The USB ports on this computer are located on the rear panel, just below the two PS/2 ports.

Most of us at one time or another have struggled with the software or hardware configuration when installing new peripherals on personal computers. The Plug and Play (PnP) standard introduced with Windows 95 helped to ease the pain a little but what do you do when that scanner, printer and Zip drive just won’t work together on the same parallel port? The answer is USB!

USB is an acronym for Universal Serial Bus. Developed over the last few years by a group of industry leaders including Intel, Microsoft, Compaq and NEC, USB has finally opened the way for stress-free peripheral connection. The key goal for the USB designers was to create an expansion bus that would make adding peripherals as easy as plugging a connector into a socket.

A multitude of USB-ready devices are already available, including scanners, cameras, Zip drives, modems, keyboards, mice, ethernet (network) adapters and joysticks. So let’s have a look at some of the advantages of this new system and how it all fits together.