Editing Backplane (section)

==Usage==
Early microcomputer systems like the [[Altair 8800]] used a backplane for the processor and [[expansion card]]s.

Backplanes are normally used in preference to cables because of their greater [[Reliability engineering|reliability]]. In a cabled system, the cables need to be flexed every time that a card is added or removed from the system; this flexing eventually causes mechanical failures. A backplane does not suffer from this problem, so its service life is limited only by the longevity of its connectors. For example, [[DIN 41612]] connectors (used in the [[VMEbus]] system) have three durability grades built to withstand (respectively) 50, 400 and 500 insertions and removals, or "mating cycles". To transmit information, Serial Back-Plane technology uses a [[low-voltage differential signaling]] transmission method for sending information.<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1109/DASC.2005.1563416 |chapter=Serial Back-Plane Technologies in Advanced Avionics Architectures |title=24th Digital Avionics Systems Conference |year=2005 |last1=Varnavas |first1=Kosta |volume=2 |isbn=978-0-7803-9307-3 |s2cid=8974309 |chapter-url=https://zenodo.org/record/1267253 }}</ref>

In addition, there are bus expansion cables which will extend a computer bus to an external backplane, usually located in an enclosure, to provide more or different slots than the host computer provides. These cable sets have a transmitter board located in the computer, an expansion board in the remote backplane, and a cable between the two.