Baslinux mailing list

["Sheldon Isaac" <sheldon.isaac AT verizon.net>]

On 17 Dec 2006 at 12:51, Lee Forrest wrote:

> > This one was assembled in fall of 1998, and has had a few changes since.
> > 
> > Currently an ASUS P5A mainboard ("super socket 7"), 100MHz FSB, 450MHz 
> > AMD K6-
> > 2, 256Mb, Matrox Productiva AGP video, about 8 Mb?
> 
> I know what a mainboard is, and an AMD CPU, and AGP and the 8Mb must be
> its RAM , but what's "FSB" and what does the "256Mb" refer to?

Oh, sorry, Lee:  The video card is I think a Matrox G100 Productiva; maybe I 
got it because the name sounded "practical" rather than fancy-graphical?

The Front Side Bus is apparently the thing on the motherboard that determines 
how fast things happen. Maybe that board can run at a few different speeds - 
66Mhz or 85 or whatever. (There's something called overclocking, which I 
never had the interest or courage to do - it makes more heat, maybe shortens 
component life.)
I thought the nominal speed rating of the system RAM is related to that; ie, 
use at least 100MHz rated RAM if the bus is 100MHz?

Somehow the speed of other things is related to that bus speed:  eg, maybe 
33MHz PCI or ISA bus?

256 megabytes of system memory: the original 64 from Mushkin that I got with 
my 300Mhz, an added 64 that came with the second-hand 450MHz processor, and a 
purchased 128Mb.

Thanks,
Sheldon