User Guide

Basics New Technologies - 20
How a USB Device is Installed and Used
A USB network is made up of the following components:
• An operating system that supports USB. (Both iMac and
Windows 98 support USB.)
• A host, typically a controller chip set residing in the
personal computer, controls the USB system and allocates
bandwidth per device. There is only one host per USB
network, and as such USB is designed for connecting
peripherals to the computer, not computers (or hosts) to
each other. This explains why USB will not replace local
area networking (for example, 10BaseT Ethernet),
though their data transfer speeds can be comparable.
The USB host typically provides two or three Type A ports
via an internal hub (inside the computer case) for devices
and hubs to connect to.