USB bridge devices became popular when the laptop computer stopped providing standard DB9 connectors for an RS232 com port. Instead laptops were adding USB connections. Many devices in existence were reliant on the RS232 interface and users had to find a way to interface to their hardware. The USB to RS232 bridge was developed so that users can still use the same host application software and hardware that was already in place. The bridge devices are supported by a host side driver. The driver repackages the com port data from the host application and sends it to a driver that accesses the USB software stack. Standard RS232 physical data was then communicated via the USB. The bridge device converted the USB data back to the RS232 format to interface to the existing hardware.