Editing Micro Channel architecture (section)

{{Short description|Parallel computer bus introduced by IBM in 1987}}
{{Infobox computer hardware bus
| name        = Micro Channel
| fullname    = Micro Channel architecture
| image       = IBM MCA XGA card front.jpg
| alt         = MCA graphics card
| caption     = IBM XGA-2 32-bit graphics card
| invent-date = {{Start date and age|1987}}<ref group='NB'>Formal introduction; it had been secretly introduced as part of IBM's "Gearbox" [[industrial PC]]s in 1986 (see [[#Reception|§ Reception]]).</ref>
| invent-name = [[IBM]]
| super-name  = [[Peripheral Component Interconnect|PCI]]
| super-date  = 1993
| replaces    = [[Industry Standard Architecture|ISA]]
| width       = 16 or 32
| numdev      =
| speed       = 10&nbsp;MHz
| style       = p
| hotplug     = No
| external    = No
}}

{{About|a computer bus|small-sized liquid ducts|Microchannel (microtechnology)}}

[[File:MCASlot16.JPG|thumb|Two, 16 bit MCA slots (top and middle). At the bottom is an MCA slot for an [[IBM 8514]] card.]]

'''Micro Channel architecture''', or the '''Micro Channel''' bus, is a [[proprietary hardware|proprietary]] [[16-bit computing|16-]] or [[32-bit computing|32-bit]] [[parallel communication|parallel]] computer [[bus (computing)|bus]] publicly introduced by [[IBM]] in 1987 which was used on [[IBM PS/2|PS/2]] and other computers until the mid-1990s. Its name is commonly abbreviated as "'''MCA'''", although not by IBM. In IBM products, it superseded the [[Industry Standard Architecture|ISA]] bus and was itself subsequently superseded by the [[Peripheral Component Interconnect|PCI]] bus architecture.