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Belkin
USB 2.0 Upgrade Kit
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Author : Shawn
Sparks Date : 12th November 2002
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| ...Product |
USB 2.0 Upgrade Kit |
| ...Manufacturer |
Belkin |
| ...Supplier |
Belkin |
| ...Price |
$89.00 |
As technology marches forward and we gain CPU
speed and memory bandwidth at exponential rates, data transfer
needs to keep up to avoid being the bottleneck. Hard drives
have evolved from ATA33 to ATA133, and we are on the cusp of
serial ATA. Front side bus speeds have evolved as well. From
33MHz on up to Intel's latest monster soon to be released, the
'Sprintel' chipset which runs at 667MHz FSB. Serial ports are
nearly extinct, parallel ports are rarely used, save for printers;
even the trusty PS2 ports on my machine are clogged with dust
from lack of use.
Thanks to the introduction of USB, transfer rates
between devices have been fantastic and the ability to attach
multiple devices to a single port has lent itself to nearly
limitless configurations. Up to now, USB 1.1 has become the
standard interface due largely to its cross-platform compatibility
and speedy transfer rates(up to 12,000Kb/sec). But like I said,
technology marches forward increased speed is required and new
interfaces evolve. Firewire was a revolution in transfer rates
with speeds as high as 400,000Kb/sec, however, it has not been
as widely accepted as USB. To meet the demands of new technology,
developers created USB 2.0, which can transfer data at speeds
up to 480,000Kb/sec. This new standard meets every requirement
for an interface; it is backwards compatible with USB 1.1 devices,
cross-platform compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux, and faster
than Firewire. Most motherboards produced today have USB 2.0
ports on-board, and many devices such as PC cams, digital camcorders,
and external drives require these USB 2.0 ports.
Now the problem exists as to how to integrate
USB 2.0 into a system that does not support it natively. Well,
Belkin has done it again by creating a simple solution: the
USB 2.0 Upgrade Kit. Everything you need to bring USB 2.0 compatibility
to your PC is here in one box.
Time to open the box and see what we get...
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