March 25th, 2005
By John Koon, Senior Industry Analyst, Tech Idea International
By John Koon, Senior Industry Analyst, Tech Idea International
From Connection to Inspiration
The original vision for USB was to create a personal computer free of legacy ports, with only Ethernet, SCSI and USB ports. USB, a plug-and-play external bus interface, would replace all legacy ports, including parallel, serial, PS/2 and game ports.
Legacy free PCs
USB side-by-side with legacy ports
First generation iMac (1998)Rather than remove all legacy ports in favor of USB, leading PC manufacturers took a "wait and see" approach and kept shipping PCs with both USB and legacy ports. In a bold move in 1998, Apple introduced the iMac, the first computer to be completely free of legacy ports. The iMac G5 family today includes USB 2.0 (480 Mbps) ports, and IEEE 1394 (FireWire) ports to handle high-speed applications. However, most of the PCs produced today still include both USB and legacy ports side-by-side. This is in part due to the number of legacy peripherals in the market and the fact that the cost of including a legacy port is relatively low.
Even though the original vision was not fully realized, USB ports have become the interface of choice for most applications such as printers, scanners, MP3 music downloads, and PDA synchronization. Most of the popular PDAs, like the RIM BlackBerry and the HP iPAQ, take advantage of USB to synchronize with a computer. USB had made its mark on computers as well. Since 2004, most PC manufacturers have eliminated floppy drives from the desktop due to the popularity of a USB keychain-type add-on memory, like the one shown from M-Systems DiskOnKey. Since that time, USB is now being used for other storage devices, like the Hi-Speed USB certified Apricorn EZ Bus Mini 20GB and Seagate 5GB Pocket USB Hard Drive.
Kensington USB Light
Swissbit AG
SWISSMEMORYWhat the USB community didn't anticipate is the wide and "wild" applications of USB. For example, the USB port is sometimes used to provide power to warm coffee and or to power the keyboard light for a notebook computer. The USB Light shown is made by Kensington. Other useful applications for USB include adapters such as remote presentation controllers, USB to Bluetooth, and USB to serial ports. USB had even been built into Swiss army knife. The SWISSMEMORY by Swissbit AG includes a USB flash memory. While this is a very creative idea, users will have difficulty getting this past airport security these days.
The introduction of Microsoft Windows ME and XP, which includes many built-in USB drivers, was one of the driving forces in the growth of USB. Take for example M-Systems DiskOnKey. When flash memory was first introduced this device was 100% plug and play, configuring automatically when plugged into a Windows ME/XP PC. Before this new feature in Windows, a device would require a driver to be loaded first before it would function properly.
USB has become a very useful interface for a variety of applications, including easy data backup, uploading of photos from digital cameras, easy connection to scanners, downloading music to MP3s, and storing data on flash memory. Intel's Steve Whalley, USB 1.0 Marketing Director and later the USB Implementers Forum Chairman during the USB 1.1 product ramp phase, recently recalled the key elements that resulted in USB's success. "USB had a clearly defined and focused usage model from the outset – low cost PC peripheral connectivity – and the cross industry specification development team was steadfast to that throughout," said Whalley.
Legacy free PCs
USB side-by-side with legacy ports
First generation iMac (1998)
Even though the original vision was not fully realized, USB ports have become the interface of choice for most applications such as printers, scanners, MP3 music downloads, and PDA synchronization. Most of the popular PDAs, like the RIM BlackBerry and the HP iPAQ, take advantage of USB to synchronize with a computer. USB had made its mark on computers as well. Since 2004, most PC manufacturers have eliminated floppy drives from the desktop due to the popularity of a USB keychain-type add-on memory, like the one shown from M-Systems DiskOnKey. Since that time, USB is now being used for other storage devices, like the Hi-Speed USB certified Apricorn EZ Bus Mini 20GB and Seagate 5GB Pocket USB Hard Drive.
Kensington USB Light
Swissbit AG
SWISSMEMORY
