So your computer still has a parallel port for connecting to a printer?

I thought not.

USB may have only been designed to replace a particular port type but it has become universal.

Only now there are ports that require faster data transfer. Hence thunderbolt.

Considering USB also stands for "Universal Serial Bus"...

No, it didn't, but then being a Mac user, I used a serial port to connect to printers and mice.
Then again, my computer no longer has a SCSI port to connect hard drives, disc burners and the like. It does have a FireWire port, on the other hand.

Yes, USB has become ubiquitous and somewhat out grown it's original design as speeds have increased.



Universal, certainly, as originally rather than having dedicated ports for a mouse/keyboard/printer these were all rolled into a single port that wasn't fussy and could even power some devices.
I don't think for a moment the original design of the port ever thought it'd be used to connect hard drives, disc burners or heated booties.

A USB heated booty? WTH is that?

If it's so universal, why can't I plug it in any way I like? *Hurumph*

I just wish this new laptop had USB symbols at the sides like it's sibling netbook - you wouldn't believe the amount of times I've tried to connect via HDMI

It will be a long time no doubt because there is so much usb about.

TB is Intel's Light Peak. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Peak

The problem with the optical variant is that it does not carry power. Thus I can't see it being very useful. Most commentators think that it will only be used for long cable runs.

The TB connection can (with a suitable drive) move a 1080p HD film from drive to computer in about 30 seconds. (or so I have heard). This may be quite handy if media centres become more prevalent.

CC

Why did I read that as Heated Boobies?

Why, what's wrong with that?:

http://www.spike.com/articles/q8k5np/us ... illy-boobs

Just because it is a serial connection doesn't mean that it didn't replace the old parallel port. Like I said earlier, if it had not replaced the parallel port we'd all still be using printers with massive 2" parallel port connections and ribbon cables.

Serial/parallel just refers to how the data is sent down it. It used to be thought that parallel was a faster/more efficient way of sending data across a wire (hence IDE and parallel ports) but that changed for various reasons (hence, USB, Sata, HDMI, etc...).

The eSata, HDMI, etc... connections came after USB and were created for higher data transfer rates but were created with a specific task in mind (i.e. external storage, graphics displays, etc...)

The Thunderbolt port is just taking these new ones (including, or not, USB) and making one connection to do all of them.

It may not work but that's what the idea is. The fact that it's an intel interface and so will almost certainly appear on all new intel mobos is definitely a helping hand for it though. I suppose now they just need people to make the devices that use it.

OK, just realised that I missed the point of the quoted post as I thought the italics were on the word Serial

Still, what I said still holds true

Progress is good.

So are nice warm boobies

I wonder what it's like from a driver perspective. One of the advantages of Firewire always seemed to me that a lot of the work was done in hardware making the drivers lighter, faster and more robust than USB. I've seen some unbelievably bad USB drivers over the years. Of course, like most "normal" people I've never actually owned a FW device to actually compare it too, even though my MoBo has a port. Actually.

or for transferring stuff between two computers, or any two things with their own power sources (negating the need for a powered connection). it would be a bit useless for things like USB sticks, dongles and hard drives without an external power supply though.

personally, im not sure what to make of Light Peak. it is really a smart idea to roll data and video transfer into a single cable? IMO it makes things like monitors, projectors, maybe even DVD players a security threat, since they have to ability to open up a data channel (possibly containing nasty things), even though by their nature they only need a video connection. i cant wait to see how many fun and interesting ways this protocol gets exploited.

But seeing as Intel have given a mechanism of restricting what control the external device might have on the main host, I'm not sure it'll be a problem as long as OS designers/coders are sensible.