who started using USB...Apple or ?

B

brianh

Registered
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
 
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.
 
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.
 
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!!!! :D
 
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.
Click to expand...

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
 
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.
 
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
Click to expand...

...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.
 
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.
 
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.)
 
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?
 
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?
Click to expand...

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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
Click to expand...


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
 
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.
Click to expand...

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. :)
 
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.
 
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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