# who started using USB...Apple or ?



## brianh (Aug 4, 2005)

I just read an article that stated Apple has adopted the industry standard USB for connecting peripherals (priners, mice etc). Didn't Apple start the USB connection craze.

brian


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## symphonix (Aug 4, 2005)

Unless the article you read is ten years old, of course. Yes, Apple was the first company to adopt USB as its universal method for connecting all of its products. I don't know if that counts as "starting" the craze (because Macs were using USB for five years before it even appeared as an option on PCs) but they certainly backed it from the beginning.


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## brianh (Aug 4, 2005)

Thats what I thought! But according to the SF 
chronicle
"In the past, even the cable connection between the Macintosh and its printers and monitors was specially made for Apple products.

"Now, the firm is using the PC industry standard USB plugs for its peripheral devices like the mouse and iPods."
Apple's new mouse works on Macs and Windows PCs
Matthew Yi, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 3, 2005

Maybe Mr. Yi needs a little history education.


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## RGrphc2 (Aug 4, 2005)

the USB/Firewire didn't hit the Windows world till recenty.  USB didn't start becoming standard on PC's till 2000 or 2001 from what i'm aware of.

Apple supports technologies that most PC vendors don't (Bluetooth, USB and Firewire)

and they also are the first company to recongize a dying storage media, like the floppy disk (discontinued by Mac in 1998 took the rest of the PC world to 2005 to offical annouce it's "death").  First with the ZIP format as well.

USB Keys all the way!!!!


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## andyhargreaves (Aug 4, 2005)

> In the past, even the cable connection between the Macintosh and its printers and monitors was specially made for Apple products.
> 
> Now, the firm is using the PC industry standard USB plugs for its peripheral devices like the mouse and iPods.



Sorry to be a bit pedantic, but this is actually correct.  This part of the article doesn't say Apple adopted USB after anyone else, does it?  It just says they use USB 'now'.

Andy


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## Pengu (Aug 4, 2005)

just to clarify. you probably COULD get usb back in 98 or 99 when apple adopted it, for pcs. it just wasnt standard.

and fyi, Intel is a big player in the USB controlling body.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 4, 2005)

andyhargreaves said:
			
		

> Sorry to be a bit pedantic, but this is actually correct.  This part of the article doesn't say Apple adopted USB after anyone else, does it?  It just says they use USB 'now'.
> 
> Andy



...but it's still misleading... "in the past" would have to mean over 7 years ago, since USB showed up on Macs in 1998 with the original bondi-blue iMac.

When you hear "in the past," you usually don't have to think that far back -- it makes it seem like it's a recent innovation on Apple's part when in fact they've been doing it for almost a decade.


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## Mikuro (Aug 4, 2005)

Intel created USB, but Apple really mainstreamed it with the original iMac. Before then, it was not a major thing, and not standard on many (if any) PCs. The iMac really kickstarted the USB revolution (if you can call it that).

Before that, Apple did use their own proprietary interface, ADB (Apple Desktop Bus), for their mouse and keyboard.

But it's not accurate to act like Apple followed the PC world with this. They didn't invent the technology, but they definitely blazed the trail.


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## fryke (Aug 4, 2005)

About the times _before_ USB (Universal Serial Bus): On the Apple side of things, we used ADB (Apple Desktop Bus) for things like keyboards and mice (replaced by USB), RS-422 (a serial bus) for printers etc. (replaced by USB) and SCSI for scanners, ext. harddrives etc. (replaced by FireWire)... It was actually even more complicated than that. Once you start counting the various options for LocalTalk, EtherTalk etc. as well as the special monitor cabling the Macs used... Apple had to clean things up, and with adopting USB and creating FireWire - and pushing those technologies almost without a way back (there were USB-2-ADB adapters and things like that from 3rd party vendors and there was an "almost-supported" ADB port on the first Blue&White G3 PowerMacs) - they did the right thing. And early so, if you look at the overall PC market. We shouldn't forget that Sony did their part in spreading FireWire (their iLink) technology among consumers, too. And once Apple had created a market for USB-devices, PCs adopted the new standard quite quickly, too.
Apple, of course, was _very_ late to adopt USB 2.0, because they wanted FireWire to take off. (They only adopted USB 2.0 when FireWire 800 was ready.)


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## cybergoober (Aug 4, 2005)

Apple laptops until very recently used ADB internally for the keyboard and trackpad, did they not?

Perhaps the article means that now the entire line uses USB?


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## RGrphc2 (Aug 4, 2005)

cybergoober said:
			
		

> Apple laptops until very recently used ADB internally for the keyboard and trackpad, did they not?
> 
> Perhaps the article means that now the entire line uses USB?



I believe the Titanium PowerBook G4's and the Clamshell iBook's had ADB, correct me if i'm wrong.  I was throwing old some old Rolling Stone magazine's and they had advertisement's for the ORIGINALTitanium G4 circa 2002, and it looked like the had an ADB port on it.


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## fryke (Aug 4, 2005)

Nope, they were only using ADB internally for the TrackPad and keyboard. Externally, only USB and, on the G4 as well as later versions of the clamshell iBook, FireWire (and Ethernet etc.) were available.


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## mrfluffy (Aug 4, 2005)

IIRC (I read it a few years ago now in a MacUser or MacFormat) there were about 20 USB devices when Apple announced the original iMac, and over 120 a year later. A lot of them Bondi blue.

Like a lot of things Apple didn't invent it or do it first just popularised it.


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## symphonix (Aug 4, 2005)

I think the wording of the article is a bit misleading because it is about the announcement of a new product, and in covering the features of the product says that "in the past" Apple did not use the USB standard for mice and peripherals. That implies that they're talking about "prior to the release of this product". The same could be said of any PC manufacturer. "In the past" Logitech did not use the USB standard for its mice. Since Apple were the first to ship USB mice, the claim is very misleading.

You could just as easily write that "Apple today launched the MightyMouse, which is white. In the past Apple made mice in orange and green." It carries about the same amount of truth - since they did make mice in orange and green prior to 1998.


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## texanpenguin (Aug 5, 2005)

Meh, I'm not very concerned (though I'll admit it's misleading).

The irritating thing for me is the way there are alternate standards within standards (FW400 has both six-pin and four-pin ports. Apple pushes the 6-pin configuration as being "FireWire" whereas Sony (and other PC manufacturers such as Dell) provide only 4-pin ports "iLink" such as the one on the PlayStation 2). That means you still don't have cross-platform usability (you can't use a FW device such as the iSight which draws power from the bus in a four-pin port). They might as well be different ports.

A little off-topic, I'll admit.


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## Kees Buijs (Aug 6, 2005)

Pengu said:
			
		

> just to clarify. you probably COULD get usb back in 98 or 99 when apple adopted it, for pcs. it just wasnt standard.
> 
> and fyi, Intel is a big player in the USB controlling body.




In most PC's you found USB back in 97. But not until Windows 98 arrived (which included USB support immediatly after installation), it was more or less useless.

Also it took some time before USB equipment was available for PC's.

So what happened was that while USB was first available on PC (at least you could connect something to it, but not necessary made / got it working), Apple was the first company to ship computers on which USB was the sole way to contect stuff to it.

This will certainly have boost the interest in both USB and Apple, USB -> made a product work for 2 platforms, and Apple -> It became Easier for third party to adapt produkts for MAC.

But certainly Apple paved the way for USB by being the lead player in its INTRODUCTION and ACCEPTANCE.


Kees


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## lombarke (Aug 6, 2005)

Pengu said:
			
		

> just to clarify. you probably COULD get usb back in 98 or 99 when apple adopted it, for pcs. it just wasnt standard.
> 
> and fyi, Intel is a big player in the USB controlling body.



You're right...Windows released special editions of Win98 with USB support.  Woah wait...Win98, right?  That should have been released in what...2001? 

Sorry..had to.


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## contoursvt (Aug 6, 2005)

Hmmm, didnt USB get released first in the B&W G3 towers? I think that was in 1999 right? At least according to this http://www.lowendmac.com/ppc/g3c.shtml

As for who implemented first or making it common. I think Apple was first in really making it popular but USB was available for a long LONG time before the B&W G3. My old Asus Pentium mainboard from 1996 (ASUS P55T2P4 had usb capability via a header cable). I also have two Dual Pentium Pro 200Mhz fileservers based on Intel PR440FX mainboards which have USB. Those boards were released in 1998. 

I think the hardware was released first on PCs but really was not fully implemented until Win98SE so USB was initially more popular amongst Apple computers.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Aug 6, 2005)

The bondi-blue 1st-generation iMac 233MHz was the first Macintosh to have built-in USB ports, in 1998.  That article you linked to doesn't say anything about the B&W machines being first with USB... only first with copper CPU technology.

http://www.lowendmac.com/imacs/imac.shtml


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## contoursvt (Aug 6, 2005)

Oh I thought the B&W tower was before the imac but you're right. The 233Mhz imac was out in 1998 so a year before the tower. I put the link because I thought it was the first machine with USB....


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## mrcarson2 (Aug 6, 2005)

umm, I have an IBM Aptiva desktop Pentium 133Mhz circa early 1996 that has USB built into the motherboard. So it obviously wasnt a standard across perifs, but still you say that macs didnt use them till 1998. I also own a Packard Bell Pentium 233Mhz purchased November 1997 that has 2 USB ports built in. So not to sould like a pro wintel person, but just to let everyone know.


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## nixgeek (Aug 6, 2005)

Actually, Windows 95B was the version of Windows that first included USB support natively, but it took until Windows 98 SE to actually get it right without the BSODs.   Same goes for Mac OS 8.5 (although without the crashes Windows had ).  And USB has been around since the mid 90s, but it wasn't used prevalently until the iMac and Power Mac G3 B&W came on the scene.  And like all other things, the PC world followed Apple's footsteps.  So I guess Apple came to Intel's rescue more than once...


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## bookem (Aug 7, 2005)

Anyone remember the video where Bill Gates is demoing a usb scanner on WIndows 98 hehe.


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## RacerX (Aug 7, 2005)

Well, people have covered this subject pretty good in this thread so far. The only thing I didn't see mentioned was that Windows NT 4.0 never had support for USB. The NT line started supporting USB with Windows 2000.

And yes, there were almost no USB devices before Apple announced that their new iMac would only have USB ports. By the time the iMac went on sale there were a ton of USB devices for it (almost all of them in some form of translucent casing).

I can remember the panic when Apple said that they were going with USB by many in the Mac community. At the time it was thought to be as bad a move as removing the floppy.

As history has shown... neither hurt iMac sales, and Apple's adoption of USB brought USB into the mainstream.


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## Satcomer (Aug 7, 2005)

bookem said:
			
		

> Anyone remember the video where Bill Gates is demoing a usb scanner on WIndows 98 hehe.



Right here.


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## contoursvt (Aug 7, 2005)

RacerX, its true NT4 out of the box did not support USB, but there are 3rd party USB drivers such as this one http://www.bsquare.com/products/usbwin40/


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## bookem (Aug 8, 2005)

contoursvt said:
			
		

> RacerX, its true NT4 out of the box did not support USB, but there are 3rd party USB drivers such as this one http://www.bsquare.com/products/usbwin40/




Was just about to mention that myself, however it only worked well with keyboards and mice, and non epson printers.


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## Myke (Aug 9, 2005)

I recall a UK journalist (well informed as ever!) claiming when the iMac came out that Apple had boobed, because it had printer ports that were non standard! Apparently she had never heard of USB. Typical Apple she said, bringing out a computer that there are no peripherals for!


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## gerbick (Aug 9, 2005)

What concerns me seems to be Apple's near-abandonment of Firewire 400 - as seen in the iPod pack-ins - and nothing announced with Firewire Wireless even though it's been finalized a while back.

Firewire 800 is almost Mac exclusive - which sucks for places/people with multiple OS's to support or share data.  And USB2, which oddly enough as stated above multiple times Intel is the biggest part behind that - seems to be catching on with Macs...


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## fryke (Aug 9, 2005)

Well, Apple simply goes with the flow... Before Apple supported USB-2, there were tons of devices coming out for the new standard. And slowly, FW400 became a "second class" citizen in stores around the world. PCs had USB-2 on-board, but many PCs didn't have FW. For us Mac users, this meant to search longer for the right device (or not find a version of something for FW at all) or even paying more for FW-only or combo devices. Now that Macs have USB-2, this problem has been solved.
Apple hasn't pushed FW800 as much as they have FW400, and the market didn't simply pick it up as quickly. Also for most devices, FW400 and USB-2 are "good enough". And FW400 does not share the cables/connectors with FW800, which also hinders its deployment.

As for the iPods going USB-2: Same reason. They had to choose between FW400 and USB-2. For a while, they supplied both (as long as most Macs didn't have USB-2), but now that's not necessary anymore. Simple cost choice.


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## lushbudget (Aug 9, 2005)

Apple has always been at the forfront of connectivity with their hardware.  What about the Mini-SCSI?  What about serial-VGA/DVI video standard on portables AND desktops?  What about their old Duo docking systems?  Apple has had all these types of connectivity in their hardware long before the rest of PC world had them.  Because Apple is a progressive company, and proprietary designers, they can try new technologies without fear.  USB standards on iMac not only turned the peripheral industry on it's ear, but it turned heads all over the computing industry.  So did FireWire,as you'll recall.  Apple's Desktop Bus was proprietary, but it was fast, and PS/2 is not much different, is it?  Remember those old PhoneNet connectors that you could use to network Macs using AppleTalk and regular phone cable?  Apple's engineers are just the coolest.  Can't wait to see the next generation of Macintosh computers when the new chip architectures are introduced.  I'm sure they'll blow us all away.


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## Pengu (Aug 9, 2005)

Whether or not Apple use it first, they definitely the first to really "use" it. Until recently nearly every major manufacturer still included P/S2 ports (and most still supplied p/s2 keyboards) whereas apple made the decision and dropped the legacy adb stuff immediately.


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## Golfer099 (Aug 9, 2005)

No way about ADB on laptops.  I have (and am still using everyday) a 6 year old Bronze Keyboard PowerBook G3 first issued in May 99 that has USB 1.1.  The iBook did not exist then, but when it was introduced in Oct 1999 it did have USB.  I do have a SCSI port and was the last Apple laptop without FireWire, but despite that I have it on my PCMCIA card.


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## RacerX (Aug 9, 2005)

contoursvt said:
			
		

> RacerX, its true NT4 out of the box did not support USB, but there are 3rd party USB drivers such as this one http://www.bsquare.com/products/usbwin40/


Besides the fact that it is not Windows NT 4.0 supporting USB (Microsoft never fixed that), the product you linked to was released in November of 2000... that was pretty late in the NT 4.0 product life for a fix (from a third party).

So, like I said before, USB support wasn't introduced into the NT line until Windows 2000... even though there were PCs being made with USB during the time that Windows NT 4.0 was being developed at Microsoft (which shows what a friendly relationship Microsoft and Intel have if Microsoft was unwilling to add USB support in NT 4.0).

Also it should be noted that both Windows NT 4.0 and OS/2 Warp 4.0 were released about the same time (1996), and IBM released a patch to enable USB support for Warp while Microsoft never did for NT 4.0. As both of these operating systems are based on the same historical kernel, I doubt that Microsoft was having any _technical_ issues that prevented them from adopting USB. They just decided not to support it.


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## fryke (Aug 9, 2005)

Well, MS also only started with Windows 2000 to bring the NT-kernel "down" to consumers. This development was only finished with Windows XP, actually (Win2K, by consumers, still often was viewed as a 'business only' OS). But we don't have to defend MS here. They made some strange decisions in the past - and sure will in the future.
But Apple can't just be called a hero here. For example, we still can't just 'fill' CD-Rs over time. If you burn a CD-R in the Finder, the CD-R is 'finished', i.e. no other sessions can be added. Other OSs do a much better job here, and I'm totally unsure as to why Apple doesn't do a better job here. Maybe they think it'd confuse users? But actually, I think, people are often confused by the way it's now with OS X...


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## andyhargreaves (Aug 10, 2005)

I remember that feeling when Win2K was introduced at the University where I was at the time - _Oooh, this must be something special_!  Not sure where that impression came from, though.

Also, have to agree with you about the CD burning issue.  As a reasonably new mac convert from Win XP, it was one thing I felt OS X could've been done better.

That said, there are many more things that OS X does better than Windows.  'Nuff said on that one!

Andy


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## hawki18 (Sep 5, 2005)

USB was supported in windows 95b there wasn't alot of devices to use with it but was late 95 or early 96 that the second update to win95 made it navive to support


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