Two New Connectors Ease Wiring Nightmare by Walter S. Mossberg - Wall Street Journal - May 6, 1999
ONE BIG REASON why personal computers running Windows are so aggravating and unreliable is that it's hard to connect and properly operate all the peripheral devices they use. A key part of that problem is that so many add-on devices hook into PCs through just two ancient, quirky and sluggish sockets: the serial and parallel ports.
Printers, scanners, digital cameras, Palm Pilots and other hand-held computers; external modems, home-networking systems, Zip drives and other high-capacity disk drives -- all compete to use these two clueless connectors. So the PC quickly gets flummoxed trying to manage all of them. And these are the supposedly easy-to-use peripherals. I won't even get into the really Paleolithic add-ons that still require users to pry open the case and add circuit boards.
How absurd is it that 22 years after the arrival of the mass-market PC, Windows users are still required to know which Com port number matches up with a particular physical connector on the back of the machine? How ridiculous is it that when you try to hook up an extra device to the parallel port, it often screws up the printer?
Thankfully, there are two new connectors that solve most of these problems. They are much faster than the serial and parallel ports, and unlike the older sockets, they can configure themselves to smoothly manage a whole host of add-on gizmos. They can even provide electrical power to some low-power peripherals, eliminating the need for electrical cords on some devices.
THE FIRST of these connectors is called USB, for Universal Serial Bus. ("Bus" is techno-babble for a data transmission path.) If that name isn't clunky enough for you, try the name for the second new type of connector: 1394. Catchy, huh? Luckily, two computer makers with more marketing savvy than most have come up with nicknames for 1394. Apple calls it FireWire, Sony calls it i.Link. USB is already on all new PCs, and a flood of new scanners, printers and other USB devices have finally reached the stores. I'm currently using a USB version of the Zip drive, a USB CD recorder, and a USB file-transfer cable that connects two PCs.
FireWire (as I prefer to call it) isn't yet as widespread. It has shown up so far on certain computer models from Sony, Apple, Compaq and others. It is initially available on only a few add-on devices, such as high-end digital video cameras meant for use with computer editing software. In general, USB is aimed at relatively slower devices, like scanners, printers, some disk drives and still cameras.
FireWire is designed to handle really high-speed devices, like those digital camcorders that can transfer large amounts of video material to a PC. This doesn't mean USB is slow -- it's much faster than the serial and parallel ports. It's just that FireWire is about 30 times as fast as USB. But speed isn't the only great feature of these new sockets. The best thing is that each can handle dozens of devices from a single plug. You either daisy-chain one device to another or buy an inexpensive "hub," a little box that turns a single socket into, say, seven of them. Some new monitors have USB hubs built in.
In my experience with one or two FireWire devices and about 15 USB devices, these connectors really deliver "Plug and Play." Windows 98 (but not older versions of Windows) recognized and properly set up every USB or FireWire device I added. You can usually connect and disconnect these devices while the PC is running without causing a crash.
Intel and Microsoft, spooked by coming competition from simple information appliances, have announced that USB and FireWire will be the basis of new "legacy free" PCs, which they hope will be less confusing and crash less often. These new machines, called Easy PCs, will use only USB and FireWire to connect peripherals. They won't have parallel and serial ports. That move will anger veteran users who have invested in peripherals that use the older ports, but I suspect adapters will be sold to allow older devices to use the USB port.
AS USUAL, Apple Computer is ahead of the Wintel junta. Apple is dumping all its older connectors for USB and FireWire. The popular iMac is already legacy free. Every peripheral, from the keyboard to printers and scanners, connects to an iMac through USB. The upscale PowerMac G3 is based on both USB and FireWire.
In fact, even though USB was an Intel initiative, it took the popularity of the all-USB iMac to really propel the peripheral market. If you walk into a CompUSA store, most of the USB devices are in the Mac section, even though nearly all of them will also work with Windows machines. There are plenty of adapters to allow older Mac peripherals to use USB.
Of course, Intel and Microsoft can hardly be trusted on the topic of Easy PCs. They've been promising them for many years. But they are always a lower priority than the newest arcane feature demanded by the techie class. Even without the serial and parallel ports, no PC will be "easy" as long as it runs Windows, which is a snake pit of confusing icons, menus and dialog boxes. However, you don't have to wait for the technocracy to give you the Easy PC. Starting now, you should try to buy only peripherals that work via USB and, if you can find it, FireWire. Believe me, it'll make your life easier.
Bob Nunn - President, Operator Headgap Systems President, AppleCore of Memphis, Inc. E-mail: headgap@headgap.com
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