USB Ports
The Universal Serial Bus (USB) port is the most flexible port found on recent PCs—no wonder it's called “universal.” It can replace the serial (COM) and parallel (LPT) ports as well as the PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports; these ports are often called legacy ports. Some so-called legacy-free systems use only USB ports (or sometimes USB and IEEE-1394a ports) for external devices. Most scanners, printers, mouse devices, keyboards, and external drives are now designed to connect to USB ports, and USB ports can also be used for external modems and network connections.
Most recent systems have at least two USB ports, as shown in Figure 8.10.
Figure 8.10. A typical ATX motherboard's I/O port panel before installation into a case. The PS/2 mouse ...
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