4 May
2012
4 May
'12
3:23 p.m.
On 5/4/2012 12:19 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
I have a device on my desk here that's the size of a small paperback
book; it's a subnotebook computer. I can connect keyboards, mice,
scanners, printers, serial ports, parallel & scsi ports, cameras,
calculators, phones, GPIB interfaces, external sound, video capture,
hard drives, usb memory sticks, card readers and dozens of other things
that I'm not able to bring to mind in the 20 seconds it took me to type
that -- all to one of the pair of USB ports on the side. (No, not all
at the same time, smartass :)). If this device had a specialized
connector for each (or even most) of these it'd be completely covered in
them and probably weigh 30 pounds :).
This is the advantage of USB for modern computing. No, it's not
suitable for a "classic" computer, but that's not the point and it's not
why it was designed. (And at the same time, this entire, drawn-out
thread isn't really suitable for "classic" computing either.) Is it a
perfect standard? Nope. Does it do everything perfectly? Nope. Does
it have a name that doesn't technically describe what it is/does that
was probably chosen by a marketing department somewhere at Intel? Sure
does. Is it well established, and does it work decently well for the
purposes for which it was designed? Generally, yes. Does Tony have to
like it? No :).
- Josh
Because
it's clearly simpler to have a single bus and lose the
specialised connectors. Which PCs eventually did (long after Apple did).
Firslty
whatever USB is, it is certainly not a bus.
Secondly, how is it simpler? It certainly makes the electronics a lot
more complicated (USB being a more complex protocol than the one for a
PS/2 keybord or mouse). And I don;t think it makes things much simpler
for the user. After all, there are specific conenctors for the mains
input and the video output (VGA or DVI or whatever), why is a specific
connector for the keyboard so complciated?