USB: The Port Revolution

A brief history of USB, what it replaced, and what has failed to replace it

USB isn't perfect, but it replaced lots of ports we'll never have to see again.

USB- universal serial bus is pretty much every where.USB has had a long  road of evolution and adoption, and as it nears over two decades of history, we’re wondering what is next. Is USB Type-C here to stay as the golden standard, providing a revolution to move technology forward? Regardless of technology comes next, USB has had long years of growth that makes it today’s port of choice for the computer industry.

what it has replaced? Before discussing the history of USB, it’s great to get some perspective on some of the  ports that it saved us from.If you happened to be using a computer before USB came into existence, such as an old Pentium or Pentium II, then you’ll likely remember having a multi-colored ports to deal with.Remember having to connect a mouse and keyboard? You needed a PS/2 connector or serial port for that,hoping you didn’t bend any of the pins. We also can’t forget about having to hook up bulky printers and scanners with bulky parallel ports.

A group of seven companies began the development of USB in 1994: Compaq, DEC, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC, and Nortel. The first USB were produces in intel in 1195.

 USB 1.1 – The Birth:

The first version of USB, called USB 1.1, was brought to life in the 1996. And while it doesn’t seem like much compared to today, the USB 1.1 specification had a maximum transfer rate of 12 megabits per second (12Mbps) or 1.5 megabytes (MB) per second. This speed was more than enough to convince computer manufacturers to start dumping all of those other silly ports, including PS/2, serial and parallel.Later, momentum eventually rolled over to peripheral manufacturers who started making mice, keyboards and printers with USB connections.

USB 2.0 – The exceller

When USB 2.0 rolled around in the spring of 2000, it ramped up the data rate speeds to 480Mbps, or 60MB per second. This increase in speed made it perfect for use with external hard drives and other data storage devices, including the USB flash driveAs USB 2.0 gained momentum, it started to replace optical media like CDs or DVDs, as it could easily match the storage capacity with a way smaller footprint in the form of a flash drive. We also started to see the introduction of external peripherals, such as Wi-Fi adapters, optical drives, and Ethernet ports that at one time only came installed inside a computer.

USB 3.1 Gen 1 – The Revolution Begins

USB 3.1 Gen 1 ramped up the speed by providing a data transfer rate of 5.0Gbps. In addition to higher speeds, this Gen also increased bus power, offering 900 mW, compared to 500 mW that was available in USB 1.1 and USB 2.0. And of course, like previous generations of USB, USB 3.1  is fully backward compatible with USB 2.0.With increase in speed and bus power, USB found some new uses in system backups for eg:-handling giant video files.You could also run an entire operating system on a USB3.1 external hard drive.While the connector types are still the same, you can easily recognize USB 3.1 by its trademark blue found inside the connector.

 

USB 3.1 Gen 2 – The Today

Fast forward to today and USB 3.1 Gen 2 is the current advancement in USB technology, also referred to as SuperSpeed! The primary benefit of this second generation of USB 3.1 is a huge increase in speed, which caps out at 10Gbps, doubling the speed from the first generation. Outside of the speed increase, things haven’t changed that much.

WHAT IS NEXT?

 The new wire that has been widely adopted by Samsung's new phone and Apple mac books is USB type-c . Is USB type-c the new revolution in the world of ports?

 USB Type-C is just a new connector and port type, but it’s still the USB 3.1 spec.With this confusion cleared up, you’ll notice that USB Type-C does look remarkably different from connectors of previous generations, which probably leads to the general confusion surrounding exactly what it is. The good news, is that this port type can be inserted in any direction so you don’t have to mess around with port orientation anymore. On the speed side of things, USB Type-C also offers faster data transfer performance of 10Gbps and an increased power delivery of 100W, all on a single cable.

CAN ANY OTHER PORT BEAT USB?

Well the answer is no. With its fast and compatible use we can't see any other port take lead to it. In past we have seen a few ports that have attempted to take over the reign of USB eg:- FireWire and thunderbolt but here are the reasons why they couldn't take over:

1. firewire was highly backed up by Apple in 1990's and 2010 because it had some great advantages over USB. advantages like: it could connect dozens of devices, it was full-duplex while USB gen 1 and 2 were half duplex (transferring data in one direction only), it also had higher data transfer rate.However, the biggest problem came down to money. not only did you need to add yet another controller chip to a motherboard to support FireWire, but you also had a pay a nice lump sum to Apple just to license the thing. There was also the issue of backwards compatibility whereas USB creators put backward compatibility throughout all generations.
2. in the 2010, Apple replaced FireWire with thunderbolt port created by Intel. initially it had a head-start from USB due to its bidirectional data transfer which was faster then USB gen 3.1, but yet again due to the high coast and requiring a separate thunderbolt controller to be added to a motherboard, Thunderboalt remains on the number 2 in the list.

What Does the Future Hold for USB?

What happens next? Is USB Type-C the port of the future, or are we done with wires all together? We’re already starting to see several wireless technologies serve many of the needs that USB once did. Just think about all of the cloud services that are now available.  Bluetooth,  Wi-Fi Direct etc are ready to replace traditional wire-based transfers.

The biggest limitation of wireless at this point is speed. If you need to transfer some heavy pictures or video, then you’ll likely want to keep using a cable, as wireless is still lagging at USB 2.0 speeds. So will wireless eventually replace USB as the data transfer champion? Only time will tell. USB certainly isn’t going anywhere yet