"Z.I.F Local Bus" Motherboard..........WTF is it?

[videobruce]

No, that's not a typpo, a friend has a computer dated 11/94 that lists a Z.I.F. local bus for the Motherboard.
It goes on to describe it as "allowing you to upgrade your system in the future as oppose to replacing it".

It lists a 66MHz 486DX2, 8MB of RAM, a 450MB HDD, 1MB of VL/VESA for Video RAM and Windows 3.1 & DOS 6.21; a really hot system w/ monitor and 14.4 baud modem for only $1900!

The only think I can think would be one of those LPX MB's with the separate connector board that the MB and the add on cards all plug into.

Anyone ever hear of this term?? I know today that ZIF is a CPU socket, but this is 1994 I'm talking about here.

 

[azkiwi]

hmm I had a 386 and I think that was ZIF socket. That was about the time VESA local bus was the advertising catch-word of the day. Maybe its just advertising blurb?

 

[AndyHui]

ZIF is obviously the processor socket. Meaning that you could upgrade the processor without one of those nasty processor remover tools.

Local bus refers to the VESA Local Bus. It was an extension to the ISA slot and a competitor with the just-introduced PCI standard. It involved extending the processor FSB to peripheral cards for increased performance. As you can imagine, extending the processor bus to include cards made for real potential problems which eventually killed VLB in favour of PCI.

 

[videobruce]

The way it is written tells me it is one item, not a ZIF socket (which I already knew what it stood for) and a VESA local bus (which I knew of that also), but a "ZIF Local Bus" bus (one thing). That's why I asked the question.
I guess everyone is saying it is really 2 items that was poorly written on the description of the box.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: videobruce
The way it is written tells me it is one item, not a ZIF socket (which I already knew what it stood for) and a VESA local bus (which I knew of that also), but a "ZIF Local Bus" bus (one thing). That's why I asked the question.
I guess everyone is saying it is really 2 items that was poorly written on the description of the box.

Wouldn't surprise me if it was just a poor translation - a good bit of computer part manuals have some bad (and funny at the same time) translation errors.