

USB 3.0 to Deliver a Tenfold Speed Increase - kwamenum86
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/11/superspeed-us-1.html

======
natch
Speed is great, but the sad thing is that Microsoft now gets to pull out what
I suspect is their old hardware-versus-OS-upgrade-lockstep cash cow playbook:

Step 1: Push new industry standard hardware device protocol.

Step 2: Offer free help to hardware manufacturers (both for PCs and
peripherals) to encourage them to add the new connector.

Step 3: Strong-arm PC manufacturers to remove old hardware connectors, using
carrot-and-stick approach with the terms of their OEM Windows license deals.

Step 4: Sweet talk peripherals manufacturers, bribing them with offers of co-
advertising, cross promotion, acceleration of driver development, delaying of
driver development for intransigent competitors, and possibly wads of cash, to
convince them to drop old hardware connector from their products, so anyone
buying a mouse, keyboard, digital camera, scanner, printer, joystick, or
anything else, will need an operating system that supports the new hardware.

Step 5: Roll out new operating system (Windows Menudo, or whatever crap name
they give it) that supports both new and old connectors

Step 6: Deliberately refrain from publishing simple patch for old operating
system that would provide compatibility with new hardware.

Step 7: If possible, put in place technical and legal mechanisms to prevent or
impede third parties from adding compatibility with new hardware to old
operating system.

Step 8: Sit back and watch the dollars come in, as everyone is forced to
upgrade to Windows Menudo.

~~~
wmf
IIRC, Microsoft has been rather slow to adopt new interfaces like USB and
Bluetooth. Can you cite examples of this kind of evil behavior?

~~~
natch
USB is a good example. They added support for it to Windows 2000, and
refrained from updating Windows NT to support it. By some odd coincidence
(NOT), all the new retail non-USB products (including ones that worked
perfectly fine with the old connections -- mice, keyboards, webcams, printers,
etc.) disappeared from the market overnight, leaving consumers unable to buy
anything but USB, even if they wanted to pay good money. This was a major pain
point for me for a long time, and is thus seared into my memory, because NT
was working great and I did not need Windows 2000, except for USB support.

------
jwilliams
The most important bit for me:

 _It also has better power output, 900 milliamps compared to 100 milliamps
with USB 2.0. That means up to four devices can be charged from a single USB
port and charged faster._

This is good news - although afaik, USB2.0 actually delivers up to 500mA (in
units of 100mA).

Either way, will be nice to finally have a contender for the universal
charger.

~~~
ken
USB 1.1/2.0 is required to deliver 100 mA per port, but may deliver up to 500
mA. Devices state their power requirements (in units of 1 or 2 mA, IIRC)
during enumeration, which always runs at 100 mA, and the host computer says
yea or nay.

And yes, the USB spec actually measures "power" in "milliamps".

~~~
jrockway
_And yes, the USB spec actually measures "power" in "milliamps"._

That's OK, since it's always the same constant factor (5) away from the real
power.

------
angstrom
_USB 2.0 is also known as "Hi Speed USB," while USB 3.0 will have the
confusingly similar moniker "SuperSpeed USB."_

Can't wait for the jump to "Ludicrous Speed USB". I'll be sorely disappointed
if the whole screen doesn't go plaid every time I plug in my iPhone 5G.

------
Xichekolas
I wonder which will happen first... USB 3.0 becomes standard or they finally
stop putting PS/2, serial, and parallel ports on the motherboard backplate?

USB 3.0 will probably win, but I can dream can't I?

~~~
Dobbs
I like my PS/2 port thank you very much. I also understand that there are some
useful uses of the serial ports still today, granted mostly in hardware
hacking. Though I guess I could see the serial port become a pci card.

~~~
thwarted
The best keyboard I've ever used is a beige (Compaq Partno 269513-006, google
shows that it might still be available). It's heavy, must weigh like 2 or 3
lbs., and I didn't use it for a long time because it was awful dirty.
Dishwasher fixed that. PS/2 connector of course, I have a PS/2-female-to-USB
that I'm holding on to for when I get a machine without a PS/2 port.

I've had mixed luck with USB-serial ports. Some of them work well and some of
them are only recognized well on some machines.

------
sant0sk1
The question is: Can a USB 3.0 enabled external hard drive draw its power
solely from the USB connection? Because THAT would be a killer feature.

~~~
hs
you can do that today, use a 3.5" hdd (laptop hd) and ide2usb converter (aka
enclosure)

don't buy metal casing tho, i got my 3.5" hdd short-circuited and now is dead
-- now i never use enclosure casing

~~~
pmjordan
You mean 2.5". And those enclosures violate the spec in more than one way:
first of all, pretty much all drives require a spin-up current of around 1000
mA, which is twice what current USB can provide. Secondly, the enclosures
don't appear to even try to "ask for" that much power, especially not the
(extremely non-standard) "Y-cable" solutions. I don't know anyone who's fried
their USB ports with one of those things, but I certainly stay away from them.

To answer the original question: if they bring out a drive + bridge logic that
consumes less than 900mA on spin-up (or a bridge board with a sufficiently big
capacitor to cross the spin-up period) then yes.

------
jrockway
What ever happened to Wireless USB and Wireless HDMI? That's what I was really
looking forward to -- I hate having so many wires behind my desk.

------
albertcardona
USB 1 was relatively straighforward to hack on.

USB 2 is a mess, that I understand after a week of doing nothing else.

USB 3 ?

Please KISS.

------
riobard
Steve Jobs must bet on USB3 when he drops FireWare on MacBook ...

