I've been putting this off for a couple of days to get as much info as possible, but as things seem to be snowballing rather quickly now here's a heads up on what's happening USB-wise.
 
As someone quite eloquently summed it up, you wait ages for one and three turn up at the same time. After the release of the 100bT network cards, Simtec and Castle are gearing up for round two with both companies on the brink of releasing USB cards for RISC OS users.
 
Castle had their cards "for sale" at the recent Wakefield show, although shipping is currently to qualified Third Party Developers and other interested parties on the understanding that software is still Beta. It's a four port "hub" on a podule, meaning that four (low power) devices can be connected at the same time without having to shell out for a secondary hub. Four might sound like a lot, but pretty soon you might be running your mouse, keyboard, scanner and printer off the USB slot and wondering where the MP3 player, digital camera and mobile phone are going to go, so you can appreciate that more, rather than less, is good.
 
The Castle card
  More information on Castle's USB card is on their support website. The main site says pricing and details are TBA; I've heard £99 is likely but can't confirm this. I do know it'll come with drivers for a range of keyboards and mice, and maybe a range of scanners too.
 
I've seen Simtec's USB card doing the rounds for some time, and that'll be ready for launch in July. Available in both podule for RiscPCs and ISA form for RiscStation machines it has two device ports and a host port. Price should be just shy of 80 quid, which means the smaller number of ports is offset by the cost (so you can use the money to buy a hub :) A wealth of info is available on their company website (see links above), but they've also created a new website just about RISC OS USB development at www.riscos-usb.com, including who's writing what drivers.
 
Drivers might be a bit of a thorny issue as both products use different APIs to talk to the devices, although it's been mooted that something to tie the two together would not be outside the realms of possibility.
 
And the third card? Well, more of a blast from the past, as MicroDigital has been rummaging in the cupboards and found their development board from 1999. Continuing their recent run of glasnost it, along with a host of other interesting info, is on display on their news page.