What Is a PMC Slot on an iMac?
A PMC, Peripheral Component Interconnect Mezzanine Card, slot on an Apple iMac is a 160-pin connector on the underside of the computer’s motherboard. The slot is not directly accessible and you cannot connect an external hardware, DVD drive or other piece of hardware to the slot. Within the iMac’s owner’s manual, the PMC slot is not listed as one of the computer’s ports and you cannot access the slot via the computer’s operating system.
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Purpose
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The PMC slot is an expansion slot for future Apple hardware devices—possibly an external FireWire drive or DVD video hardware. The slot is present on G3, “A”-version iMac models and is labeled “Mezzanine." You must physically open the iMac and turn its motherboard upside down to see the PMC slot.
Newer iMacs
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The slot is not present on “B”-version or newer iMacs. Newer iMacs contain a different motherboard and set of slots. You cannot add a PMC slot to newer iMacs, nor are connection cables available for connecting two iMacs together via their PMC slots.
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Specifications
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The PMC slot is white and soldered onto the iMac’s motherboard. You cannot physically remove the PMC slot—doing so will damage the motherboard. The PMC slot is similar to the one found on Apple G3 Power Macs, which is known as the personality slot. Devices for the G3 Power Mac’s personality slot are not compatible with the iMac’s PMC slot.
Third-party Usage
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No third-party hardware devices are available for the iMac’s PMC slot, and Apple doesn’t disclose any technical data about the slot. Without any technical data, a developer can't know details of the slot’s pin configuration, such as which pins transmit data, the data transmission direction and which pin or pins emit electrical current.
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