The STD Bus is a computer bus that was used primarily for industrial control systems, but has also found applications in computing. The STD Bus has also been designated as STD-80, referring to its relation to the Zilog Z80 series processors. STD stands for Simple to Design.
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General description
The STD Bus uses 6.5" by 4.5" expansion card with an edge connector with 56 pins. Many different types of cards have been available for the STD Bus, from processing cards, RAM cards, I/O cards, and specialized cards for various applications.
The use of the STD bus has declined. From the over one hundred manufacturers of components during its peak, vendor numbers have dwindled to under a dozen, but it is still used by hobbyists, manufacturers and in industrial applications.
Applications
One application that made a STD bus system more adaptable than the contemporary computers of the mid-80s is the ability to use servo control cards along with a fully programmable computer to be used for mathematical operations. In applications for running an astronomical observatory, the large industrial base of cards, and the systems expandability, made the system desirable for use in a photometry lab to control the telescope as well as do the data logging and computations required.
STD Bus configuration
The STD Bus has a card edge connector with 56 contacts. The pin configuration is as follows. Flow is relative using a STD Bus Processor Card.
STD-32
The STD-32 is a pin compatible STD interface that allows the co-existence of both 8-bit and 32-bit systems on a single bus. This is accomplished by the addition of pins between the normal pins that do not connect, nor do they interfere with the original specification. This allows with the proper STD-32 backplane the ability to run legacy cards used for specific applications on the same bus without having to upgrade the complete system.