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On 28 May 2015, USB was linked from Slashdot, a high-traffic website. (Traffic) All prior and subsequent edits to the article are noted in its revision history.

This article has previously been nominated to be moved. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination. Discussions: Moved, 22 June 2011, from Universal Serial Bus to USB, see discussion. Moved, 14 January 2012, from USB to Universal Serial Bus, see discussion. Moved, 25 June 2013, from Universal Serial Bus to USB, see discussion.

The contents of the Device Firmware Upgrade‎ page were merged into USB on September 8, 2014. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page.

The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/08/a-brief-history-of-usb-what-it-replaced-and-what-has-failed-to-replace-it/

Archives

Index Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5 Archive 6 Archive 7 Archive 8 Archive 9

This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.

DEPRECATED ? Possible misuse of this word

As a native US english speaker, I do not understand this use of "depricated". Perhaps there is some new definition becoming popular, but I think the dictionary definition should be used. deprecated Nightwatchrenband (talk) 21:32, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

See Deprecation, which explains the use of the term with regard to computer hardware, software and programming. General Ization 21:43, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

It's great to check the definition. Using the link supplied by Nightwatchrenband I find:
"3. Computers To mark (a component of a software standard) as obsolete to warn against its use in the future so that it may be phased out."

So I see no misuse (allowing that the definition be broadened to include also electronic hardware).

I also note from the same link:
"Usage Note: Deprecate originally meant "to pray in order to ward off something, ward off by prayer." , the word developed ."

Even though I am omitting the original context, the point is that the meaning of words is known to develop over time, and continues even now.

—DIV (220.244.79.195 (talk) 04:45, 3 January 2023 (UTC))
Support good-faith IP editors: insist that Misplaced Pages's administrators adhere to Misplaced Pages's own policies on keeping range-blocks as a last resort, with minimal breadth and duration, in order to reduce adverse collateral effects; support more precisely targeted restrictions such as protecting only articles themselves, not associated Talk pages, or presenting pages as semi-protected, or blocking only mobile edits when accessed from designated IP ranges.

All that said, I too think this term may be slightly misused, in that it shows, in the chart of connector types, that USB-A is "deprecated" for USB 3.2, instead of the red coloured connectors that exist and are common in reality. It's implying that there aren't any type A connectors for 3.2. I'm looking at one right now, but that's original research unless I'm allowed to cite the back of the board as a reference. 71.236.206.225 (talk) 00:09, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

I feel like the issue is nearing its conclusion, but in my opinion it's still got one thing to consider. The table still implies Type-C was introduced with USB 2.0, which is impossible as the connector itself was defined in 2014. The USB-C page itself says that the connector "was developed at roughly the same time as the USB 3.1 specification". Therefore the connector should be available from USB 3.1 onwards, with "Backward compatibility only" for all prior versions. Martin0499 (talk) 14:16, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

@Martin0499: Hi, I had the same idea in the beginning, but the table do not show when a connector appeared, timewise, but what technology, i.e. to the physical layer (PHYS), it natively supports. The USB-C connector indeed has four exclusively dedicated wires/pins which implement the 2.0 specification. The 1.0/1.1-backward-compatibility is however "only" supported by this 2.0 implementation. -- ZH8000 (talk)

Color-coding, revisited

I notice that in Archive 7 there is a brief discussion of color-coding between the different generations of USB (1.0, 2.0, 3.0, etc.), but that a decision was made to remove the existing mention in the article, as the editors believed that color-coding was ambiguous. But everything I have seen elsewhere suggests fairly clear-cut correlations between the generations, colors and speeds that I think should be included in the article.
USB 1.0 used white plastic inserts and has a maximum data transfer speed of 12Mbps.
USB 2.0 used black inserts and has a maximum speed of 480Mbps.
USB 3.0 uses blue inserts and can throughput at up to 5Gbps.
USB 3.1 uses teal inserts and can handle 10Gbps.
Yes, there are exceptions to these, but AFAICT, those only apply to motherboards and not to, for example, peripherals, which follow the aforementioned color conventions.
https://allthedifferences.com/blue-and-black-usb-ports-difference/
https://uk.rs-online.com/web/content/discovery/ideas-and-advice/usb-cable-guide
https://ourtechroom.com/tech/guide-usb-port-colors-red-blue-yellow-black-white-orange-teal/
Bricology (talk) 10:36, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

White vs black for 1.0 vs 2.0 is a common convention, but plenty of things don't follow it and isn't part of the standard (the standard actually recommends white inserts for USB 1.0 and 2.0). If things that are contrary to the standard but are common convention should be included, then things like green ports often being QuickCharge or yellow ports providing power when the host is off should probably also be included.

It probably does warrant being mentioned in some way, but it's definitely not clear cut, especially when USB-IF certified hardware would be required to not follow some of the unofficial conventions. Qyriad (talk) 03:01, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

USB 8 pin digital camera cable

It seems like there is little info on that one. Would be nice to have it.

This looks like a proprietary connector, so wouldn't be covered on this article. pcuser42 (talk) 22:06, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Criticism

I forget the details, but there was a LOT of criticism when they introduced one of the smaller USB connectors. They claimed it would only fit one way, but in the real world many were ruining their connectors by attempting to insert them upside down. It was a significant design failure. It's definitely notable and should be included here, imho.40.142.183.146 (talk) 13:21, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Full speed and USB 1.0

The History section says that USB version 1.0 supported both 1.5 and 12 Mbit/s speeds, but the table in the Overview section lists only 1.5 under USB 1.0 and 12 under USB 1.1. As far as I understand, the History section is correct. I also checked the specification that is referenced from the History section (https://fl.hw.cz/docs/usb/usb10doc.pdf) and it mentions both 1.5 and 12 Mbps speed. So why the table says 12 Mbps speed appeared only in version 1.1? 85.65.224.102 (talk) 20:19, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out – I've fixed the table accordingly. --Zac67 (talk) 20:34, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! 85.65.224.102 (talk) 07:16, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

File:USB 2022 September naming scheme.svg

This graph has some faults and is misleading. For example for the following aspects:

• Generally mismatches/simplifies operation modes with specification version
• USB4 defines many more operation modes
• 'USB4 20Gbps' does not exist as an operation mode
• USB4 2x2 is not interchangeable with USB 3.2 2x2 as indicated by the logo
• logos for USB 3.x and USB4 are different

ZH8000 (talk) 18:55, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

1. & 2. This table was made with consumers in mind, i.e. it tries to alleviate the confusion (for which simplifications have to be made) of previous marketing name schemes (often still being used, despite the newer recommendation for the names https://web.archive.org/web/20230510092046/https://usb.org/sites/default/files/usb_data_performance_language_usage_guidelines_september_2022.pdf and https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/usb-if_integrators_list_marketing_name_guidance_january_2023.pdf) so that the consumer can understand what they are paying for (e.g., when comparing different smartphone models). It wasn't meant to be a detailed table, e.g., containing all operation modes for USB4, only meant to contain the names/logos that can often be seen in media/print. Maybe moving the table with the paragraph to another place in the article could make the designated use clearer.

3. If you search for USB4 20gbps, you will find some product descriptions mentioning it. Also, I got those marketing names from https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/usb4_language_product_and_packaging_guidelines_final__0.pdf . That means I had to include somehow this certain name.

4. As in the recommendation from https://web.archive.org/web/20230510092046/https://usb.org/sites/default/files/usb_data_performance_language_usage_guidelines_september_2022.pdf , it is stated that for reduced confusion, clear communication of the performance signaling that a product delivers is important. So I (perhaps wrongly) decided to use 1 logo, so that it would be the most up-to-date. By my understanding (might be wrong, but as this whole thing is a big mess without concise, clear and up-to-date info, it's all I can muster) USB4 2x2 and USB 3.2 2x2 won't have separate logos, but will be marked by the same logo.

5. The logos used are packaging logos, from https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/usb-if_usb_performance_logo_usage_guidelines_final_20230320.pdf . If there are any more up-to-date/correct logos, please link their high quality version in the reply to this comment (preferably from official source).

If there are still some things needing to be changed, the best result that can arise from this discussion would be bullet points that describe where & what to change to what (with sources by which the need for the change is based on).

Cheers ^^ GravityCore (talk) 20:26, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

"Backward compatibility" of the USB-C connector

I'm confused by the "Backward compatibility" cell of the Connector type quick reference table, especialy as it refers to the implementation of USB 2.0, while spanning over USB 1.x. For now I'm only shifting the USB-C connector, to better reflect my timeline (ie being first used by USB 3.1, though created before that, see USB-C, maybe an extra column could be used?), but I think the "backward compatibility" cell should be removed. Other connector types, which are backwards compatible in a similar fashion to the USB-C connector do not have such a cell. Alternatively, maybe this cell could be clarified?

It seems like the cell was added in 110611232 MinekPo1 (talk) 16:08, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Extra: the part I'm particularly confused about (ie the reference to USB 2.0 implementation) was added in 1166613397 MinekPo1 (talk) 16:20, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Please read the text – or any further detailed specification documents. USB-C fully implements USB 3.x and USB 2.0 down to PHYS (the physical layer). BTW: the x axis does not represent a timeline! -- ZH8000 (talk) 17:40, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

And by the way: WP:NOTFORUM. -- ZH8000 (talk) 17:43, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Regarding "Other connector types, which are backwards compatible in a similar fashion to the USB-C connector do not have such a cell. Alternatively", you are probably right. It should look similar, probably. -- ZH8000 (talk) 18:47, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

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