[Razor Ramon HG]

Just out of curiosity, but does anyone know when exactly they started soldering USB ports onto computer motherboards, if they weren't soldered to begin with?

There was a question on my BCAP test, and it asked which wasn't contained on the motherboard. Out of ROM, RAM, CPU, and USB port, the correct answer was USB.

His argument was that "USB ports have been added to the motherboard as of 2007, while the other components have always been on
there; in fact, you can still get computers with USB ports that are not on the motherboard." Of course I'm going to assume 2007 was a typo.

I remembered that even my old ECS motherboard from 2001 had the ports directly soldered on, and as far as I know, that's the way they've always come.

I mean I know there are pins on the motherboards for frontal ports.. but can anyone computer hardware savvy answer this for me?