August 10, 1998
The realities of USB aren't what you were led to believe
By Bob O'Donnell
The computer industry is notorious for creating enormously high expectations and then
chopping them down with crushing blows of mediocre reality. Whether the object of inflated
affection is a particular hardware or software package, or an overall technology, the
industry's hype mechanisms inevitably manage to turn what might actually be a pretty
useful piece of technology into a frustrating disappointment. (And yet, like sadistic
junkies, most of us keep coming back for more. But that's a topic for another column.)
So it is with the Universal Serial Bus, or USB. After languishing unused but widely
anticipated on the back panels of PCs for nearly two years, USB and peripherals that take
advantage of USB have begun to make their mark. And unfortunately, USB is also beginning
to generate some bad feelings among those who were originally misled about what it can and
cannot do, and what it really costs to make it work.
I say unfortunately because USB is a very cool, useful technology. In fact, I believe
it's going to go a long way towards making PCs much easier to upgrade and even use. If
nothing else, its ability to let you add to or upgrade certain elements of your machine
without having to deal with interrupt request, or IRQ, issues is a godsend.
The problem is, many people's expectations of USB capabilities are wrong. For example,
we were all originally told that USB devices could be easily daisy-chained so that even if
your had only one (or at most, two) USB ports, that wouldn't be a problem. The reality is,
however, very few devices have pass-through or daisy-chainable ports because in order to
do that, they have to incorporate a tiny hub inside them, which adds cost to the device.
As a result, most don't. You'll probably end up filling those few available ports quickly.
Of course, there is a solution -- just buy a USB hub and you can add two, four, seven
or even more ports to your system. But, that's an added, unexpected cost that a lot of
people are not going to be happy about. On the positive side, companies such as Inside Out Networks and Belkin are taking advantage of the USB hub concept and
are developing useful products that can help overcome frustrating limitations with
existing peripherals. For example, the Inside Out Networks Edgeport/4 lets you attach four
serial port devices to a USB hub without using a single IRQ. Similarly, Belkin's
USB-to-parallel adapter lets you attach a printer or other parallel port device to a USB
port (either on a hub or directly on the PC), freeing up both the parallel port and
another IRQ.
Even if you have a hub, however, you still may have difficulties because another of
USB's alleged properties -- the ability to supply power to peripherals -- isn't exactly
what the initial hype led most people to believe. USB does provide a certain amount of
power, but if you use multiple peripherals on a single USB bus (such as with a hub),
there's a very good chance you won't have enough. And if peripherals don't receive the
appropriate amount of power, they won't work and can even cause problems for the entire
bus. Again, the solution comes in the form of a powered hub, which essentially offers a
separate power source for each port. Unfortunately, some hubs don't have power,
particularly ones built into monitors, which makes them virtually worthless. (The fact
that these unpowered hubs are confusingly referred to as "bus-powered" just adds
insult to injury.)
USB was also touted as a great mechanism for supporting keyboards and mice and, in some
situations, it is. Most computers, however, need to get a BIOS upgrade (even those that
include USB ports) in order to recognize USB peripherals during start-up. This is yet
another unexpected hassle and expense -- that is, if an upgrade that supports USB
keyboards and mice is even available.
Finally, for Windows users, it turns out you really do need to upgrade to Windows 98 to
get consistent, reliable USB support. (In a previous
column on USB written before Windows 98 shipped, I had maintained that you could use
USB under Windows 95. While in some situations that is true, additional research and
discussion with leaders of the USB
Implementers Forum has led me to conclude that if you really want to use USB, you have
to get Windows 98.) Apparently the USB support in later versions of Windows 95 is very
immature and Microsoft chose to incorporate its more robust support of the standard into
Windows 98 only. This is a rather unfortunate fact for those who are perfectly happy with
Windows 95 but would like to take advantage of their computer's USB ports.
As a result of all these issues, it's conceivable that a company or individual would
have to spend around $200 ($80 for a powered hub plus $25 for a BIOS upgrade plus $90 for
a Win98 upgrade) per computer just to use a $40 USB peripheral. With mathematics like
that, it's no wonder people are going to get frustrated with USB. And that's really too
bad, because with all the right pieces in place, it really is a useful technology.
©
Copyright 1998, by InfoWorld Publishing Corp., a
subsidiary of IDG Communications, Inc. Reprinted from InfoWorld,
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