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What USB Has Replaced (And What it Hasn't) (arstechnica.co.uk)

Posted by timothy on from the tab-a-slot-micro-b dept.

An anonymous reader writes with a story at Ars Technica about the evolution thus far of USB as an enabling technology: Like all technology, USB has evolved over time. Despite being a 'Universal' Serial Bus, in its 18-or-so years on the market it has spawned multiple versions with different connection speeds and many, many types of cables. A casual search around the shelves by my desk shows that I've got at least 12 varieties, and that's not even counting serial and PS/2 adapters. What have you replaced with USB?

4 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Not replaced: serial and parallel ports. by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yup, pretty much this.

    It's trivial to implement a serial connection in a microcontroller. All you need is a level shifter like the dime-for-dozen MAX232 and you're set. For USB, this requires a lot more implementation overhead (not to mention getting a genuine UID if you want to ship it), and literally EVERYONE who has ever even dabbled in microcontroller programming knows how to deal with a MAX232. Pushing information down the serial line is like the Hello World of microcontroller tinkering.

    That's why you can still get PCI-E serial controller rather cheaply. And, lo and behold, almost all of them contain some variant of the MAX232.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  2. USB is a support nightmare by fyngyrz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Unlike ethernet, which is pretty much standard from platform to platform and basically trivial to support, USB code is completely different between linux, OS X, and Windows, and is a mess, API-wise.

    I write software defined radio stuff, and after one incredible nightmare getting a USB SDR to work on all three platforms using conditional compilation (I did succeed), I swore off. No more. If it doesn't have an ethernet interface, or a USB-to-ethernet server app compatible with the standard SDR protocols that makes it appear to me as an ethernet SDR, it's not happening.

    Luckily, some of the best SDR manufacturers out there have done it right. Andrus, AFDRI, and RFSPACE. And there are some servers that have been built to hide the abortion of USB, but so far they are very much platform-specific, for the very reason I described above.

    USB. Ugh.

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    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    1. Re:USB is a support nightmare by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      All you have to do is create yet another API, and use it to write shims for the other three!

      Seriously, though, the way Windows handles USB is so amazingly stupid. Unplug a mouse from one port and plug in into a different port. I'm not even talking about some special custom type of device that needs proprietary drivers, just a generic HID mouse. It will then spend about 30 seconds "installing" the drivers for that other port. And good luck if you take a hub full of devices and plug that into a different port.

    2. Re:USB is a support nightmare by KingMotley · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This doesn't happen if your USB device properly supports USB serial numbers. The problem only exists if windows has to generate a semi-unique serial number for the device because it decided not to implement it.