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USB
USB
is a serial bus interface that is quickly being
adopted by PC manufacturers, and may soon be
adopted by Apple. The economies of scale have
lowered the cost of the USB hardware.
USB
has the following characteristics:
- serial-bus
connection
- four-wire
connection
- 12
Mbs transfers
- isochronous
transfers
- single-computer
host
- up
to 127 daisy-chained devices (up to 15 feet
between devices)
- hot-plugins
- Possible
uses include: hubs, keyboards,
scanners,
USB
is unusable for uncompressed high-data-rate devices
like near-broadcast quality video
cameras.
See
also Firewire,
a high-speed serial interface.
FireWire
(IEEE 1394) has the following
characteristics:
- serial-bus
connection
- six-wire
connection
- 200
Mbs transfers (up to 400, scaleable to 3200
Mbs?)
- isochronous
transfers
- peer-to-peer
network
- up
to 64 daisy-chained devices (up to 15 feet
between devices)
- hot-plugins
- Possible
uses include: digital video, hard drives,
networks
last
updated: 5/4/98
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