The 8255 Programmable Peripheral Interface is a programmable device with 24 I/O pins that can be configured for input or output. It contains ports A, B, and C that can be programmed to operate in different I/O modes including mode 0 for simple I/O, mode 1 for handshaking, and mode 2 for bidirectional transfers. The device uses control registers to define the I/O mode and configuration of each port.