Monday, February 27, 2012

Define USB

By Lindsey Grace


USB which stands for Universal Serial Bus is a standard for serial communications between computers and other gizmos. It was originally introduced in 1996 and was jointly promoted by Intel, Phillips, US Robotics and Microsoft. USB was developed so that many different types of devices might be accommodated under a single common interface. Due to this capability, today USB devices are the most popular type of plug and play devices. In brief a plug and play device is an external device which we connect to the PC either for data transference or to provide additional capabilities to the computer. Routinely plug and play devices are used along with extra software which acts as a connection between the device and the CPU of the PC. This program is called the driver.

Many other standards exist for such connections like PS2, but USB devices provide a distinct edge over other standards typically due to 2 significant reasons.

First, the USB standard allows devices to be attached to the computer without any need to restart the computer. For many prior standards, the computer needed to be restarted before the device might be used. Second, the USB device takes its power supply straight from the CPU therefore eliminating the need for an external power supply twine. This was only possible due to the fact that USB devices typically consume very little power.

Today USB devices are utilised for several purposes. The most well-liked adaptation of the USB devices is in the guise of USB drives (also called pen-drives). These are largely devices which offer lightweight info storage locations. Often these devices are as small as a keychain. With the arrival of technology, USB drives can now store as much as 200GB of info and still appear minute.

Another significant use of USB is for webcams which allow us to broadcast and store photographs and videos immediately on our PCs. Aside from these uses, USB also allows us to connect audio devices like iPods, mics and speakers, network between different computers with USB routers and also provides an interface to link our other gadgets like mobile phones and PDAs. With Windows getting more common it's now easier to synchronize our devices as windows can immediately recognize and install our USB devices.? Another new technology which is making waves is USB 2.0, which supplies information transfer speeds of up to 480mbps (Megabytes per second).

Hey Dummies! Why don't you click backlit keyboard and read more!




About the Author:



0 comments:

Post a Comment