What is plug-and-play?
Plug and play refers to the ability to use a new peripheral without going through an elaborate configuration process. Plug and play depends on the operating system used on your computer, Windows 98 and MacOS have a set of basic USB drivers built in that gives them true plug and play for a wide class of USB peripherals. Even so, newer types of USB devices may need additional drivers installed. USB is well suited for plug and play operation. No jumpers need be set or id’s selected. There are no interrupt conflicts or other messy configuration issues involved in using USB devices.
Plug and play (PnP) refers to the ability to use a new peripheral without going through an elaborate configuration process. Plug and play depends on the operating system used on your computer, Windows 98, WindowsXP, and MacOS have a set of basic USB drivers built in that gives them true plug and play for a wide class of USB peripherals. Even so, newer types of USB devices may need additional drivers installed. Bugblat instruments are definitely not standard peripherals, so they needs special drivers. However, driver installation should be relatively painless. When a Bugblat module is plugged in, the computer reads the vendor ID (VID) and product ID (PID) from the module, then searches in the computer’s database for a matching driver. First time round, there will be no matching driver and the user is prompted for the driver disk. Next time the device is plugged in, the driver will be loaded automatically in seconds.
Plug and play (PnP) refers to the ability to use a new peripheral without going through an elaborate configuration process. Plug and play depends on the operating system used on your computer, Windows 98, WindowsXP, and MacOS have a set of basic USB drivers built in that gives them true plug and play for a wide class of USB peripherals. Even so, newer types of USB devices may need additional drivers installed. The Ant instruments are definitely not standard peripherals, so they needs special drivers. However, driver installation should be relatively painless. When an Ant module is plugged in, the computer reads the vendor ID (VID) and product ID (PID) from the module, then searches in the computer’s database for a matching driver. First time round, there will be no matching driver and the user is prompted for the driver disk. Next time the device is plugged in, the driver will be loaded automatically in seconds.
Plug and Play is an ideal that allows computer hardware to be attached to a computer with the minimum of effort. The process is handled by the operating system, and allows new hardware to be recognized and initiate a sequence to add this hardware to your computer. Plug and Play is not all it is cracked up to be, however, and there are computer experts who say that plug and play is an impossibility. This is due to the fact that not all hardware can work on every system. Generally, though, it works with minimum effort on the end users part.
