Whether you’re working from home, in the office, or on the go, you’ll likely have an assortment of USB cables, flash drives, and the like at your disposal, as they’re basic equipment these days – but that wasn’t always the case.
Development of the universal serial bus (USB) began to accelerate in the early and mid-1990s, with the goal of streamlining connections between personal computers and peripherals such as displays or storage devices.
Here’s everything you need to know about the history of USB.
The history of USB
Before the advent of USB, users were faced with a range of diverse connection interfaces, such as serial ports, gaming ports, Apple Desktop Bus (ADP) ports, and more.
This cacophony of conflicting interfaces proved tedious for consumers and was in desperate need of standardization.
In 1996, the first USB model (USB 1.0) hit the market and eventually became the industry standard, with a few notable exceptions. This launch was the culmination of a collaboration between a host of major technology companies, including Intel, IBM, Microsoft and Compaq.
Indeed, an Intel research team in 1995 led the development of the first integrated circuits designed to support USB.
The launch of USB 1.0 in January 1996 offered users a base signaling rate of 1.5 Mbps, low bandwidth and low throughput. At the higher end of the spectrum, it was capable of speeds up to 12 Mbps.
This doesn’t seem particularly powerful given what we expect today, but it marks a major milestone. However, it wasn’t exactly an instant success. A combination of timing and power limitations meant that few USB devices reached the market and adoption was slow.
However, with the launch of USB 1.1 in 1998, things started to pick up. It got major approval from Microsoft that year. Notably, Type B connector ports began appearing on a range of devices.
Continuous Improvements
The launch of USB 2.0 in April 2000 marked another major milestone, both in terms of popularity and performance. This latest iteration showed higher signaling rates of 480 Mbps.
Continued improvements have been made in the years since, most notably with the launch of USB 3.0. This saw the addition of a new architecture and protocol dubbed SuperSpeedcomplete with backwards compatible plugs and cables.
In total, the SuperSpeed offered an operational mode for users enjoying a throughput of 5.0 Gbps.
USB 4.0 and Implementers Forum
USB4 specifications were officially revealed in August 2019 by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF). Specification management was transferred to USB-IF with the launch of 3.o in 2008.
USB4 was based on the Thunderbolt 3 protocol, a term we are all familiar with today, and supported throughput of up to 40 Gbps. Additionally, it also offered backwards compatibility with USB 3.2 and 2.0.
Once again, this launch marks a new milestone in terms of performance.
The rise of USB-C
Standardization was the watchword at the start of development in the mid-1990s, but by the turn of the second decade this was no longer quite the case. This is the rise of USB-C: this iteration replaced the old Type-A and Type-B connectors.
USB-C offers a much higher data transfer rate than previous generations, which has naturally contributed to its popularity.
A significant portion of products available on the market are now configured to support USB-C, which has made it much easier for consumers and reduced the volume of cables to handle.
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