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What is USB?
Universal Serial Bus (USB)
USB is a PC peripheral bus standard developed by the PC and telecom industry leaders that supports data transfer rates of 12 Mbps (12 million bits per second). USB will bring plug and play to computer peripherals outside the box, eliminating the need to install cards into dedicated computer slots and reconfigure the system. PCs equipped with USB will allow peripheral devices to be automatically configured as soon as they are physically attached. USB will also allow multiple devices such as telephones, monitors, modems, keyboards, mice, CD ROM drives, joysticks, tape, floppy drives, scanners and printers -- up to 127 -- to run simultaneously on a computer, with peripherals such as monitors and keyboards acting as additional plug-in sites, or hubs. USB is expected to become popular in the 1998 timeframe.
How does it work?
Drawing its intelligence from the host PC, USB will detect when devices
are added and removed. The bus automatically determines what host resource,
including driver software and bus bandwidth, each peripheral needs and
makes those resources available without user intervention. Users with a
USB-equipped PC will be able to switch out compatible peripherals as needed,
and as easily as they would plug in a lamp.