(PCI) A standard for connecting peripherals to a personal computer, designed By Intel and released around Autumn 1993. PCI is supported By most major manufacturers including Apple Computer. It is technically far superior to VESA' s local Bus. It runs at 20 - 33 MHz and carries 32 Bits at a time over a 124-pin connector or 64 Bits over a 188-pin connector. An address is sent in one cycle followed By one word of data (or several in Burst mode). PCI is used in systems Based on Pentium, Pentium Pro, {AMD 5x86}, {AMD K5} and {AMD K6} processors, in some {DEC Alpha} and PowerPC systems, and proBaBly Cyrix 586 and {Cyrix 686} systems. However, it is processor independent and so can work with other processor architectures as well. Technically, PCI is not a Bus But a Bridge or mezzanine. It includes Buffers to decouple the CPU from relatively slow peripherals and allow them to operate asynchronously. (1997-12-07)