6.1.1.7.

C. Peripheral component interconnect (PCI)

In the view of some commentators, VL-bus is a bridging solution between the last days of ISA and the first days of its successor, PCI, a high-speed bus technology supported by over 60 companies (including IBM, DEC, Apple and Hewlett Packard) and widely heralded as being significantly superior to VL-bus in terms of both design and performance. However, it is a more costly technology to implement and may therefore be taken up with less enthusiasm by under-funded add-on card manufacturers. And even if it is implemented, it is likely to be restricted to high end machines for at least a year.

PCI is processor independent and can therefore be implemented on a variety of platforms, co-existing with other bus technologies such as EISA and NuBus. Both DEC and Apple have announced plans to support PCI, despite the fact (in Apple's case) that it has a high speed local bus technology of its own - QuickRing, in the view of many the most advanced local bus technology of all.