Universal Serial Bus

USB for short. Yet another attempt to make PlugAndPlay feasible and do away with a myriad of difficult-to-use special-purpose connectors on the desktop.

Surprisingly, it's been relatively successful. While intended for small devices like keyboards and printers, USB has been co-opted also for portable hard drives and other high-bandwidth devices; in this space it competes with FireWire. And has been more successful even though FireWire is superior in bandwidth, when connecting external hard disk drives.

PS/2-style mice and keyboards are still common on PeeCee's, but modern OS's are happy to let you plug in multiple USB mice and keyboards and use them all at the same time. This may be a boon for those engaging in PairProgramming.

WindowsVsLinux

Popularity of newer hardware standards like USB is favoring the MicrosoftWay. This is because manufacturers generally could not be bothered to write device drivers for non Windows OS, not initially. Lots of similar complaints seen in PC magazines in mid 05.

CategoryHardware