
Adding a USB Port to Your PC

One of the niftiest technologies in the news these days is the 
universal serial bus, or USB. It's a big selling point for 
Windows 98, and the news that Apple was adding USB support was 
one of the high points of Steve Jobs's speech at Macworld. We 
brought Fresh Gear's Jim Louderback into our studio to show how 
to add USB to your existing computer.

USB has a number of advantages over existing port technologies 
such as SCSI: 

	- Plug and Play is no longer just a marketing term, 
	  but actually works. 
	- New computers won't require an add-in card. 
	- USB has one standard plug style, as opposed to the many
	  variations of SCSI. 
	- USB distributes and manages power to peripherals.

Sounds good, you say, but I already have a computer, and it 
doesn't have USB. How do I get in on the USB action? 

It's actually pretty simple: You just install a USB port. Jim 
brought one from ADS Technologies. All you need is a PC with a 
PCI slot and Windows 98; the card adds two USB ports. 

The only drawback-- if it is one-- is that USB devices aren't 
made to be daisy-chained like SCSI devices. To use more than 
two devices, you need a USB hub. The ADS Technologies hub that 
Jim brought lets you connect four devices; it supports 
peripherals with speeds from 1.5 to 12 Mbps, with full 
auto-detect, Plug and Play, and power management. 

For more information on USB devices and hooking them together, 
see Jim Louderback's article in Fresh Gear, "USB Makes It 
Easier to Upgrade."

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How can I connect more than one USB device to my computer if I 
only have one USB port?

-- Richard from Socorro, New Mexico

To connect more than one device to a single USB port, 
you need a USB hub. 

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You need a USB hub. 

Most machines have two USB ports, but that's insufficient for 
most people. There are so many USB devices: scanners, modems, 
mice, keyboards, joysticks, monitors... the list goes on. 

USB hubs are about $100. They connect to USB ports and add output
for four or more devices. A single USB port can control up to 127
devices, so you could daisy-chain the hubs together and keep 
adding USB devices until you run out of desk space.
