I was just thinking about the name 'motherboard' and ...

[clockhar]

OK, my dad and I were talking and he mentioned something about a motherboard, which surprised the heck out of me since he isn't exactly too technical. But the way it sounded, it just sounded funny. And I was just thinking: Where did the name motherboard come from anyway? I mean who came up w/ it. I mean every other computer part (inside the case) out there has a pretty technical name (PCI - periphial component interconnect, AGP - accelerated graphics port ...), but what is motherboard? Is it the mother of all boards? Any thoughts on that?

(As you can tell, I am extremely board)

 

[soldermonkey]

The term "Motherboard" was in use before the PC was around. The term was in general use in the early 60's and refered to any board either active (with functioning electronic componants) or passive (no componants)that had connectors to support active boards with power and some degree of Buss structure for interconnecting the various boards supported. Often there are added boards the will plug into a Motherboard and will provide support for yet another board and these are known as "Daughterboards".
There are also "Breadboards" used for early circuit development.
dn

 

[clockhar]

Interesting ... Thanks for the info