hardware, standard (USB) An external
peripheral interface
standard for communication between a computer and external
transmission.
USB works at 12 Mbps with specific consideration for low cost
peripherals. It supports up to 127 devices and both
be up to five metres long and it includes built-in power
distribution for low power devices. It supports
daisychaining through a tiered star multidrop topology. A USB
cable has a rectangular "Type A" plug at the computer end and
a square "Type B" plug at the peripheral end.
Before March 1996 Intel started to integrate the necessary
logic into
PC chip sets and encourage other manufacturers
to do likewise. It was widely available by 1997. Later
versions of
Windows 95 included support for it. It was
USB 2.0 is a much faster enhanced version.
(2002-01-01)