With practically all computer peripherals nowadays using the Universal Serial Bus (USB), one of the ways for a computer to be able to connect all these at the same time would be if it had an USB card inserted onto the motherboard. Actually, this is also one way to upgrade older computers to enable it to connect to new external devices. Though if a computer doesn’t have a USB slot, it must really be an outdated machine.
The USB card is plugged in to the motherboard and it allows an expansion of sorts as the computer now has additional USB slots to connect to. Some USB cards are combo cards, with IEEE 1394 (also called Firewire) sockets. More common though are USB cards with 4 additional sockets. And when you consider that it’s normal for a new computer to have two slots in front, and four at the back, the additional two to four slots looks like overkill.
That is, until you take stock of what peripheral devices are connected to the computer. There are the standard computer peripherals connected via the USB: the printer, mouse, and keyboard. Optionally, there are external hard disks and optical drives, the scanner, memory card reader, the iPod (or any other mp3 player for that matter) and the game controller. On top of those, there are high-end headsets for VOIP, fingerprint and biometric scanners, USB fans and USB reading lights, and cell phone connections as well. And then there’s the USB slot for the digital camera or the camera’s docking station. And there should always be an extra free USB slot for the USB flash drive (also known as the USB thumb drive).
For laptops and notebooks, there are PCMCIA USB cards which are inserted to the PCMCIA slot. The expansion gives the laptop an additional two USB slots, again on top of the two to four which comes standard on late model laptops.
The USB card is a just in case option. It’s there just in case you run out of available USB slots.
