Patent ID: 6965959

Claim:
A connector system, comprising: a Compact Peripheral Component Interconnect (CPCI)-compliant backplane having a plurality of slots, each slot including five front side connector segments (denoted herein as P 1 through P 5 ) and five rear side connector segments (denoted herein as rP 1 through rP 5 ) that correspond to said front side connector segments, wherein connector holes forming said rP 1 and rP 2 connector segments correspond to connector holes forming said P 1 and P 2 connector segments but are electrically separated therefrom; a front side card coupled to said backplane at a particular slot, said front side card operating to carry a plurality of CPCI signals via a front side backplane bus formed to couple said P 1 and P 2 connector segments of said slots; and a rear side card coupled to said backplane at said particular slot's rear side connector segments, said rear side card operating to carry at least one user-defined signal via a rear side backplane bus formed to couple said rP 1 and rP 2 segments of said slots.