Industry Standard Architecture, ISA was introduced by IBM and headed by Mark Dean. ISA was originally an 8-bit computer bus that was later expanded to a 16-bit bus in 1984. When this bus was originally released it was a proprietary bus, which allowed only IBM to create peripherals and the actual interface. However, in the early 1980's other manufacturers were creating the bus.

In 1993, Intel and Microsoft introduced a PnP ISA bus that allowed the computer to automatically detect and setup computer ISA peripherals, such as a modem or sound card. Using the PnP technology, an end-user would have the capability of connecting a device and not having to configure the device using jumpers or dip switches.

All recent computers today no longer included the ISA slots and instead are using more PCI, AGP, and other slots. Below is a graphic of what an ISA expansion card may look like as well as the slot it connects into on the motherboard.