With computer technology advancing at an ever bewildering pace, it’s comforting to know that one little feature remains steadfastly future-proof and, more importantly, foolproof.
The USB (Universal Serial Bus) is as relevant today as it was when the 12 millimeter by 4.5 millimeter ports and cables first started appearing back in the late 1990s, providing users with a discreet and straightforward way of transferring data between a range of digital devices.
Today, more than 10 billion USB devices are believed to be in use around the world — a statistic that has secured its co-inventor, Ajay Bhatt, a permanent place in computing’s unofficial hall of fame.
“I was totally surprised by how it has impacted everybody. I mean, my name became a common name — at least at schools and in technical communities,” Bhatt said.
The engineer’s high standing in computing circles was famously celebrated in a 2009 advertising campaign by his employers, Intel, where an actor portraying Bhatt strutted into a lab full of starstruck co-workers.
“I truly get a rock star treatment and that is quite unusual to me — people asking for your signature, people asking for your picture.”
His journey to digital immortality began in the early 1990s amid the growing tangle of chunky cables and portals which linked the separate devices on PCs and laptops.
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One cable would talk to the keyboard, Bhatt recalls, while another would connect a modem. A different cable enabled printing, with another linking the hard drive to the monitor.
“It was more difficult than it needed to be,” he says.
“You were looking at two devices with connecting wires and you wanted things to happen but the rules weren’t that simple. It was very difficult for the average person to use it. All the technology at that point was developed for technologists by technologists.”
He set about creating a single connection for computers across the entire industry. For six years he lobbied colleagues at Intel and then at other computer firms, urging everyone to jump on the bus.
“Initially, it was difficult for them to understand the merits. We had a big tent and we included everybody, we listened to everybody’s input and tried to address them to the best of our abilities and that’s why USB is successful,” Bhatt said.
It was all easier said than done, he says, requiring a radical change in the industry’s eco-system.
“In order to be successful in anything like this you have to look at the problem from their perspective. So, if I went to, say, Compaq — which is now (owned by) Hewlett-Packard — we used to think about their issues and what problems they faced,” he said.
USB was good because it addressed some of the customer satisfaction issues while also helping computer hardware manufacturers to save money.
Bhatt’s own commercial expectations for his invention were initially quite modest.
sources: http://edition.cnn.com/
Tags: computer technology advancing, USB (Universal Serial Bus
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