ISA Slot

Folks - my memory and knowledge is not the best about ISA slots...

There is a CCD imager I'm interested in that plugs into an ISA card (presumably situated in a PC).

Could I get a new PC with either an ISA slot or something an ISA card could plug into?

Alternatively, is there any way an ISA card can be fitted/mated with a laptop? A longshot I know but....

Cheers
Dave

Hi Dave,

I'm a bit rusty on PC architecture but I think ISA is quite old.

I'm not sure if new PCs will come with an ISA slot don't assume it.

Michael.

ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) is legacy (old news). PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) is the replacement. All Pentium 2 and Pentium 3-based computers had 4 PCI and 2 ISA slots as standard, on the standard ATX motherboard design.
Most Pentium 4-based computers also carried out the same design. But, certain manufacturers started phasing out certain PC architectures that were rapidly becoming more of a nuisance than useful! Floppy drives replaced by USB keys, Parallel ports replaced by USB (2.0), and ISA eradicated in favour of a complete set of PCI slots. Virtually all motherboard manufacturers now come without ISA for the past 2 years at least.

As far as I know, there is no adapter available either. It has gone the way of the serial mouse and the old AT keyboard port... oh, and the dodo!

Seanie.

I havent heard of an ISA/PCI adapter, but its not hard to find a PC that doesnt have a ISA slot, every machine I've got have one, all the same they are old news !

Like the guys said ISA is obsolete. Don't buy anything now that needs it because even now you'll not get a new PC that has it. It's gone, dead, deceased. Things have moved on. Buying something that needs an ISA slot now is getting to be about as bad as buying software that needs a 5 1/4 floppy drive ... OK .... a slight exaduration but I just can't stress enough how much ISA is history.

Thanks folks. Try this for size - let me know if this is a go-er.

I have a HP PC which has served me well for about 5 years. I think it has an ISA slot. If it does, I could upgrade to a new box and put the old box next to the mount and operate it from the new PC (which is what I do with laptop currently). I've been considering this for a good while now.

Gosh, I remember 5.25 floppies...

Dave