Not really You can’t easily just run your normal linux programs on them.

I think it’s connected to internal USB…

I’ve bought some refurbished 1l PCs in places where others might have bought RPi. Drawbacks are more energy consumption and, generally, no GPIO (at least built-in). Also bigger in size. I have one Lenovo M600 which has four serial ports (DB9) and one parallel port (DB25) on some kind of extension module. Because of the module it also has more space for cooler, thus making it passively cooled.

OS: Gentoo Linux x86_64
Host: 10GJS01G00 (ThinkCentre M600)
Kernel: Linux 6.6.101-M600-minimal-0.1
Uptime: 1 day, 23 hours, 59 mins
Packages: 567 (emerge)
Shell: bash 5.2.37
Display (ACER H235HL): 1920x1080 @ 60 Hz in 23" [External]
Terminal: tmux 3.5a
CPU: Intel(R) Celeron(R) N3010 (2) @ 2.24 GHz
GPU: Intel Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Integrated Graphics Controller @ 0.60 GHz [Integrated]
Memory: 312.46 MiB / 7.37 GiB (4%)
Swap: 0 B / 32.00 GiB (0%)
Disk (/): 8.90 GiB / 19.94 GiB (45%) - xfs
Disk (/var/cache/pkg): 4.41 GiB / 4.84 GiB (91%) - ext4

Fast it ain’t, but does fit the bill.