Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from house
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, senior writer for a house
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, and today I wanted to take
Speaker 1: a look at a technology protocol that's become ubiquitous, one
Speaker 1: might even say universal. I'm talking about the Universal Serial Bus,
Speaker 1: better known as USB. Now you'll find these ports on computers, smartphones,
Speaker 1: digital cameras, scanners, printers, and tons of other electronic devices.
Speaker 1: So what are they, who invented them? And how do
Speaker 1: they work? You know, your standard tech stuff type episode. Well,
Speaker 1: you could just go and read the specification for USB
Speaker 1: if you really wanted to, and that would give you
Speaker 1: all the information you need and more. For example, the
Speaker 1: specification for USB two point oh is a mirror six
Speaker 1: hundred fifty pages long. It seems a bit excessive to me,
Speaker 1: So let's break down the topic tech stuff style. So first,
Speaker 1: let's talk about what a bus is. In computer terms,
Speaker 1: a bus is essentially a conduit for data. Think of
Speaker 1: it like a hallway that data can pass through. It's
Speaker 1: a communication pathway that lets different components within a computer
Speaker 1: or two different devices send data back and forth between
Speaker 1: each other. That means some buses are internal and facilitate
Speaker 1: communication within a single device. Other buses are external and
Speaker 1: allow for the communication of different components like a smartphone
Speaker 1: to a computer for example. So inside a computer, you
Speaker 1: would have a bus connecting components like the microprocessor and
Speaker 1: a memory storage device like a hard drive. So the
Speaker 1: computers operating memory and CPU tend to be very closely
Speaker 1: tied together, as in its operating memory like the random
Speaker 1: access memory. That and the CPU are usually real tight,
Speaker 1: but they still have a bus. It's usually called the
Speaker 1: system bus that connects the two. And just as microprocessors
Speaker 1: and memory have improved over time, so if buses, they've
Speaker 1: improved to allow more data to pass through at a
Speaker 1: single time. Now, keep in mind information is traveling at
Speaker 1: pretty much the same speed, you know, more or less
Speaker 1: the speed of light. It's not quite the same, but
Speaker 1: for the purposes of our argument, it works just fine.
Speaker 1: So really the question is how much data can you
Speaker 1: move through the bus simultaneously? Or if we wanted to
Speaker 1: use a metaphor, imagine that you have an eye dropper
Speaker 1: and your friend has a bucket, and you're each taking
Speaker 1: water from one puddle and walking across a field at
Speaker 1: the same speed and depositing that water into a little
Speaker 1: dip and the other end of the field that's going
Speaker 1: to become the new puddle. So you're just relocating water
Speaker 1: from one puddle to the other. Now you're walking at
Speaker 1: the same speed, so you're not It's not that your
Speaker 1: friend is going faster than you are, but they can
Speaker 1: carry more water per trip, so they're delivering more water
Speaker 1: every time they make this trip, and even though you're
Speaker 1: both going the same speed. This is why I get
Speaker 1: a little antsie about data speeds, because it's not really
Speaker 1: so much about speed. It's more about the amount of
Speaker 1: data you can carry at a time. That's kind of
Speaker 1: what I'm getting at. So if you hear like this
Speaker 1: computer sends data faster than that computer, the information is
Speaker 1: still traveling it more or less the same speed, depending
Speaker 1: upon what you know medium they're using, But it all
Speaker 1: is down to how much information can pass through at
Speaker 1: any given time. Now, there are also busses that allow
Speaker 1: data transfers with sources that are external to a computer. Again,
Speaker 1: the smartphone is a great example, where a digital cameras,
Speaker 1: anything like that. The buses facilitate the data transfer which
Speaker 1: typically happens over a cable, And there are plenty ways
Speaker 1: to transmit data wirelessly, but we're just going to concentrate
Speaker 1: on cables and tethered peripherals today because that's what USB
Speaker 1: works with, right, That's the protocol, is that you're using
Speaker 1: physical connections. In other episodes, I'll talk about stuff like
Speaker 1: WiFi or Bluetooth or other methods of transferring data around. Now.
Speaker 1: Before USB ports became a standard way to connect various
Speaker 1: components to a computer, we had to rely on other
Speaker 1: types of ports, like parallel and serial ports. Cereal ports
Speaker 1: are se r I a L ports, not not cereal
Speaker 1: like Captain crunch. They're basic computer connections. They send bytes
Speaker 1: of data one bit at a time. So, in case
Speaker 1: you don't remember basic computer lingo, a bite is eight bits,
Speaker 1: and a bit is a single unit of information in
Speaker 1: computer speech, it's either a zero or a one, which
Speaker 1: is kind of like an off on switch, So a
Speaker 1: bite is eight of these collected together. Serial ports send
Speaker 1: information one bit at a time, one zero or one one,
Speaker 1: and then does a whole sequence of those Serial parts
Speaker 1: had either nine or twenty five pens. The nine pin
Speaker 1: connector was a standard for modems. We're talking about the
Speaker 1: old dial up modems that would connect to your phone
Speaker 1: line and allow your computer to communicate with the outside world.
Speaker 1: If you don't know what a dial up modem is, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, ask your parents. Each pen was designed to
Speaker 1: allow for communication between the computer and the modem in
Speaker 1: some way. The pin connector was meant to become a
Speaker 1: new standard, but with so much larger than the nine
Speaker 1: pin connectors that it was a bit hamstrung from the start.
Speaker 1: Not everyone adopted it. In fact, a lot of manufacturers
Speaker 1: just stuck with nine pen peripherals rather than adopt the standard.
Speaker 1: Serial ports had a range of data transmission speeds from
Speaker 1: one fifteen to more than four hundred fifty kill abits
Speaker 1: per second, so four hundred fifty thousand bits per second
Speaker 1: was around the upper range of that. Now, some serial
Speaker 1: ports wouldn't allow for simultaneous operation, which meant that if
Speaker 1: the computer was sending out data through one serial port,
Speaker 1: it could not send out data to other serial parts
Speaker 1: at the same time, and somewhat problematic if you're trying
Speaker 1: to do a whole lot of stuff connected to one machine.
Speaker 1: Parallel ports were often for stuff like CD burners, printers,
Speaker 1: scanners and external hard drives where you wanted to have
Speaker 1: a faster data transfer because otherwise you're gonna be sitting
Speaker 1: around for a really long time. So it's not that
Speaker 1: sereal parts are necessarily bad for stuff. There are plenty
Speaker 1: of operations where you only need a little bit of
Speaker 1: data going between a device and a computer. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be super quote unquote fast because it's just
Speaker 1: not data hungry. But other things, like if you want
Speaker 1: a hard drive, you want something that's going to move
Speaker 1: data and larger amounts in that amount of time, because
Speaker 1: otherwise you're gonna wait forever every time you try to
Speaker 1: save a large file to that hard drive or to
Speaker 1: retrieve a large file from that hard drive. Now, IBM
Speaker 1: developed parallel ports specifically to create an interface between a
Speaker 1: computer and a printer. When IBM was first building personal computers,
Speaker 1: it partnered with a company called Centronics, and Centronics made computers.
Speaker 1: Centronics had a thirty six pin connector, meaning that the
Speaker 1: cable ended in a plug and that plug had thirty
Speaker 1: six pins arranged in a row that would then plug
Speaker 1: into a port that had thirty six holes for those pins.
Speaker 1: IBM decided to couple this thirty six pin with a
Speaker 1: second line of pins twenty five in total. So together
Speaker 1: these two rows of pins were used as the standard
Speaker 1: for IBM computers, and when other companies began to create
Speaker 1: clones of the IBM PC, they also created those types
Speaker 1: of ports. I've got to do a full episode about
Speaker 1: IBM clones at some point, and I talked about them
Speaker 1: briefly in a couple of other episodes. But really it's
Speaker 1: a fascinating thing to hear the story about how other
Speaker 1: companies were able to take advantage of IBM's design. Now
Speaker 1: it's called a parallel port because data would flow parallel
Speaker 1: to each other. Data traveled one byte at a time,
Speaker 1: not a bit, but a bite, a collection of eight bits,
Speaker 1: which made parallel ports much faster than serial ports, or
Speaker 1: more accurately, it could send more data in the same
Speaker 1: amount of time. Parallel ports could transfer at about one
Speaker 1: kilobytes per second. But Jonathan, I hear you say. You
Speaker 1: mentioned that Series A boards have a range of a
Speaker 1: hundred fifty kill a bits per second. Yeah, I did
Speaker 1: say that, But parallel parts are sending bytes, not bits,
Speaker 1: and that bite is that collection of eight bits, So
Speaker 1: one kill of bytes is the same as approximately eight
Speaker 1: hundred kill of bits. The parallel ports could send more data,
Speaker 1: though with some peripherals this amount of data is really unnecessary,
Speaker 1: which is why serial ports didn't just disappear. They were
Speaker 1: still useful for certain applications, and they were cheap. So
Speaker 1: now let's talk about some of the pins in the
Speaker 1: parallel parts. We mentioned them in the serial ones. Well,
Speaker 1: if you were to look at them and number them
Speaker 1: across the row on both the pen and the sixty
Speaker 1: thirty six pin connectors rather thirty six pin connectors, pins
Speaker 1: two through nine on those connectors carried those eight bits.
Speaker 1: PEN one carried a voltage between two point eight and
Speaker 1: five volts. The computer would drop the voltage to point
Speaker 1: five volts whenever it was sending data to a printer
Speaker 1: or other device, so that was kind of like an
Speaker 1: alert to a printer to be on the lookout for data.
Speaker 1: If it detected a voltage drop, it knew that information
Speaker 1: was incoming, so it's kind of a heads up. PEN
Speaker 1: ten was reserved for an acknowledge signal, this time sent
Speaker 1: from the printer to the computer, So this was essentially
Speaker 1: got you, bro So computer says heads up, printer says,
Speaker 1: got you bro and that lets the computer knows that
Speaker 1: the message had been received. Other pens were used to
Speaker 1: let the computer know if the printer was busy, or
Speaker 1: if it was out of paper or ink or something
Speaker 1: along those lines, or they were ground connectors as an
Speaker 1: electrical ground connectors. Future improvements and parallel processors allowed for
Speaker 1: bidirectional communication, meaning that the printer and computer could talk
Speaker 1: to each other, not just one way communication. But the
Speaker 1: original standard only allowed data to flow one way at
Speaker 1: any given time. So ultimately you would get to parallel
Speaker 1: ports that could have simultaneous bidirectional communication. But that wasn't
Speaker 1: how it started. Now, as we created new peripherals for computers,
Speaker 1: we also created new ports. You'd use expansion cards for
Speaker 1: your computer, and those would plug into the main circuit
Speaker 1: board the motherboard on a computer to create the connection.
Speaker 1: So if you've never built a machine or ever had
Speaker 1: to customize one, this might sound a little weird, but
Speaker 1: here's what it meant. It meant you'd open up a
Speaker 1: computer case, you'd pop out. Typically there'd be a metal
Speaker 1: plate on the back side of a computer case that
Speaker 1: would cover up what would otherwise be just a kind
Speaker 1: of an oblong hole. Uh, you would end up taking
Speaker 1: the plate off of that so that the hole was open,
Speaker 1: you would insert a card into a slot on the
Speaker 1: that main circuit board. UH. It would seat the card properly,
Speaker 1: so you'd make sure that it was plugged in nice
Speaker 1: and snug, and you would make sure that you were
Speaker 1: using the card slot so that the back of the
Speaker 1: card is lined up with that new hole that you've
Speaker 1: uncovered on the back of your case. UH. This would
Speaker 1: allow you to plug in devices externally from the computer.
Speaker 1: It would just plug in through that hole where the
Speaker 1: port would be. So the whole is the reason why
Speaker 1: the plate is there is to keep the computers safe
Speaker 1: from stuff like dust. You know, you don't want to
Speaker 1: just have a bunch of open areas to your computer
Speaker 1: or else it can get dusty, which can then mess
Speaker 1: up the internal mechanisms. Not really even mechanisms. It can
Speaker 1: just make things overheat and break down and short out
Speaker 1: a computer if it's really really bad. That's why we
Speaker 1: have computer fans and stuff like that. It's not just
Speaker 1: to manage the heat, it's also to manage the dust.
Speaker 1: So you take that plate off, you reveal the spot
Speaker 1: you've seated the card, you put it all back together,
Speaker 1: and then you would plug your new puripheral into your
Speaker 1: new port and you would turn on the computer and
Speaker 1: find out if it worked or not, and if it
Speaker 1: didn't work, you had to start troubleshooting. Typically it would
Speaker 1: also and you'd have to turn the computer off again
Speaker 1: because the way a lot of these old systems work,
Speaker 1: they weren't plug in play. You couldn't hot plug a
Speaker 1: device into computers for a lot of these ports. That
Speaker 1: means that you had actually turned the computer off, plug
Speaker 1: the device in, turned the computer on, and then it
Speaker 1: would start to pull information or send information to that device,
Speaker 1: kind of a primitive way of doing it. And on
Speaker 1: top of that, some of the devices had proprietary plugs
Speaker 1: and ports. For example, in IBM introduced the ps slash
Speaker 1: two port for keyboards and mouses, micesces you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. The port is circular with six pens arranged
Speaker 1: in pairs around kind of a rectangular center, and it
Speaker 1: communicated through a serial protocol, but it had a totally
Speaker 1: different shape from your typical cereal plugs and ports keyboards
Speaker 1: were similar. And then there's the idea that about plugging
Speaker 1: stuff while your computer is on. Yeah, not a thing
Speaker 1: at those times. A hot port would allow you to
Speaker 1: plug a device in whether a computer is on or off,
Speaker 1: and then the PC recognizes that there's a connection and
Speaker 1: it allows you to use whatever that devices. These old ports,
Speaker 1: for the most part, did not allow for that unless
Speaker 1: you had the computer turn on and go through its
Speaker 1: boot program and then detect all of these peripherals. It
Speaker 1: just didn't recognize that anything new was attached to it.
Speaker 1: So why don't we still depend upon these and other
Speaker 1: specialized ports. Well, some computers still have special serial or
Speaker 1: parallel ports, but most of them now have some type
Speaker 1: of USB port or HDMI port for some displays. And
Speaker 1: part of the problem is that over the years, the
Speaker 1: number of peripherals for computer systems grew substantially, but you
Speaker 1: can only fit so many ports on a computer. There's
Speaker 1: only so much physical space you can use, and each
Speaker 1: port required its own card blood into a computer's motherboard,
Speaker 1: so there are only so many slots on a motherboard
Speaker 1: you could use. Up on top of that, you need
Speaker 1: to designate special numbers for each card plugging into the motherboard,
Speaker 1: and that included an interrupt request also known as an
Speaker 1: I r Q, and an input output address or the
Speaker 1: IO address. Now, those numbers are hard coded onto cards,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't mean that you have to come up
Speaker 1: with a number, it's on the card itself. But that
Speaker 1: also meant that you could potentially encounter conflicts between different
Speaker 1: cards for different products. Let's say that you've got, you know,
Speaker 1: a video card from one company and a totally different
Speaker 1: peripheral card. Let's say it's for a specific type of
Speaker 1: scanner from another company, and just by coincidence, they have
Speaker 1: conflicts in either the ir Q or the I O address.
Speaker 1: This could cause issues, and that would sometimes mean that
Speaker 1: peripherals would become incompatible with one another, and that no
Speaker 1: way to run both off the same machine. So you
Speaker 1: might find that you can have either a display or
Speaker 1: a skinner attached to this computer, but not both. Not ideal,
Speaker 1: And then you had all the different kinds of plugs
Speaker 1: making it confusing to consumers. You can't just plug any
Speaker 1: peripheral into any port. That's why older computers frequently have
Speaker 1: color coded ports and helps the user know which one
Speaker 1: is for a keyboard versus a mouse, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So what would be the solution to this, Well, that
Speaker 1: would be the universal Cereal bus. And I'm going to
Speaker 1: go into more detail about exactly how it pulled it
Speaker 1: off in just a second, but first let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break to thank our sponsor. So a much more
Speaker 1: attractive alternative to these serial and parallel ports is plug
Speaker 1: and play, which is that concept in which you can
Speaker 1: just plug a device in using a standardized connector on
Speaker 1: a aderdized port and it just works. And USB can
Speaker 1: do that. It can also dramatically increase the number of
Speaker 1: peripherals you can attach to a single home device, whether
Speaker 1: it's a hub or a computer or whatever. The USB
Speaker 1: standard allows up to one twenty seven devices to connect
Speaker 1: to a single source. That would mean you need a
Speaker 1: few USB hubs to max it out, so you might
Speaker 1: have one thing plugged into a USB port that actually
Speaker 1: has five other USB ports in that then you could
Speaker 1: expand that. It's kind of like plugging, um, you know,
Speaker 1: like a bunch of power strips into each other in
Speaker 1: order to maximize the number of power chords that you
Speaker 1: can attach to one outlet, only slightly less dangerous. There's
Speaker 1: not really a huge risk for fire in the case
Speaker 1: of the hundred twenty seven devices attached to a single
Speaker 1: home computer. The important thing to remember really is that
Speaker 1: it opens up possibilities for far more connections than parallel
Speaker 1: or serial ports, which are one customer at a time
Speaker 1: kind of ports. And plugging a peripher role into a
Speaker 1: host computer is supposed to be easy with USB, assuming
Speaker 1: that you haven't facing the right way. More on that
Speaker 1: in a second. The computer is in charge of communications,
Speaker 1: so it detects the type of device that gets plugged
Speaker 1: into any given USB board, and then the computer is
Speaker 1: supposed to load a compatible driver for whatever that periph
Speaker 1: role is. And this is what allows a peripheral device
Speaker 1: like a keyboard or a printer or a digital camera
Speaker 1: to communicate with the computer in a in a nice
Speaker 1: smooth way. Computers downstream data to devices which upstream data
Speaker 1: to computers, and it's all very civilized, I assure you.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's another really important point. The USB protocol
Speaker 1: allows for powered connections. That means the ports and cables
Speaker 1: can carry electricity to power devices as well as a
Speaker 1: voltage to indicate data transfer. And that was really importan
Speaker 1: and it allowed for options that simplified cable management. If
Speaker 1: a peripheral could transmit data and receive power through one cable,
Speaker 1: it could cut down on some clutter. So This is
Speaker 1: why you can find lots of little plug in toys
Speaker 1: and do dads that will attached via a USB cable.
Speaker 1: So it might be a little desk lamp or a
Speaker 1: little a little desktop missile launcher. I've seen those on
Speaker 1: Think Geek. I really need to get some of those. Hey,
Speaker 1: if anyone's over at Think Geek and you've got a
Speaker 1: few extra little USB missile launchers, send them to how
Speaker 1: stuff works? Uh. I think the office could really step
Speaker 1: up its inter company warfare anyway. Now, we tend to
Speaker 1: use USB to refer to specific physical things like the
Speaker 1: ports or the cables, but you have to remember USB
Speaker 1: is an underlying technology protocol. The physical things we have
Speaker 1: are specific implementations of that technology, and they are dependent
Speaker 1: upon various versions of the USB standard. But the standard,
Speaker 1: it is the real heart of USB. It's not a cable,
Speaker 1: it's not a device, it's not even a computer. It's
Speaker 1: the protocol that defines the behavior of USB. Now, right now,
Speaker 1: as I'm recording this episode, the most recent version of
Speaker 1: the USB standard is version three point one, and I'll
Speaker 1: talk more about what that means in just a moment
Speaker 1: before we can really look at where we stand right
Speaker 1: now we should probably take a look at where it
Speaker 1: all got started. And you know me, you know I
Speaker 1: love my tech history. So how did the USB protocol
Speaker 1: spring into being? Wells use on Mount Olympus once stubbed
Speaker 1: his toe and from that toe. I wish that were
Speaker 1: the case, because that would be a cool story. I
Speaker 1: love Greek mythology. But back in an Intel developer named A. J.
Speaker 1: Bott began working on a solution to this peripheral problem.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, there was a group called
Speaker 1: the USB implement Ers Forum Incorporated or USB dash i
Speaker 1: F that came into being, and that group included people
Speaker 1: from Intel, Compact, Apple, Hewitt, Packard, and Microsoft, among others.
Speaker 1: This confederation of companies was necessary in order to develop
Speaker 1: a standard protocol that would work across a vast array
Speaker 1: of computers and devices. So they wanted to make sure
Speaker 1: that if anyone incorporated this into their designs, it was
Speaker 1: incorporated across the board, otherwise it would be limited in
Speaker 1: its usefulness. It certainly wouldn't become a universal serial bus.
Speaker 1: And they also really wanted to simplify ports. They wanted
Speaker 1: to reduce the half dozen standards with a single replacement
Speaker 1: and ideally it wouldn't matter what you plugged into your
Speaker 1: computer or which port you used. It would just work.
Speaker 1: Whether you plugged it in the front the back didn't matter.
Speaker 1: The computer would automatically recognize it. That's what they wanted,
Speaker 1: so they had to create something to make it happen.
Speaker 1: In late they did have something to show off. They
Speaker 1: had worked for a full year and they had developed
Speaker 1: the standard that was called USB one point oh. The
Speaker 1: protocol only gave a hint at what was to come.
Speaker 1: It could transmit data at twelve megabits per second, which
Speaker 1: was much faster than parallel or serial parts, though sluggish
Speaker 1: compared to today's technology. The revised USB one point one
Speaker 1: standard added in another capability of transferring data, but this
Speaker 1: time at one point five megabits per second. So why
Speaker 1: would you lower that quote unquote speed or the capacity
Speaker 1: if you prefer Well, the reason was that some devices
Speaker 1: just couldn't handle a bandwidth of twelve megabits per second.
Speaker 1: They didn't need it. They couldn't handle that much. So
Speaker 1: you needed to have a throttling mechanism in order to
Speaker 1: send data at the proper rate to those peripherals. And
Speaker 1: that was the solution of USB one point one and
Speaker 1: one point one got the most used in those early days,
Speaker 1: not a whole lot of devices UD USB one point oh.
Speaker 1: Almost everyone was using one point one from as soon
Speaker 1: as it was available. It just made more sense. The
Speaker 1: first computer to essue all other ports in favor of
Speaker 1: the new USB standard was the iMac G three In
Speaker 1: so Apple lad the way. It probably comes as as
Speaker 1: a surprise to absolutely no one out there in the audience,
Speaker 1: because Apple is known for dumping legacy systems in favor
Speaker 1: of new technology, at least with their computers, if not
Speaker 1: their mobile devices. Sometimes they hold back with mobile devices,
Speaker 1: but they charge ahead with their computers. So with USB
Speaker 1: devices it wasn't such a big deal since we're talking
Speaker 1: about the universal standard. In other cases, Apple has sometimes
Speaker 1: gone a more proprietary approach, which gets a bit more
Speaker 1: frustrating because that means you invest in a closed off
Speaker 1: ecosystem and you can't really use your equipment with anyone
Speaker 1: else's stuff. In other words, if it's a USB chord,
Speaker 1: you can use that on an Apple product or a
Speaker 1: PC where all sorts of other devices that have USB
Speaker 1: ports and it doesn't matter. But if Apple goes a
Speaker 1: proprietary route and the only people making devices and cables
Speaker 1: are doing it for Apple. Then it doesn't do you
Speaker 1: any good to have that stuff and then encounter a PC.
Speaker 1: You can't just use that same stuff because the plugs
Speaker 1: won't fit, the protocols aren't the same, they're not supported
Speaker 1: by this other piece of equipment. The Universal standard gets
Speaker 1: around that kind of problem. In two thousand, the USB
Speaker 1: two point oh standard debut, and it blew USB one
Speaker 1: point one out of the water. Now, transfer rates had
Speaker 1: jumped up to a four d eighty megabits per second,
Speaker 1: which was forty times faster or rather forty times greater
Speaker 1: capacity than the previous version. In two thousand one, USB
Speaker 1: two point oh became an official standard. In order to
Speaker 1: ensure backwards compatibility. The USB two point oh standard could
Speaker 1: also operate at transfer speeds of twelve megabits per second
Speaker 1: and one point five megabits per second. Now. That was
Speaker 1: done to avoid the problem of updating a protocol and
Speaker 1: making a ton of tech obsolete. At the same time,
Speaker 1: it also meant that you could plug a USB one
Speaker 1: point one device into a USB two point oh port,
Speaker 1: or even use a USB two point oh cable with
Speaker 1: a USB one point one port. The only real problem
Speaker 1: is that if you had a USB two point oh
Speaker 1: device and you plugged it into a USB one point
Speaker 1: one port, you might not be able to use the
Speaker 1: USB two point o device because it would receive a
Speaker 1: smaller amount of data over time. So if it needed
Speaker 1: that faster transfer rate, then the device wouldn't really work
Speaker 1: well with a USB one point one port. Otherwise it
Speaker 1: was pretty much backwards compatible. Also, obviously, if you really
Speaker 1: wanted to get the most out of everything, you needed
Speaker 1: to go two point oh across the board. You had
Speaker 1: to have a two point o port, you had to
Speaker 1: have a cable that was two point oh compatible, and
Speaker 1: you had to have a two point o device all
Speaker 1: working together. Otherwise you are moving as fast as the
Speaker 1: slowest member of the team. Right It's like a relay
Speaker 1: race team. If one person is slow, that affects the
Speaker 1: whole team. Same thing with these components. If one component
Speaker 1: was USB one point one, twelve megabits per second was
Speaker 1: as fast as the data could travel. You could not
Speaker 1: get to that speed. USB two point oh also added
Speaker 1: a feature called USB on the go that allowed two
Speaker 1: USB devices to interface through USB without the need for
Speaker 1: a third component to act as host. In other words,
Speaker 1: you could connect to USB two point o devices directly
Speaker 1: with each other using the appropriate cable, without having a
Speaker 1: computer as the go between. So if I had maybe
Speaker 1: a camera and a phone, I might want to transfer
Speaker 1: pictures I've taken with my camera onto my phone for
Speaker 1: some reason. Maybe I want to share are them. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm just using my phone as sort of an external
Speaker 1: hard drive. With this USB on the go feature, you
Speaker 1: could do that without having to plug both devices into
Speaker 1: a computer first. The earlier version of USB the computer
Speaker 1: was kind of master control. Everything had to go through it,
Speaker 1: so this was a big innovation. Around this time, we
Speaker 1: also saw the first USB flash drives, which are sometimes
Speaker 1: known as thumb drives or pen drives. These are those
Speaker 1: little storage devices that you plug into a USB port
Speaker 1: and they feature rewritable flash based memory. I got a
Speaker 1: ton of these from various trips to tech trade shows,
Speaker 1: and I love them because I could pull the data
Speaker 1: from that flash drive onto my computer. I could then
Speaker 1: wipe the flash drive and then use them for all
Speaker 1: sorts of stuff like documents, pictures, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So a lot of my backups are on flash drives.
Speaker 1: The original flash drives could hold a whopping eight megabytes
Speaker 1: of data. And that's me kind of being a little
Speaker 1: coy about how primitive our past was, because today you
Speaker 1: can find flash drives that hold on to hundreds of
Speaker 1: gigabytes of data, which still sounds kind of crazy to me.
Speaker 1: There's part of my brain that refuses to acknowledge that
Speaker 1: you could fit two hundred gigabytes of data onto something
Speaker 1: like a thumb drive. Now, with USB three point oh,
Speaker 1: you get another boost in that capacity, that data transfer rate,
Speaker 1: this time hitting four point eight gigabits per second four
Speaker 1: point eight billion bits per second. It's also backwards compatible
Speaker 1: with USB two point o devices and ports, though again,
Speaker 1: if you have a USB three point oh device and
Speaker 1: you connect it to a computer through a USB two
Speaker 1: point o port, you're not gonna get the full benefit
Speaker 1: of the technology. You can't get that four point eight
Speaker 1: gigabit per second transfer rate. Technically, you probably never would
Speaker 1: hit that rate anyway. That's sort of the top end
Speaker 1: of what the data transfer rates are. Usually real world
Speaker 1: examples are slightly lower than that, but you get what
Speaker 1: I mean. The USB three point oh standard also allows
Speaker 1: for simultaneous uploading and downloading on separate wires two for
Speaker 1: transmission too for receiving data. So this sped things up
Speaker 1: because you didn't have to wait for a communication to
Speaker 1: go one route and then for it to come back
Speaker 1: the other way. You had dedicated wires just for the
Speaker 1: uploading or downloading of information. It's kind of like having
Speaker 1: separate lanes on a highway. By doing that, you allow
Speaker 1: for much faster transfers. And I'll talk more about the
Speaker 1: wires that you can find in USB cables in a
Speaker 1: little bit. One of the things that the USB three
Speaker 1: point protocols allow for is the connection of data hungry peripherals,
Speaker 1: stuff that needs lots and lots of information in a
Speaker 1: very short amount of time. So an example, there's a
Speaker 1: high resolution display because they are constantly refreshing and redrawing
Speaker 1: the screen so that you can see new stuff. Otherwise
Speaker 1: it would just be a series of senti there is
Speaker 1: very slowly regenerating. You've got to have that super fast
Speaker 1: data transfer rate otherwise you can't get high definition displays otherwise.
Speaker 1: So this was a way of creating a plug in
Speaker 1: play approach to stuff even as sophisticated as a high
Speaker 1: resolution display, and it also allows for high speed data
Speaker 1: transfers to storage drive. So if you've ever had to
Speaker 1: move a large file from an internal drive to an
Speaker 1: external drive, you know it can take a long time.
Speaker 1: Like let's say that you've got a an internal drive
Speaker 1: that's a couple of gigabytes in size, and you have
Speaker 1: an external data drive, and you think, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: move everything over to there so i can free up
Speaker 1: space in my computer. If you've ever done that with
Speaker 1: a USB two point connection, you know it can take
Speaker 1: a long time. So this dramatically reduced the amount of
Speaker 1: time it takes to move large amounts of information around.
Speaker 1: The USB three point protocol helps alleviate that bottleneck that
Speaker 1: tends to occur at the bus level, though you're still
Speaker 1: dependent upon other factors like your computer's processor and the
Speaker 1: hard drives writing capabilities. Again, it really comes down to
Speaker 1: what is the slowest element of the collection of of technology.
Speaker 1: Whatever the slowest element is, that's your limiting factor. So
Speaker 1: really USB improvements are to make sure that the bus stays,
Speaker 1: you know, keeps up to speed with things like microprocessors
Speaker 1: and hard drives, that sort of thing. Now, USB three
Speaker 1: point one I mentioned earlier is the most recent version
Speaker 1: as of the recording of this podcast, it up to
Speaker 1: the max data transfer rate again, this time up to
Speaker 1: ten gigabits per second. At least that's the theoretical top
Speaker 1: and it debuted in July two thirteen. Now in August,
Speaker 1: the USB dash i F published the specification for USB
Speaker 1: Type C connector systems. That's the reversible USBC plug. You
Speaker 1: can find some smartphones and high end laptops and other
Speaker 1: devices right now. Um, it's a little different from the
Speaker 1: previous USB connectors. Also, people tend to conflate the two.
Speaker 1: They tend to think of USBC and USB three point
Speaker 1: one being the same thing. They are not. I mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier that the USB it really refers to a protocol,
Speaker 1: not a specific technology. Same thing with USB three point
Speaker 1: one is a technology protocol, a set of standards rules,
Speaker 1: if you will. USBC is a physical technology that follows
Speaker 1: those rules, and as a cable and sports system, it's
Speaker 1: not in itself three point one. All right, let's take
Speaker 1: another quick break to thank our sponsor before I dive
Speaker 1: into the madness that is USB connectors. All right, we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about the different ends of USB cables, which
Speaker 1: for a lot of people end up being the thing
Speaker 1: that confuses them or infuriates them the most, especially if
Speaker 1: you're looking for a very specific USB cable for a
Speaker 1: very specific device and all you're finding are many and
Speaker 1: micro cables. I've been there, I live that life. It hurts.
Speaker 1: It's a bit of a puzzler. So let's start with
Speaker 1: USB two point oh and lower first, because all of
Speaker 1: those cables have similar connectors. Uh, a USB one point
Speaker 1: one cable is not gonna pull data the way USB
Speaker 1: two point oh can, but they do have the same
Speaker 1: sort of end connectors that plug into ports. So we
Speaker 1: begin with type A plugs and sockets. This is the
Speaker 1: big standard, the one that you would find on a
Speaker 1: typical computer pre USB three point oh days. So uh,
Speaker 1: it's your typical USB port. The latest models have moved on,
Speaker 1: but if you probably are familiar with or oh in
Speaker 1: a computer that has you're just standard USB two point
Speaker 1: oh style ports. These are the ones that have that
Speaker 1: big wide plug for the cables, and the have a
Speaker 1: little like holes on one side of them that when
Speaker 1: it slips into your computer, it's supposed to latch on
Speaker 1: a little bit so that the cord doesn't easily pop
Speaker 1: out again. But it's also tends to be the plug
Speaker 1: that everyone seems to try and plug in upside down
Speaker 1: first before they flip it around and get it the
Speaker 1: right way. At least that's my experience. I've worked with
Speaker 1: USB chords for years, and to this day, I will
Speaker 1: try and plug it in the wrong way first, probably
Speaker 1: because I'm not really paying attention. If I just paid
Speaker 1: attention and look for the little holes I could, I
Speaker 1: could align it properly. But more often than not, I'm
Speaker 1: just jabbing away at a computer. You know, an expensive
Speaker 1: piece of property, like a caveman with a spear jab
Speaker 1: in a mammoth. That's me when you boil it down
Speaker 1: to its most basic level with computers. I'm not a
Speaker 1: proud man. I'm just a guy anyway. That's one of
Speaker 1: the features of these plugs. There's only one way you
Speaker 1: can plug them in correctly. You cannot reverse them. Type
Speaker 1: B plugs and sockets have a different shape than Type A.
Speaker 1: These are typically the the side of a cable that
Speaker 1: you would plug into another device, like a camera or
Speaker 1: a microphone in some cases, USB microphones, printers, scanners, that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Type B socket is an upstream socket,
Speaker 1: so that means it has to be on a peripheral
Speaker 1: because Remember a computer send information downstream. Peripheral send information upstream.
Speaker 1: So your typical USB cable has a Type A connector
Speaker 1: on one end and a tight BE connector on the
Speaker 1: other end. I remember my old blue Snowball mic has
Speaker 1: a standard Type B port on it. In fact, I've
Speaker 1: got a blue Snowball mic right in front of me
Speaker 1: right now. I'm not using it. It was used for
Speaker 1: a conversation I had online just before I recorded this podcast,
Speaker 1: And sure enough, it's got a tight B USB connector
Speaker 1: that square ish connector on the back of it. Now,
Speaker 1: let's make things a little more complicated. You also have
Speaker 1: micro style connectors for USB Type A and Type B connections.
Speaker 1: Micro ports can be found on digital cameras, cell phones, smartphones,
Speaker 1: GPS units, and stuff like that. Then there are USB
Speaker 1: mini connectors, which are actually larger than the micro connectors,
Speaker 1: and those can also be found in other types of
Speaker 1: cell phones, digital cameras, and that kind of stuff. So
Speaker 1: you're your your mini connectors are slightly taller if you
Speaker 1: were looking at them from the end, Like if you
Speaker 1: ever had a cellphone that had a mini connector, it's
Speaker 1: got the ports are are slightly taller, and the plugs
Speaker 1: are slightly taller, and they do not fit into the
Speaker 1: the micro connector reports those are thinner, So a mini
Speaker 1: cable will not plug into a micro port, and a
Speaker 1: micro cable will not plug into a miniport. And that's
Speaker 1: the biggest problem I have. Is because well, now it's
Speaker 1: not the biggest problem I have, because I've got a
Speaker 1: smartphone that has a USBC cable, adding a whole new
Speaker 1: plethora of options for me to mess things up. But
Speaker 1: back in the day, it was the biggest problem I
Speaker 1: had because I used to have a cell phone that
Speaker 1: used the one type of plug, and then I got
Speaker 1: a cell phone that used a different type of plug,
Speaker 1: which means I've got all these different cables, and invariably,
Speaker 1: when I was going to charge my phone or I
Speaker 1: needed to grab a cable for travel that was more common,
Speaker 1: I would end up grabbing the wrong type of cable.
Speaker 1: You figure i'd have a fifty fifty shot, or at least,
Speaker 1: you know, I would have more of the current type
Speaker 1: of cable than I did the old type of cable.
Speaker 1: But for whatever reason, I just had that amazing luck
Speaker 1: to grab the wrong one every single time. And there
Speaker 1: are also a few more proprietary approaches to USB connectors,
Speaker 1: particularly in the world of cameras, so certain brands like
Speaker 1: Kodak or Sony where using connectors that don't plug into
Speaker 1: anything else. The camera has a very specific port on it,
Speaker 1: and the plug that you have to use is related
Speaker 1: to that camera, or at least that brand of cameras.
Speaker 1: This is also incredibly frustrating for people who own lots
Speaker 1: of technology because if it were a mini or a
Speaker 1: micro that's a standard, if you lost the cable, it's
Speaker 1: easy to replace. If you lose a proprietary cable, you
Speaker 1: have to go back to the manufacturer typically and order
Speaker 1: an expensive replacement. Keep in mind, they were still using
Speaker 1: the USB standard. The underlying technology was the exact same
Speaker 1: stuff in all the other USB cables. It's just the
Speaker 1: plug that was different and the ports on the device.
Speaker 1: It was a design choice that ends up forcing you
Speaker 1: to buy more or stuff within a particular manufacturers collection
Speaker 1: of products. I might be a little jaded on that,
Speaker 1: largely because I kept losing chords to digital cameras and
Speaker 1: it was expensive to replace them. So these days I
Speaker 1: just used my phone. It makes me so much happier
Speaker 1: not having to carry an extra thing around anyway, the
Speaker 1: whole thing sort of defeats the purpose of the universal
Speaker 1: connector if you ask me, but it does create that
Speaker 1: market for chords and cables, and only those companies or
Speaker 1: a designated companies that license the technology can actually sell
Speaker 1: those products, so it's a moneymaker. Now. Next, you've got
Speaker 1: USB three point oh Type A and Type B connectors,
Speaker 1: plus the USB three point oh MicroB connectors. The basic
Speaker 1: Type A connector looks very similar to a USB two
Speaker 1: point oh Type A, except instead of it being having
Speaker 1: white plastic in it, it's got blue plastic in it.
Speaker 1: So the lou alert to that you're using a USB
Speaker 1: three point oh cable or if you're looking at the
Speaker 1: port then it's a port. Uh, So they look a
Speaker 1: lot like USB two point oh. It is backwards compatible
Speaker 1: with USB two point oh ports, so you can plug
Speaker 1: the USB three point oh regular type A plug into
Speaker 1: a USB two point o port, but it's gonna be
Speaker 1: going at that USB two point of speed. Rather than
Speaker 1: round pins which earlier USB connectors had inside them, the
Speaker 1: USB three point oh Type A has flat connectors which
Speaker 1: stand up to a lot of attachment and removals, so
Speaker 1: you don't wear out the port or cables quite as quickly.
Speaker 1: That's kind of nice. The type B USB three point
Speaker 1: oh cables look a little different than their two point
Speaker 1: oh counterparts, so you cannot plug a USB three point
Speaker 1: oh type B cable into a USB two point oh
Speaker 1: type B port, and that's because the connectors for USB
Speaker 1: three point oh have more pens, so they're wider, like
Speaker 1: they're more wide then the USB two point oh kind
Speaker 1: It actually looks like they almost have two plugs merged
Speaker 1: together if you take a look at them, and the
Speaker 1: parts look a little funky too, because they have this
Speaker 1: this structure where it looks like it's two ports that
Speaker 1: have been merged together. It's because these connectors have more
Speaker 1: pins in them, so you can't just use a regular
Speaker 1: two point oh cable with these devices. The micro connector
Speaker 1: for a USB three point oh also looks different from
Speaker 1: the two point oh counterpart, so again you just have
Speaker 1: to deal with that. It's one of those things where
Speaker 1: the trade off to the new technology is that you
Speaker 1: have to get rid of some of the old stuff
Speaker 1: that had been universal before. And finally, you have the
Speaker 1: USB Type C connector, so some cables have a Type
Speaker 1: C connector at both ends, so you've got to If
Speaker 1: you have a USB C cable, it may have a
Speaker 1: C plug on both ends of it instead of having
Speaker 1: a Type A er, Type B or whatever both ends
Speaker 1: or Type C. That works just fine. If you have
Speaker 1: been to have a laptop that has a C type
Speaker 1: port in it and you have a smartphone that has
Speaker 1: a C type port in it, then you can plug
Speaker 1: the two together no problem. Or if you've got a
Speaker 1: power adapter that is a plug and it has a
Speaker 1: C type port, then you can use as a charging cable.
Speaker 1: That's what my phone's charging cable is. It's actually a
Speaker 1: USBC cable on both ends plugs into an adapter. You
Speaker 1: plug that into a wall, You plug the other end
Speaker 1: into your smartphone, and you charge away, and you get
Speaker 1: to do it at a really fast speed. Recharges very quickly.
Speaker 1: That way, much faster than if I were to plug
Speaker 1: a USB two point oh to USBC cable into my laptop,
Speaker 1: because the laptop just can't transfer power at that same rate.
Speaker 1: So yeah, if I try to plug my phone into
Speaker 1: my computer, it does charge, but much more slowly than
Speaker 1: I would if I use the charger the charging cable. Uh,
Speaker 1: the cables will carry data at a lower transfer rate
Speaker 1: if you have them plugged into that two point oh
Speaker 1: style port. Depending upon the type of connectors used. Obviously,
Speaker 1: if it's a C type plug, you would need an adapter,
Speaker 1: or you would need a computer that had C type ports.
Speaker 1: You can't plug a C type port into a USB
Speaker 1: two point oh port, it won't work. Uh. They also
Speaker 1: have a chip incorporated in them, the USBC cables do.
Speaker 1: There's at the end of the C cable on that
Speaker 1: C connector there's actually a microchip incorporated into the wire
Speaker 1: or the cable really, because the cable is a collection
Speaker 1: of wires. It has an I D function based on
Speaker 1: vendor defined messages also known as v d m s,
Speaker 1: and also a configuration data channel. So in plane speak,
Speaker 1: the chip gives devices more information about what they're connected to.
Speaker 1: And that's a lot about connectors. Let's talk about wires.
Speaker 1: What would the USB cable look like if you have
Speaker 1: split one open, Well, it depends upon which version of
Speaker 1: USB you're working with. So if you're working with USB
Speaker 1: two point oh or earlier, if you split the cable open,
Speaker 1: you would find four wires inside of it, and normally
Speaker 1: those wires are color coded red, white, green, and black.
Speaker 1: The red and black wires are power lines. The red
Speaker 1: line carries plus five vaults in the black line acts
Speaker 1: as a ground wire. The white and green wires are
Speaker 1: the ones that carry data signals using non return to
Speaker 1: zero inverted or in r z I encoding. White is
Speaker 1: technically called D minus and green is technically D plus,
Speaker 1: and the D stands for data. A USB three point
Speaker 1: O cable has some additional wires to contend with. You've
Speaker 1: still got the four that we just mentioned, and they
Speaker 1: still perform the same functions and USB three you know,
Speaker 1: this is what allows USB three point to be backwards
Speaker 1: compatible with older USB protocols. But then you also have blue, yellow, purple,
Speaker 1: and orange wires. The blue and yellow are paired together
Speaker 1: as a superspeed transmitter pair of wires, and the purple
Speaker 1: and orange act as a superspeed receiver pair of wires.
Speaker 1: So these are those dedicated pathways for high speed data transfers.
Speaker 1: But Jonathan, I hear you ask, what about USBC cables.
Speaker 1: Do they have any extra wires pipe down get to you? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they got them. They got a lot. USBC has eighteen wires.
Speaker 1: It's probably easiest to go through these by the connectors
Speaker 1: they correspond with. So Connectors one and sixteen are ground wires,
Speaker 1: so they're plated in ten T I N. They are
Speaker 1: ground for return power. Connectors to and seventeen are power
Speaker 1: cables similar to what you'd find in earlier USB specification,
Speaker 1: and they are red. Then you've got a yellow wire
Speaker 1: at connector eighteen. This one is a power wire for
Speaker 1: active cables designated as v COAN, whereas the other wires
Speaker 1: are v bus wires. Alright, so that's one, sixteen, two, seventeen,
Speaker 1: and eighteen. Let's go back down. Connector three is blue
Speaker 1: and it's a configuration channel. Four is white and it's
Speaker 1: the D plus channel. Five is green. It's the D
Speaker 1: minus channel. That's just like USB two point oh. Connectors
Speaker 1: six and seven are yellow and brown and correspond with
Speaker 1: the first of four shielded differential pairs for high speed
Speaker 1: data transfers. Eight and nine are the next two, and
Speaker 1: they are green and orange. Then you've got ten and
Speaker 1: eleven those are white and black, and then you've got
Speaker 1: twelve and thirteen those are red and blue. Connectors fourteen
Speaker 1: and fifteen are red and black, and our sideband wires,
Speaker 1: and that's all of them. That's all the wires that
Speaker 1: are in the USBC cable. Now, the important thing to
Speaker 1: remember is that these wires facilitate powering a peripheral and
Speaker 1: allowing high speed data transfers, and it only works if
Speaker 1: you're using the right types of ports, cables and peripherals.
Speaker 1: So you've got to make sure all of these things
Speaker 1: are at the highest or the most recent version of
Speaker 1: USB in order to take advantage of those capabilities. Again,
Speaker 1: you only go as fast as the slowest component on
Speaker 1: the chain, and that's the skinny on USB. Ultimately, it's
Speaker 1: a story about several powerful entities in the computer industry
Speaker 1: getting together to streamline what had become an increasingly frustrating
Speaker 1: consumer experience. I think the solution is actually pretty elegant.
Speaker 1: It's complex, and it's a little difficult to understand. I
Speaker 1: didn't dive too deeply into the tech of it because
Speaker 1: to do so would have taken a lot more time
Speaker 1: to explain all the different fundamental principles. I will say
Speaker 1: that the switch to USBC has irritated some people because
Speaker 1: it's creating new connectors, so it means that you can't
Speaker 1: use your old cables for a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 1: As part of the growing pains of technology. If we
Speaker 1: rely upon existing designs, we won't be able to enjoy
Speaker 1: those faster speeds or other features like power management and
Speaker 1: other improvements over time. I know the one I got
Speaker 1: my latest smartphone that uses that USBC connector. I was
Speaker 1: a little irritated at first. I knew that I had
Speaker 1: to buy new USBC cables if I was going to
Speaker 1: go traveling. I couldn't just grab one of the billion
Speaker 1: USB minis or micro's that I had because they wouldn't work.
Speaker 1: And I still don't have a computer that has a
Speaker 1: USB C ports, so I only have that one power
Speaker 1: adapter that I can use. I don't have anything else
Speaker 1: that uses USBC right now, so I really only enjoy
Speaker 1: those faster speeds when I plug in the power adapter.
Speaker 1: But assuming I upgrade to current technological standards, I'm sure
Speaker 1: I'll be pleased as punch with the USBC, which will
Speaker 1: probably happen right around the time someone debuts USB D
Speaker 1: or whatever comes next, and I'll still be behind the times,
Speaker 1: and so it goes well. That wraps up this episode.
Speaker 1: If you guys have any suggestions about topics I should
Speaker 1: cover on this show, or guests you'd like me to
Speaker 1: book for the show, let me know send me a message.
Speaker 1: My email address is tech stuff at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com, and the handle I use on Twitter and
Speaker 1: Facebook for the show is tech stuff H s W.
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you guys again really soon. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, is it how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com