Whats with the USB Trend?

NeoStarO1 · April 7th, 2002, 12:54 AM

So much lately im seeing USB This USB That. Whats the deal with this trend?

USB connected printers.
USB Connected speakers.
USB Monitors.
USB Connected this or that.

What is the deal with all this? I see usb useful for few things, Dig Cams, Web cams and few other items, but not for heavy duty use.

What are all your opionions?

I personally don't think the USB Conversion to everything is a good idea.

Too many standards are in place for the serial, parrell ports and such, Seems it would be a manufacturing nightmare to convert the standards.

NeoStar

Mortis · April 7th, 2002, 01:02 AM

USB is faster, much faster than serial, parallel.... much faster. Once firewire becomes a standard, you may see the same with it, then the next and next...

AuraEdge · April 7th, 2002, 01:21 AM

USB is easy, its hot-pluggable, does not need thumbscrews to fasten, and its a standard that can support many many things - from mice to scanners to printers to webcams to keyboards to gamepads. Its also relatively fast compared to serial/parallel, and is very expandable thru USB hubs, which come integrated into many things these days including keyboards and monitors.
Also USB has been around a while - Most pentium boards have USB ports, so its not a new thing that people need to buy connectors for.

They would have to hold up alot less standards if everything was USB.

Say you had a laptop with one serial and one parallel port. What could you do with it? Maybe a mouse and a scanner?

Now say you had a laptop with one USB port. You could run a printer, mouse, scanner, upload things from your digital camera, plug in a gamepad for gaming on the run, hook up a full sized keyboard or even hook up a cable modem to it if you dont have a NIC.
You could hook up a 4 port hub to that if you wished, and run four different USB devices.

Many different possibilities.

Neutralizer · April 7th, 2002, 01:28 AM

If it says USB-compatible, they can make it very expensive.

Richard Cranium · April 7th, 2002, 03:13 AM

USB can be "Hot-Plugged" unlike Parallel or Serial Port devices.

I know of some printers that are NOT faster using USB !

One that stands out is the Hewlett Packard 895cxi

It runs on USB or Parallel

Oddly, parallel print speeds were Faster than on USB, the testers were baffeled too.

Some items conflict when multiple USB devices are used.

This particular Printer pitches a fit when used in combination with a USB scanner, it takes about 5 minutes to print a plain text sheet.
This is obviously very wrong.
When set up correctly, this Professional printer prints a text page in 3 sec or so. A 8x10 Glossy Photo on Best in about 5 minutes.

Agree that USB is limited, I'd hoped the USB'2 would be "backwards-compatable"

NeoStarO1 · April 7th, 2002, 03:14 AM

aura,

You got a good point there, I wasn't aware of the usb hubs. Seems like i recall a class ffrom a couple years ago they saying you can hook up to 128 different usb devices or maybe it was 72. I don' t remember. Maybe it was something else they were talking about. It was a long time ago and im a bit hazy on lectures of 2 years ago. LOL.

Anyhow you do pose a good point.

Is the data rate really that much faster?

I personally like the thumb screws only because I know its not going to accidently get yanked out.

I still don't quite agree with usb monitors, I don't at this point see any way to hook it up to a video card. Unless manufactures plan to make vidoe cards with a usb plug in rather than a standarnd Male 9D pin connector.

Am curious of other peoples thoughts on this thus why i posed this thread. Thank you for your input.

NeoStar

surreal · April 7th, 2002, 03:19 AM

Quote:

USB can be "Hot-Plugged" unlike Parallel or Serial Port devices.

Oh yeah, I like USB for that reason, and the fact that you can add hubs.

NeoStarO1 · April 7th, 2002, 03:20 AM

Doc you posted same time I did. hehe, I have heard numerous comments on the printers not being faster on a usb. The office that Im doing work for got themselves a usb printer and so far they claim its "fast and good quality" I am not too sure about this. I'd have to check it out for myself, they said it only came with a usb plug cable and I said WHAT!!!??? Got to be kidding me. So I haven't seen it yet and will soon doesn't sound right to me to make a printer only usb connected.

I do know for a fact that one of the printers they got has really bad reviews and I informed them of that so that had the option of taking it back before using it. they didn't,

oh well. They hadn't consulted me before buying, and wish they had but that is another story.

Interesting comments on your post doc. thanks for your imput.

NeoStar

AzKidd69 · April 7th, 2002, 03:31 AM

heh I like USB personally.. for alot of things it works great still prefer a printer on a parallel port tho and I think any networking device SHOULD not be USB.. they are just too flakey.. they work one minute the next they don't but for stuff like kybd's mouse, hot swap drives, joysticks, cameras, webcams etc it's great

DanU · April 7th, 2002, 04:08 AM

I think USB is great! With the old serial and parallel ports, you had to worry about com/lpt ports, addresses and IRQs. It can be a real hassle! With USB devices, you just plug them in and they work. For low-speed devices like keyboards and mice, USB is perfect.

For high speed devices like HDDs and network adapters, avoid USB. It's too slow, and it wasn't meant for them anyway.