Mediator vs Prometheus

[mboehmer_e3b]

Zorro is not like PCI, where you can "double-up" slots to get more performance.

That's {bleep}. Sorry.
PCI is like Zorro in the bus philosophy, with the main difference that Zorro is asynchonous by nature, but PCI is synchronous with a master clock distributed over all PCI connectors.
You have one bus segment, which can be used by one card at a time. Period.

Bandwidth can be increased for both bus systems by either increasing the bus clock (PCI) / shortening the strobes (Zorro3); by adding more data lines (PCI32 -> PCI64, Zorro II -> Zorro III) or by switching to block transfer modes (Zorro III -> MultiCycleTransfer, PCI -> BurstMode).

In both cases: one device using the bus will lock the others out.

This only changes if you go for switched serial busses, like ATM networks or new PCI-X systems.

Michael

[mboehmer_e3b]

Half-true. You forgot, you can "stack up" PCI providing you have multiple PCI busses. (example being a northbridge with two PCI busses, I've seen some very odd embedded machines

Right, downix. I was speaking about one bus segment, but splitting up the bus into several segments is possible (with additional PCI-BCI bridges).
Anyhow, you can use this for speeding up data transfers between PCI cards on each segment, but for the processor itself it won't make much difference, as still only one is available The data rate on one segment will still stay the same.

using both for the same peripheral for added performance) It is this ability that was extended for PCI-Express (not PCI-X, don't mix the two) for their multiple-bus model.

You may also use two Zorro busses