Peripheral maker Orange Micro announced today that their OrangeUSB 2.0 Hi-Speed PCI Board will be available from major retail chain stores in April.
The OrangeUSB card utilizes USB 2.0, the high-speed variant of the Universal Serial Bus standard employed by Apple in virtually all of its Mac systems. USB 1.1 — the version Apple and all other major computer vendors now use — caps out at a mere 12 Megabits per second transfer rate, making it mainly suitable for low-speed, low-bandwidth products like keyboards, mice, printers, low-speed CD-Rs and hard drives. USB 2.0 operates at FireWire-like speeds — up to 480 Megabits per second — making it more suitable for digital video and other demanding multimedia and high-speed applications.
The OrangeUSB 2.0 PCI card is the first USB 2.0 product to be released by Orange Micro. The card will fit in Macs or Windows-compatible PCs equipped with an available PCI slot. The board comes equipped with 4 external and 1 internal USB 2.0 ports. Orange said the card is also “backward compatible” with USB 1.1 peripherals — they can be used simultaneously with USB 2.0 peripherals, as well.
The OrangeUSB 2.0 board is available with several driver options, including Mac OS X. More details can be found at Orange Micro’s Web site. The card carries a suggested retail price of US$89.
Orange noted that its USB 2.0 equipped PC card, hub, and a combination FireWire/USB 2.0 PCI board will all be available within the next two months.