Flash drives
    www.u3.com

Optical Storage Technology Association (OSTA)
    www.osta.org

Mount Rainier - CD and DVD background formatting and defect management
    www.mt-rainier.org  

HighMAT -- digital music and photo playback on CD
    www.highmat.com (-> windowsmedia)
    www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/Consumerelectronics/highmat.aspx

RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) References
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks

• RAID 0 stripes data across multiple discs for better performance
• RAID 1 mirrors the data for redundancy
• RAID 5 combines both with striping plus distributed parity information

High Definition Compatible Digital (HDCD) Audio
    www.hdcd.com

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PC Interface / Communications Formats

PC External Interfaces

PC Webopedia
    webopedia.internet.com/Hardware/Ports_and_Interfaces

Intel - Processors, Hyper-Threading
    www.intel.com/products/processor
    www.intel.com/technology/hyperthread

Memory Implementers Forum (Dell, HP and Intel) -- DDR2 SDRAM
    www.memforum.org

Intel     www.intel.com/technology/memory    
Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR2_SDRAM

DDR2 SDRAM (Double Data Rate Two Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory)

Redoubles data rate of DDR-SDRAM
faster throughput, lower power usage, future growth in clock speeds www.memforum.org

PCI - Peripheral Component Interconnect / PCI Express (PCI-e)

           
        PCI-SIG - PCI Express - PCI-X 2.0

• PCI Express bidirectional, and faster then the older PCI and AGP interfaces
• guarantees each device dedicated bandwidth through the system controller
• slots are defined by their bandwidth, or number of data lanes - 1, 4, 8, 16 lanes
• one card can support 1 to 32 lanes at 250 MB/sec each, up to 8 GB/sec
• PCI Express x1 about twice as fast as PCI
• 4-lane slot can transfer data at up to 1 GBps 
• PCI Express x8 is around the speed of the fastest AGP
      up to 2 GBps - almost 2X 133MHz PCI-X slot at max throughput just over 1 GBps
• previous PCI Extended, PCI-X

PCI-SIG - PCI Special Interest Group    www.pcisig.com
Apple             www.apple.com/powermac/pciexpress.html    
Intel               www.intel.com/technology/pciexpress/devnet    
Wikipedia     en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI-Express

SATA -- Serial ATA / eSATA -- External SATA

• Designed to replace the older ATA and SCSI formats, offering higher performance with ease of connection
• ATA drives low cost, high capacity
• Internal data rates reaching up to 75 MB/sec, USB and 1394 interface rates are bottleneck
• Internal: SATA 1.5 Gb/sec (150 MB/sec) or SATA 3 Gb/sec (300 MB/sec)
• External: eSATA with more robust cables and connections (multiple insertion , shielded)
      Electrical Static Discharge (ESD) , Electro Magnetic Interference

Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO)    www.sata-io.org
    www.serialata.org
Wikipedia     en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

Infrared Data Association
    www.irda.org

USB Implementers Forum, Inc. (USB-IF)
    www.usb.org

1394 Trade Association (FireWire)
    www.1394ta.com

RFID

RFID Technical Institute Inc. (RTI)
    www.rfidtech.com

International RFID Business Association (RFIDba)
    www.rfidbusiness.org

EPCglobal US
    www.epcglobalus.org

GS1 US Inc. -- was Uniform Code Council Inc.
    www.gs1us.org

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