Controller
A piece of hardware that manages a component or a group of components on the system's behalf.
Glossary
Bus
A shared pathway along which data travels between parts of a computer.
In one line
A shared pathway along which data travels between parts of a computer.
Also calleddata pathway
A bus is a common channel that connects components and carries information between them. Many parts may share the same pathway, taking turns to send and receive. It is the road network of a computer, linking distant parts so they can exchange data without a private wire between every pair.
Drivers rely on the bus to reach the components they speak for, packaging requests so they can travel along it and arrive in the right place. Each message carries enough information to find its destination among the many parts sharing the route.
Because a bus is shared, it needs rules about who may use it and when. Without such order, two parts trying to speak at once would garble each other. Careful coordination keeps the traffic flowing smoothly, so each message gets its turn and arrives intact.
The capacity of a bus shapes the whole system around it. A wide, fast pathway lets parts cooperate freely; a narrow one becomes a bottleneck that everything must wait upon. This is why the design of these shared routes matters far beyond the parts they connect.
In practice
In practice, a bus is like a shared hallway in a busy building. Many people use the same corridor to reach different rooms, taking turns so no one collides. Data moves the same way along a bus, with each message travelling the common path toward the part it is meant for.
