USB hit the scene 30 years ago this month - we look back on its journey to standardization success
From USB 1.0 to USB-C, we’ve come a long way to reach some degree of standardization
(Image credit: Future)
Whether you’re working at home, the office, or on the go, you’ll likely have an assortment of various USB cables, USB flash drives and others at your disposal, as they’re a staple piece of equipment these days - but it hasn’t always been that way.
Development of Universal Serial Bus (USB) began accelerating in the early-to-mid 1990s, with the aim of streamlining connections between personal computers with devices such as displays or storage devices.
Here’s everything you need to know about the history of USB.
The history of USB
Prior to the arrival of USB, users contended with an array of various connection interfaces, like serial ports, game ports, Apple Desktop Bus (ADP) ports, and more.
This cacophony of conflicting interfaces proved tiresome for consumers, and was in desperate need of standardization.
In 1996, the first USB design (USB 1.0) hit the market, and it eventually became the industry standard - albeit with a few notable exceptions. This launch was the culmination of a collaboration between a host of major tech companies, including Intel, IBM, Microsoft, and Compaq.
Indeed, a research team at Intel in 1995 spearheaded the development of the first integrated circuits designed to support USB.
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The January 1996 launch of USB 1.0 offered users a base signaling rate of 1.5Mbps, a low bandwidth, low speed rate. At the higher end of the spectrum, it was capable of speeds reaching 12Mbps.
This doesn’t seem particularly powerful given what we expect today, but it did mark a major milestone. It wasn’t exactly an instant hit, however. A combination of both timing and power limitations meant that few USB devices made it to market and uptake was slow.
With the launch of USB 1.1 in 1998, however, things began to accelerate. It gained a major seal of approval from Microsoft that year. Notably, type-b connection ports began appearing on a range of peripheral devices.
Continuous improvements
The launch of USB 2.0 in April 2000 marked another major milestone, both in terms of popularity and performance. This latest iteration boasted higher signaling rates of 480Mbps.
Continuous improvements were made in the years following, particularly with the launch of USB 3.0. This saw the addition of a new architecture and protocol dubbed SuperSpeed, complete with backward-compatible plugs and cables.