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ABC of electronics terms

Networks

1-wire

A bus by Dallas with which you can control chips or portable electronic devices via a one wire protocol. The single wire is used for transfering the clock and the data single. Of course normally a second wire is needed to connect the ground of the communicating devices.

This is Dallas's way of transporting data to and from peripherals over just one wire. Sometimes even the power is send via the same line, so the device only needs to be connected via the ground and the power annex data line. Dallas has made a range of very nifty devices for this bus including ID chips, EEPROM's, RAM's and even temperature sensors.
www.dalsemi.com/DocControl/PDFs/appindex.html - Application note from Dallas
ftp.cmf.nrl.navy.mil/pub/kenh/minilib.tar.gz - sample code

See also the I2C bus from Philips, which only uses two wires (data and clock) and the SPI-bus used by Motorola and others, which needs more wires (Serial in, serial out, bit clock and byte load/store).
See also:

• CAN
• Ethernet
• I2C
• I2S
• LanWorks
• RS-232
• RS-485
• USB

See also:

• Other network types