What did we use before USB? | Nostalgia Nerd

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  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 มิ.ย. 2024
  • Welcome to the evolution of USB... The path from the original IBM PC to now, has been a relatively short one, but still one tangled in webs of cables. USB seems so common place now, it's sometimes hard to imagine what we used before it? Well, thanks to a multitude of connections such as RS-232 (Serial), Centronics Parellel and the splendid Gameport, we were able to use many a device without issue.... maybe.
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ความคิดเห็น • 3.3K

  • @fastfiddler1625
    @fastfiddler1625 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4286

    Ah USB. The standard connection where you have a 50/50 shot of having it the right direction, but it still somehow always takes three tries.

    • @AutoSia
      @AutoSia 5 ปีที่แล้ว +54

      Lol

    • @kinga6347
      @kinga6347 5 ปีที่แล้ว +181

      Seriously. Why is that.

    • @mjhunter_classchannel3639
      @mjhunter_classchannel3639 5 ปีที่แล้ว +70

      Richard Sleeve - Your comment is so true! I'm glad to hear someone else say it! Lol

    • @user-td8if4fb1v
      @user-td8if4fb1v 5 ปีที่แล้ว +217

      No longer true for USB Type C. Horray!

    • @jasonmurawski5877
      @jasonmurawski5877 5 ปีที่แล้ว +142

      Ashley Boon yeah with usb c it takes 10 tires to position the device so it doesn’t fall out

  • @arthurgphotography
    @arthurgphotography 4 ปีที่แล้ว +564

    But everyone over 35 has a box of those old cables "just in case."

    • @expansionpack4485
      @expansionpack4485 4 ปีที่แล้ว +38

      Even I do, and I was born this century!

    • @sbalogh53
      @sbalogh53 4 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      A big box under the bed and a drawer as well. I should probably dump the contents of the drawer into the box and use it for my various USB cables.

    • @grlt23
      @grlt23 4 ปีที่แล้ว +19

      Thank God - I am not alone :) I still can - through adapters - to connect USB mouse -> ps2 -> com9 -> RS232.... You know - just in case ;)

    • @xys007
      @xys007 3 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      My box of old cables takes more space then my PC. :p

    • @vincentschumann937
      @vincentschumann937 3 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      i am 17 and i have multiple cable drawers with around 7kg of random cables

  • @nobodyuknow2490
    @nobodyuknow2490 4 ปีที่แล้ว +686

    "What did we use before USB?"
    A dark time of pain and suffering...

    • @johnfoltz8183
      @johnfoltz8183 4 ปีที่แล้ว +54

      Especially if some of the pins bent or snapped off.

    • @Normal1855
      @Normal1855 4 ปีที่แล้ว +17

      Exactly. People have it so easy now. They don't know the pain. 🤣

    • @mfhs_kill3r75
      @mfhs_kill3r75 4 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      The dark age

    • @ianrwood21
      @ianrwood21 4 ปีที่แล้ว +22

      @@johnfoltz8183 There you sat with a knife trying to straighten the pin - nightmare......

    • @LionWithTheLamb
      @LionWithTheLamb 4 ปีที่แล้ว +27

      @@ianrwood21 People that JAMMED the VGA plugs in when a pin was slightly off, mashed the pins and wonder why they have weird colors on the screen. Then the screwdowns are so tight that you have to wonder if Hercules owned that pc.

  • @meseyc
    @meseyc 5 ปีที่แล้ว +295

    I was going to complain as to why this video was made as I remember using these ports like it was yesterday. But I guess yesterday was 20 something years ago Jesus I have officially felt that first old man feeling.

    • @xjohnny1000
      @xjohnny1000 4 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      The worst part about getting old is your life slowing becoming irrelevant.

    • @AndyRuddock
      @AndyRuddock 4 ปีที่แล้ว +24

      @@xjohnny1000 It's not that hard to stay relevant, and experience is always a plus. As long as you're willing to learn.

    • @Yora21
      @Yora21 4 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      There are millions of adults now that were not even born in the 90s.

    • @sheilaolfieway1885
      @sheilaolfieway1885 3 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      20? your a youngin'

    • @jimfarrell5004
      @jimfarrell5004 3 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      When I first started working with computers, these interfaces were the only ones I knew about. I agree with you, meseyc, this does make me feel OLD!

  • @tubey84
    @tubey84 6 ปีที่แล้ว +1199

    Just seeing the title of this video sent me into a mid-life crisis due to the overwhelming realisation that I now live in a world where life prior to USB is 'retro' and needs a video reminding people of what the stone age was like.
    Thanks for that. Thanks.

    • @Wokiis
      @Wokiis 6 ปีที่แล้ว +71

      Lee K the future is now, old man!

    • @ChrisSmout
      @ChrisSmout 6 ปีที่แล้ว +55

      Except this is the kind of retro where trying to get equipment that use these old connectors to work is akin to pulling teeth. Totally understand your point. Anyone who didn't live with them will never understand how lucky they are to have easy, plug and play connectivity.

    • @reggiep75
      @reggiep75 6 ปีที่แล้ว +39

      I remember doing computer training in the late 80's/early 90's at school and carried on when I left school and thought 'What the hell is this lunacy!?' I was always wondering why there was a perpetual faff about trying to get something to work and I quickly learned to fucking hate and despise that side of things with too many legacy type connections and other pointless tech filth.
      The arrival of USB was like harps and angels and if kids today want to know how easy they have it, hand them an AT/XT standard PC and throw them 4-8 cards to fuck about with and deliver the most efficient set up possible with the limitations offered.
      Soft cock millennial types will be crying in a corner within 30 seconds, the braver of the bunch will probably give up a few hours later after getting one thing to work and only the hardcore will succeed.... THE NEXT DAY!

    • @Brew78
      @Brew78 6 ปีที่แล้ว +22

      Yeah, pretty much. My first reaction to the title was that it hurts a little inside to know that there's an actual generational difference between pre and post USB. Never did have a problem using a joystick on the game port on my sound card!

    • @PayneMaximus
      @PayneMaximus 6 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      Dude, I totally get you. I spent many hours, days, months of my youth trying to sort out how to transfer data fast enough, since serial connections sucked big time.
      Fortunately when I learned to use direct ethernet connections, it all went much better.

  • @Rebelnightwolfe
    @Rebelnightwolfe 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1233

    *slaps off-white computer case*
    "This baby uses PS/2 ports."
    "This thing can play PS2 games?"

    • @ametislady2
      @ametislady2 5 ปีที่แล้ว +75

      Ironic cuz PS2 clone controlers for pc uses usb

    • @Isthatchicken01
      @Isthatchicken01 4 ปีที่แล้ว +66

      When I first heard about a ps/2 port I thought the same thing. I still have that thought in the back of my mind whenever I see that port.

    • @IdiotStinky02
      @IdiotStinky02 4 ปีที่แล้ว +20

      isint the ps/2 port a circular port that was once used for 1990s keyboard and mice?

    • @tj71520
      @tj71520 4 ปีที่แล้ว +23

      @@IdiotStinky02 yes and Many modern desktop/tower computers still have such a port

    • @IdiotStinky02
      @IdiotStinky02 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@tj71520 im sorry your about a month late

  • @noodleoflake965
    @noodleoflake965 4 ปีที่แล้ว +245

    Why not UST? Trains are faster than buses.

    • @AsperGoat
      @AsperGoat 4 ปีที่แล้ว +47

      Then USP?
      Planes are Even faster
      And for that matter, go for USJ
      Jets are a thing

    • @noodleoflake965
      @noodleoflake965 4 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Capitán Capri sure

    • @stuffsmithonviva2316
      @stuffsmithonviva2316 4 ปีที่แล้ว +35

      Why not usl?
      Light is faster than any of them by lots.

    • @deryabaygan-robinett1220
      @deryabaygan-robinett1220 4 ปีที่แล้ว +14

      what about USR? rockets are quick, but since they are not as fast as light they can be affordable!

    • @flamixflame2685
      @flamixflame2685 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Guys why not USD
      I heard the data travels at the speed of dark

  • @erikadunne6855
    @erikadunne6855 5 ปีที่แล้ว +72

    Ugh, I remember plugging in the mouse in with an godly sized plug that needed screwing in.

    • @sbalogh53
      @sbalogh53 4 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      At least those cables and connectors were very strong and did not break like all the current flimsy USB cables and sockets.

    • @HappyBeezerStudios
      @HappyBeezerStudios 3 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      You screwed it in and could lift the entire machine with it. Same for the VGA (D-sub) and DVI ports. Once they're in, they stay in, unlike HDMI which comes lose just from turning the monitor.

    • @sbalogh53
      @sbalogh53 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@HappyBeezerStudios ... I am terrified every time I have to unplug a HDMI plug because I never know if it will go in and work again. Hate them! I have even gone as far as buying an extra media box so I can have one for my projector and another for the TV so I don't have to swap the cables all the time.

  • @Cline3911
    @Cline3911 5 ปีที่แล้ว +465

    When Ajay Bhatt passes away, I think he's going to get trolled. The pallbearers will start to lower his casket onto the lowering mechanism, lift it up, turn 180° and then lower it again.

    • @visheshl
      @visheshl 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      Lol

    • @IdleLancer
      @IdleLancer 5 ปีที่แล้ว +82

      But then they will have to lift it up again, turn it another 180 and lower it yet again. That's always the way it goes...

    • @thetid8852
      @thetid8852 5 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      :D Ain't it the truth!! Unless of course they mark one side of his body with the USB symbol (even then they'll probably get it wrong...)

    • @lightningbug6234
      @lightningbug6234 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      They'll probably need to do that a few times before it'll work

    • @chowjingxiang7337
      @chowjingxiang7337 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Then they will have to open the casket to check the direction before they can lower it in the right direction

  • @richardhead8264
    @richardhead8264 6 ปีที่แล้ว +551

    25 pins to transmit *_serial_* data.
    Let that sink in.

    • @Burn_Angel
      @Burn_Angel 5 ปีที่แล้ว +63

      Your profile picture matches my reaction.

    • @Deadite9405
      @Deadite9405 5 ปีที่แล้ว +94

      There's a few reasons for that. First of all, USB uses its two data pins for data going both ways. Old serial ports, on the other hand, couldn't do that. There had to be separate pins for each direction. Additionally, both the computers and the devices you were plugging into them were a lot dumber, and couldn't do nearly as much stuff automatically. Most of the additional pins are there for the computer or device to state that they are ready to send or receive information. Sending that over the data pins would have been possible (it's only about a byte of information), but parsing that information requires a lot more engineering compared to just checking whether the voltage on a particular pin is positive or negative as you need it.

    • @davidioanhedges
      @davidioanhedges 5 ปีที่แล้ว +54

      25 pin serial, and 9 pin serial actually only used 2 pins for data, the rest were signal ground, flow control and out of band signals (like ring indicator)

    • @Hi11is
      @Hi11is 5 ปีที่แล้ว +16

      Twenty-five pins, but sometimes only four were connected and only three wires used. There were a multitude of configurations with devices needing different connections.

    • @morgfarm1
      @morgfarm1 5 ปีที่แล้ว +18

      I told that sink the plummer would be there ON FRIDAY, I'm not letting him in!

  • @bjornerlendur4606
    @bjornerlendur4606 5 ปีที่แล้ว +49

    28 March 2019
    I just installed a PCI-E WiFi card, and removed the dedicated graphics card, turning my worthless years-old gaming PC into an office PC.
    Few months later, I got a promotion for providing the best office PC my company has ever seen.

    • @swirl6996
      @swirl6996 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      >pcie
      neck it, use SCSI

    • @ryanwilson5936
      @ryanwilson5936 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Do you work in a cave?

    • @bjornerlendur4606
      @bjornerlendur4606 2 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      @@ryanwilson5936 Brothers of the mine, rejoice!

    • @p3chv0gel22
      @p3chv0gel22 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@bjornerlendur4606 swing swing swing with me

    • @bjornerlendur4606
      @bjornerlendur4606 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@p3chv0gel22 raise your pick and raise your voice!

  • @TheSam1902
    @TheSam1902 5 ปีที่แล้ว +148

    USB, Unicode, HTTP, these are the miracles of modern technology

    • @aviko9560
      @aviko9560 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      No u

    • @TheLawrenceWade
      @TheLawrenceWade 4 ปีที่แล้ว +19

      Indoor plumbing. Safe food in the grocery store. Vacuum tubes. Silicon. Medical care. Mass-production. Space travel.
      USB, Unicode, HTTP would not have been possible without the above things that, again, we take for granted.

    • @TheLawrenceWade
      @TheLawrenceWade 4 ปีที่แล้ว +16

      And electricity, to our homes, in a safe and reliable supply.

    • @Ahmadsyar
      @Ahmadsyar 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Samuel Prevost miracles are luck. These are innovation. It requires effort to invent.

    • @RyanTosh
      @RyanTosh 4 ปีที่แล้ว +20

      Don't forget about modern encryption...where would we be without AES, RSA, TLS, SSL, etc.

  • @BaronVonQuiply
    @BaronVonQuiply 6 ปีที่แล้ว +147

    My introduction to USB was via an ad on the back of a guitarrist magazine reading _"What's Universal Cereal?? And why's it on a bus?"_

    • @HappyBeezerStudios
      @HappyBeezerStudios 6 ปีที่แล้ว +22

      A joke that never get's old.

    • @greggv8
      @greggv8 5 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      The Universal Cereal is corn flakes.

    • @keithbrown7685
      @keithbrown7685 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@greggv8 No it's rice crispies. Just ask the vinyl community. ! : )

    • @mattbaker5757
      @mattbaker5757 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      My introduction to USB was back in the 80's when I bought an Atari 800 computer that used SIO connectors that were the precursor of USB, invented at Atari by one of the two gentlemen credited with the invention of USB (I forget which of the two it was though) Us Atari retro-enthusiasts have our SIO ports transfering at rates of 127K today, and we use SIO2USB adapters to communicate with a PC via USB to transfer or load files from "virtual" disk drives on the PC!

  • @soundguydon
    @soundguydon 4 ปีที่แล้ว +35

    IBM AT ... It was an acronym for "Advanced Technology" - That is why everyone (including IBM themselves) pronounced it "I B M A T" as in each separate letter, not the word "at."

    • @nowthatsjustducky
      @nowthatsjustducky 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Actually, that isn't an acronym. Acronyms actually spell out words, or sounds that can be spoken as if words, like RADAR, NIC (Network Interface Controller), or BASIC (Beginner's All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) for example. AT, and XT are just initials for Advanced Technology, and eXtended Technology (though it should have been the PC ET in that regard), or Windows NT (for Nice Try or Not Today).

    • @reh3884
      @reh3884 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      If it were an acronym it would be pronounced like the word "at." What you are talking about in an initialism.

    • @Liggliluff
      @Liggliluff 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Aybimat

  • @TonyRule
    @TonyRule 4 ปีที่แล้ว +34

    I remember these days well - having to load serial port drivers high to conserve as much base memory as possible, eliminating IRQ and DMA conflicts with sound cards and serial ports and transferring files between computers with parallel cables.
    Meanwhile, video (display) ports have gone the opposite direction rather than the simplification and standardisation across devices of USB.

    • @SuperTux20
      @SuperTux20 ปีที่แล้ว

      If we could just cut it all down to HDMI and VGA I'd be happy
      (I know some people are happier with analog connections rather than digital)

    • @IANSYT
      @IANSYT ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@SuperTux20 hdmi is terrible, displayport is much better, as for analog ports dvi is much better than vga

    • @0LoneTech
      @0LoneTech ปีที่แล้ว

      @@IANSYT DVI-A isn't much better than VGA; it's the exact same signaling in a subtly different connector. Connectors like DB13W3 used coaxial connections to really preserve analog signal integrity. Incidentally, USB type C has generated a new generation of confusion with different cables and devices doing different things on the same connector; very recently HDMI over type C thankfully died (as has HDMI type B), so type C now has only about 6 different protocols left just for video signals. It's not really helping that every minor revision of USB seems to rename the existing protocols, having started in the perfectly insane order low-full-high-super...

    • @LC-uh8if
      @LC-uh8if 3 หลายเดือนก่อน

      I got my CompTIA A+ in 2001. Had to learn all about IRQ and DMA deconfliction. Not that I remember how the details now.

  • @JordanViknar
    @JordanViknar 4 ปีที่แล้ว +257

    And USB-C is VERY VERY slowly choking USB...
    At least this one always inserts itself on the first try !

    • @FateStorm
      @FateStorm 4 ปีที่แล้ว +50

      USB-C is USB, what the hell are you talking about?

    • @JordanViknar
      @JordanViknar 4 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      @@FateStorm The ports are different.
      Although I'll admit the technologies used are EXTREMELY similar, they have many differences, and Thunderbolt USB-C have the most differences.
      For exemple, there's no longer a master/slave structure.

    • @liamwelsh5565
      @liamwelsh5565 4 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      @@FateStorm He's talking about USB 3.0. USB-C is the child of Displayport and USB 3.0

    • @FateStorm
      @FateStorm 4 ปีที่แล้ว +45

      You all are bunch of uneducated people. First if all, there is USB-A, USB-B and USB-C. USB-A and USB-B have Micro and Mini prefixes, and then just no prefix. then there are versions of them. USB 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2.

    • @JordanViknar
      @JordanViknar 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@liamwelsh5565 No it isn't... Completely.

  • @rexy_1000
    @rexy_1000 5 ปีที่แล้ว +194

    I rely on subtitles often and this video is great for having them and NOT auto-Generated.

    • @MoonLiteNite
      @MoonLiteNite 5 ปีที่แล้ว +27

      I keep CC open, always nice to see when creators actually sub their videos! none of that auto generated trash!

    • @750tiprogamer
      @750tiprogamer 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      I'm late but it's also nice that it's not in korean for absolutely no reason

    • @digital_gadget
      @digital_gadget 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      It doesn't always match what he says, which is awkward for someone like me who can hear somewhat.

    • @dsgorham
      @dsgorham 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      I love the easter egg at the end :)

    • @TheLegendOfLame
      @TheLegendOfLame 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@MoonLiteNite they get better everyday from it's learning algorithms. Providing captions make it so the auto generated captions can be more accurate as they learn what it "sounds like"

  • @fluffibuni8663
    @fluffibuni8663 6 ปีที่แล้ว +85

    In the days before home Wi-Fi, I remember soldering together a very long (trying to think if it was 7 metres or 10 metres) RS232 cable so that my flatmate and I could connect our PCs of the time and play Doom against each other ... it was so much fun playing against each other in different rooms ... I swore at him so much lol

    • @tomf3150
      @tomf3150 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      But with modems you could call your friend modem and play.

    • @ShadowEO
      @ShadowEO 5 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      @@tomf3150 but with a null modem, you don't tie up your phone line. Also OP says flatmate, meaning they were in the same apartment and likely had one phone line, wouldn't really be as efficient/easy as just a null modem cable and IPX packet driver. :3

    • @mephInc
      @mephInc 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      My friends dad worked as the IT guy at a large company so he always brought home the latest and greatest networking gear for us to play with. I remember looking at a rack mounted 100mb switch and drooling.
      ...I miss LAN parties.

    • @djhaloeight
      @djhaloeight 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      me and a friend used to dialup into each other’s computers and play. super fun.

    • @MentasmUK
      @MentasmUK 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      My neighbour and I did the same thing between our houses with a super long cable, so we could play Populous and Stunt Car Racer. Now that was laggy!

  • @Ni5ei
    @Ni5ei 4 ปีที่แล้ว +421

    Funny how Apple is never part of these standardisation groups.
    They've always done it "their way", leading to tons of obsolete hardware.
    In the end they follow the standards, albeit a few years later :)

    • @jovetj
      @jovetj 4 ปีที่แล้ว +34

      Boooooo Apple.

    • @miloskukilo7093
      @miloskukilo7093 4 ปีที่แล้ว +22

      They use USB on their Macs and their iPads. Rumors say that they will start using it on iPhone too.

    • @johanbogg9158
      @johanbogg9158 4 ปีที่แล้ว +56

      Apple was one of the first manufacturers to use USB, the first to ship all notebooks with 802.11 networking as the base config, they helped intel develop thunderbolt, was part of the development of ieee 1394 and so on. Yeah all those were years ago but still valid things

    • @MattMcIrvin
      @MattMcIrvin 4 ปีที่แล้ว +54

      To their credit, the original iMac bet heavily on USB pretty early on, and that was one of the things that really popularized it.
      Before that, their keyboard and mouse connections were generally done through ADB (Apple Desktop Bus), a system that allowed daisy-chaining and used a round 4-pin mini-DIN connector. The biggest problem with it besides being proprietary was that it wasn't safe to plug or unplug devices with the machine turned on (though people did it anyway).

    • @NFITC1
      @NFITC1 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Except they still have proprietary RAM so they can charge twice as much as PC RAM costs. It's the effect of using Big Endian memory architecture.

  • @Rayzor714
    @Rayzor714 4 ปีที่แล้ว +58

    I remember SCSI (Small Computer System Interface "Skuzzy")

    • @lokeshchandak3660
      @lokeshchandak3660 4 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      i know about SCSI only because my SATA to USB adapter shows up as UAS (USB attached SCSI).
      But that makes it:
      Universal Serial Bus Attached Small Computer System Interface for Serial Advanced Technology Attachment
      USBASCSIFSATA.
      Find me a longer acronym, I dare ya.

    • @bwgti
      @bwgti 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Don’t banks and high security data still use SCSI?

    • @thihal123
      @thihal123 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      I hated the thickness of SCSI cables but back then it was a superior connection

    • @johncrowerdoe5527
      @johncrowerdoe5527 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@bwgti SCSI provides no extra security. But from the 1980s until the 2010s, hard disk factories have consistently refused to sell their fastest drives (10000 rpm and 15000 rpm) with the IDE/ATA/SATA/USB interface, forcing high speed computers to install SCSI/SAS adapters. Similarly very few companies were selling adapters for plugging in more than 8 disks without SCSI.

    • @yuttadechvejpongsa2070
      @yuttadechvejpongsa2070 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Yeah, and where is that f**king terminator!!!

  • @RiasatSalminSami
    @RiasatSalminSami 6 ปีที่แล้ว +142

    Ports have been standardized to single USB. But I still can't manage my wires. The back of my PC looks like Pubic hair.

    • @badspy100
      @badspy100 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      so am i.after 25 years ,i still cannot put them in order.

    • @mephInc
      @mephInc 5 ปีที่แล้ว +18

      Back then "cable management" wasn't a thing.
      I believe I heard "rats nest" well over a thousand times during my youth. Once you got a piece of gear actually working, you never touched ANYTHING for fear of it crashing.

    • @restlessgoose
      @restlessgoose 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      i dont give a damn about cable mangment because i only care about if the pc works or not.

    • @restlessgoose
      @restlessgoose 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@badspy100 Its simple. See the square holes on the metal plug then if the holes appear solid black then its the right way. if the square holes are white/dark gray/blue then turn your x postition 180[degreess] right/flip over.

    • @badspy100
      @badspy100 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@restlessgoose i am talking about cable management. lol

  • @dj_paultuk7052
    @dj_paultuk7052 6 ปีที่แล้ว +71

    Who remembers connecting 2 PC's together with a serial cable and using "LapLink" software in dos to transfer files between machines at a whopping 115k.

    • @FuzedBox
      @FuzedBox 5 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      I did that, but not for LapLink. I used it for DooM, the first Command & Conquer and Red Alert games with a friend, and briefly for Jedi Knight until we upgraded our modems to 56k and moved on to IP games, and later the Zone.
      Good times. I do miss the old days, but I do still use a lot of oldschool console copiers, so at least I still get to fiddle with floppies and parallel.

    • @photovincent
      @photovincent 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      f29 retaliator. Couldn’t use the network, but did use a null-modem serial canle for two-player gaming. My graduation took a lot longer because of it

    • @Ozzah
      @Ozzah 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      Nope, but I do remember X-Tree Gold!

    • @e1woqf
      @e1woqf 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      The Norton Commander could connect 2 PC's as well for file transfer.

    • @xuNsh1ne
      @xuNsh1ne 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      I just opened pornhub on both PC's and used FapLink

  • @Sadik15B
    @Sadik15B 5 ปีที่แล้ว +27

    Ahhh i remember the days when we used to call usb useless serial bus.
    I swear i saw once a really early 90's compaq with an usb and a ps2 port guess it was a 486

    • @SomePotato
      @SomePotato 5 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      Can't have been early 90s. USB didn't exist back then.

  • @AmazinglyAwkward
    @AmazinglyAwkward 4 ปีที่แล้ว +33

    3:57 I can't get over this advert

    • @PilotAwe
      @PilotAwe 4 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      You should have used 4:04 because of meme purposes and it actually shows the picture you meant

    • @persomnus
      @persomnus 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Having the woman just lay on the table with the pc is just awkward to say the least.

    • @johncrowerdoe5527
      @johncrowerdoe5527 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@persomnus Floor, not table. That's where we all assembled our PCs.

  • @andrewmorris483
    @andrewmorris483 6 ปีที่แล้ว +604

    Somebody needs to invent a Cereal Port for computers. Think about controlling breakfast with a specialized port.

    • @LeanyG11
      @LeanyG11 5 ปีที่แล้ว +57

      Imagine overclocking your cereal lmao

    • @chlum6295
      @chlum6295 5 ปีที่แล้ว +44

      now introducing intel flakes. compatible with any cereal port. order NOWW

    • @LeanyG11
      @LeanyG11 5 ปีที่แล้ว +16

      Windows Cereal XP

    • @Burn_Angel
      @Burn_Angel 5 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      And I get beer with the tab key.

    • @therwfer
      @therwfer 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      para lel

  • @fintux
    @fintux 5 ปีที่แล้ว +27

    Thanks for this nostalgia splash! I have some comments, though. At 1:53 - this is actually a 16-bit ISA card, in a slot that accepts 8-bit and 16-bit ISA and 32-bit VLB cards (at 2:13 one can see the shorter, 8-bit-only ISA slots). Also, the card at 3:46 is an I/O card, which in addition to serial and parallel ports has pin connectors for hard disk, floppy disk, joystick (I assume the "game" port refers to that), and another COM port (the third pin header being for jumpers to configure the board).

  • @oooChickenatorXooo
    @oooChickenatorXooo 5 ปีที่แล้ว +37

    2:26 Pronunciation note: nobody ever said "at" to refer to the AT, they always said each letter individually, "aay tee" as contrasted with the older technology, which was XT

  • @zelphx
    @zelphx 5 ปีที่แล้ว +279

    I've never heard AT pronounced as "at".

    • @telephony
      @telephony 4 ปีที่แล้ว +32

      Me neither.
      I've always pronounced it, /ahy'tee/" :-O

    • @giftedone6766
      @giftedone6766 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      well you have now :p

    • @littlegoobie
      @littlegoobie 4 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      for this very reason, it bugged the crap out of me early on every time i heard someone say "SAY-tah" for sata. Chances are, the person pronouncing it that way was not into computers when it was just ATA.

    • @grklein00
      @grklein00 4 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Because nobody pronounced it like that back then.

    • @titonysarmiento9641
      @titonysarmiento9641 4 ปีที่แล้ว +19

      i wonder how he'd pronounce XT.
      ksst?

  • @philscomputerlab
    @philscomputerlab 6 ปีที่แล้ว +328

    Took me back to the days of using a null modem cable and ZIP drive :D What I found fascinating was that initially serial communication was inferior, and all the fast technologies used parallel data transfer. And then things changed, and everything went serial (SATA, USB) and outdid parallel technologies.

    • @Colddirector
      @Colddirector 6 ปีที่แล้ว +15

      PhilsComputerLab Makes me wonder, if parrallel was still being developed today, no matter how unrealistic that is, what form would it take? How fast would it be? Would people find a use for it?

    • @srlagarto1
      @srlagarto1 6 ปีที่แล้ว +36

      The problem with parallel is that because you have so many wires transmitting data in close proximity to one another, interference becomes a huge problem as you increase cable length or speed. Serial allows for better shielding.
      Perhaps parallel could be faster with the proper shielding, but it would be about as thick as eight USB cables bundled together, which isn't practical. If you do that, you might as well use eight USB cables and drive eight times as many devices.

    • @mikgus
      @mikgus 6 ปีที่แล้ว +28

      You are talking about PCI Express, up to sixteen serial lines running in parallel at a speed of 16GB/s (V.3)

    • @mindphaserxy
      @mindphaserxy 6 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Phil I still used dial-up up until 2001-2002. During the turn of the century everyone was using PCI based WinModems that totally sucked up CPU resources and were generally slow. I did everything I could to round up a serial based hardware modem and it was simply better than those WinModems. It had to be powered but that was a small nuisance.

    • @philscomputerlab
      @philscomputerlab 6 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      David Alan I Han an external US Robotics. All the magazines recommended it.

  • @sl3o
    @sl3o 6 ปีที่แล้ว +52

    8:28 having midi on the joystick port actually killed 3 birds with the one stone as the midi connection could be used by joysticks for force feedback.

    • @BaronVonQuiply
      @BaronVonQuiply 6 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      *connects joystick to sequencer and plays a song*

    • @rashidisw
      @rashidisw 6 ปีที่แล้ว

      Annoying part of bundled joystick port into the sound card is you can only have 1 joystick port and most clone cards did't have more than 1 port, not that i knew of.
      The problem got complicated as you can't install another card due to resources compatibility issues.
      I still remember before that older program can access 2 joystick ports for same/split-screen 2-players game.
      For example: Microsoft GW-Basic supports 2 joysticks, using its STICK & STRIG functions.

    • @tomf3150
      @tomf3150 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Game port were IRQ driven and that was cool cuz no input lag. On the other hand allocating irq was a nightmare, and usually several devices/components/peripheral had to share the same irq.

    • @big0bad0brad
      @big0bad0brad 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      That's why it's a personal computer ;) If your friends want to play, tell them to bring their own and network (or serial link) it all up!

    • @AlexOjideagu2
      @AlexOjideagu2 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      You could buy a cheap 2 player adaptor for midi ports

  • @denniswalsh8476
    @denniswalsh8476 5 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    Great video. No one in the USA called the IBB advanced technology the "at" machine. It was always referred to as the letters "A-T". I bought one around 1986. It was killer expensive and upgrading memory took a card and the chips were... er... killer expensive.

  • @thomasjenkins5727
    @thomasjenkins5727 4 ปีที่แล้ว +29

    Once again, TH-cam brings me to something "educational" that properly belongs in the horror genre.

  • @Monkey_SK
    @Monkey_SK 6 ปีที่แล้ว +45

    PS2 remember so many people bending the pins on a mouse or keyboard because they were ramming them in the wrong way.

    • @alexhayden2303
      @alexhayden2303 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      A very common problem!

    • @TheRealTrimBrady
      @TheRealTrimBrady 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      sounds kinky

    • @mephInc
      @mephInc 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @Barthy Col
      USB. 50/50 chance of getting it right and you get it wrong 100% of the time.... even after intensely staring at both ends of the connection. lol

    • @LRM12o8
      @LRM12o8 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      PS/2 wasn't meant to be plugged and unplugged frequently.
      Which is kind of a problem for laptop users wanting to unplug the mouse so the connector doesn't brake off when they carry the laptop around

  • @stefanl5183
    @stefanl5183 6 ปีที่แล้ว +11

    Serial ports are still alive and well. They may be less common on your average home PC, but there are still a lot of devices that have them for control and monitoring. Things like industrial controllers, and POS equipment still use it. As do things like commercial satellite receives and dish movers like your local cable company uses to receiver the TV channels they rebroadcast to you. It"s also a common interface for device programmers and things like JTAG adapters. The reason why, is because it's easy to interface to, from a hardware point of view, but even more so from a software point of view. In modern day protected mode operating systems you can easily write software that talks directly to a COM port. YOU SIMPLY CANNOT DO THAT WITH USB. To do the same with USB, you'd have to write a device driver and you'd have to write one for every device you connect. Then you'd have to make your software talk to the driver. And you'd have to get the driver signed by microsoft or else Windows will complain about it. It's a lot more complicated than using the serial port. And on top of that, for low speed devices that don't require massive bandwidth, it's actually less efficient and performs far worse, because USB is a polled bus and not interrupt driven like the COM ports are. If you have a low bandwidth device connected to a COM port that only occasionally sends and receives simple commands, the PC can pay it no attention and do other tasks when there is no activity. When activity occurs it will get an interrupt and can respond then. With a polled bus like USB, the system has to constantly check for activity. This is a huge waste, especially for a device that only needs to send a few bytes back and forth every once in a while.

    • @shannonrhoads7099
      @shannonrhoads7099 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      And many of the truths we cling to depend entirely on our point of view... (grin)

    • @ch.3.mist123
      @ch.3.mist123 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      True, many embedded systems use them. I think DOS made these old ports more difficult to use, partly because of DOS itself but also the plethora of flexibility.

    • @williamhaynes7089
      @williamhaynes7089 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      I have to set up printers for use in Point of sale that use serial ports to communicate, also Grocery store receiving uses EDI technology called DEX to communicate with vendors making delivery with handheld devices..

    • @Coolman13355
      @Coolman13355 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      Some POS peripherals I've seen physically connect over USB, but appear and act like COM devices.

  • @Agorante
    @Agorante 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    This was nostalgic for me. I taught Data Communications at local colleges in the nineties. I got into it from teaching official Novell networking classes but when I moved to Microsoft certified courses I also began teaching general data communications. Most of my course was a detailed examination of communication protocols which got me into teaching pin outs which in turn got me into identifying connectors. Most of the students were trying to prepare for being some kind of on-site microcomputer hardware guy at some of the many new companies then starting up.
    I was then a manager of such people in my day job and I knew that to be accepted as a PC guru you had to recognize the various cables and connectors. The guru must never say "What the hell is that?" when confronted by a strange cable. And in those days there was a lot of diversity. So I began collecting weird and obscure wires and plugs. I then started to bring them to class and have quizzes to see who could identify them. This was always fun. It was certainly more interesting than my lectures on data packet formats.

  • @tofu_golem
    @tofu_golem 4 ปีที่แล้ว +12

    Ha! I remember when we had to install add-on cards to add some of those ports to computers, and was relieved when they started putting those headers on the motherboard. Heck, I remember being impressed with PS/2 ports when they were introduced ("Gosh" I thought. "Those PS/2 ports are so small!")

  • @drspod
    @drspod 6 ปีที่แล้ว +144

    Nobody misses configuring IRQs and DMA addresses to try to fix hardware incompatibilities!! Oh what's that, you bought a new printer? Now your sound card doesn't work! Oh you bought a new graphics card? Now your modem is crashing!
    I'm getting a cold sweat just thinking about it.

    • @Boba0514
      @Boba0514 5 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      shit m8, that sound horrible, i'm glad i came after that time...

    • @compgamer89
      @compgamer89 5 ปีที่แล้ว +19

      > IRQs and DMA addresses
      Ah, the good old days of the *original* "Plug and Play".

    • @leerv.
      @leerv. 5 ปีที่แล้ว +29

      Don't forget editing autoexec.bat and config.sys!
      PnP used to really mean "plug and pray" :p

    • @alicetechtipsytp6250
      @alicetechtipsytp6250 5 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      The oldest computer I had wasn't even a DOS computer, it was a Windows XP computer and even then after DOS, NO ONE had to configure IRQ and DMA adresses to fix hardware incompatibilities.

    • @photovincent
      @photovincent 5 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      “missing” would be overstating it, but my was it satisfying to get it to work. Oh, and add a good himem configuration to that... bliss

  • @SDRob01
    @SDRob01 6 ปีที่แล้ว +68

    It was fun when you went to unscrew the little thumb screws and both the screw and the part it screwed into both unscrewed out. :-/

    • @maxmustermann1455
      @maxmustermann1455 5 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      Still happens with VGA and DVI cables quite a lot

    • @kennethbouchard8643
      @kennethbouchard8643 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Yup that happened a lot so you kept your nut drivers handy.

    • @Ozzah
      @Ozzah 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      And then the nut would fall out and possibly short out your card. Those thumb screws were a nightmare also because they'd catch on every cable, making it impossible to pull the cable out from under your desk.

    • @2thinkcritically
      @2thinkcritically 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      My favourite was always the clueless customers that tugged and tugged on their monitor cables until the port was physically ripped from the board; and then they'd get all shitty when you pointed it out to them.

    • @LRM12o8
      @LRM12o8 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      Happened to me when upgrading my motherboard...

  • @kght222
    @kght222 5 ปีที่แล้ว +17

    do a video about how bad "plug and play" and usb in general was when it first came out. in hindsight i am amazed at how well named usb actually turned out to be.

    • @jmemusic
      @jmemusic 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      Your comment just make me remember about Bill Gates and his engineer introducing Windows 98 Plug and Play capacities with a scanner that produced a blue screen. This one a Kodak moment an token in video:
      th-cam.com/video/LfNQOOr9aR8/w-d-xo.html
      At the end it was the scanner fault, lol

  • @thedamntrain5481
    @thedamntrain5481 4 ปีที่แล้ว +60

    Apple: what about no?
    Just buy overpriced adapters from us

    • @Robbnlinzi
      @Robbnlinzi 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      It worked for the apple pockets.

    • @jamesisaac7684
      @jamesisaac7684 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      They introduced lightning because USB C took to time.

  • @thomashillebrandt8945
    @thomashillebrandt8945 6 ปีที่แล้ว +64

    That battery is about to spew its guts all over that motherboard. Get it out of there!!!

    • @magreger
      @magreger 6 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      I was thinking the same thing!

  • @diegofloor
    @diegofloor 6 ปีที่แล้ว +19

    So many companies involved in making the USB and still no one considered making it visually asymmetrical. And it's never the first try and amazingly never the second try either, even though the thing only has two possibilities. Good thing it keeps evolving though, now there are asymmetrical versions.

    • @krashd
      @krashd 6 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      I still think jacks would be better as even though the new USB is reversible that just means it can be plugged in two ways instead of 1, a jack has no orientation. If modern jacks can carry 4 or 5 rings and USB only has 4 connections then they missed an opportunity to create a bus that is as foolproof as a headphone jack and even a toddler could plug in easily.

    • @KaitouKaiju
      @KaitouKaiju 6 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      It's already visually asymmetrical given there's a bar of plastic on one side. People just don't bother to remember which direction their ports face.

    • @expendableround6186
      @expendableround6186 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      diegofloor
      i.imgur.com/7ULpwu4.jpg

    • @TheLaXandro
      @TheLaXandro 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      USB-A was always supposed to be the end that stays plugged into your machine, while USB-B, the one with slanted bottoms, was the one that was supposed to get plugged and unplugged all the time. The common mini and micro USB are technically considered USB-B, and you may find the old big USB-B even on modern printers.

    • @decb.7959
      @decb.7959 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@krashd USB C is reversible and has 24 pins, and it can charge a laptop.

  • @dorusie5
    @dorusie5 4 ปีที่แล้ว +36

    "What did we do before this miraculous connection became commonplace?"
    Suffer.

  • @DrDroogkloot
    @DrDroogkloot 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    The good old days of multiple kinds of connectors. I can do that again with my pentium 1 laptop i bought this week. It has no usb.
    Pure nostalgia

  • @TheSeanUhTron
    @TheSeanUhTron 6 ปีที่แล้ว +8

    It may have been worth mentioning the USB->PS/2 adapters many keyboards and mice were shipped with in the early 2000's to help support old PC's. I have a small container full of those things!

  • @ninjamaster3453
    @ninjamaster3453 6 ปีที่แล้ว +449

    Usb type c is a thing of beauty.

    • @captapraelium1591
      @captapraelium1591 6 ปีที่แล้ว +94

      ...for people that never figured out that "logo side up" works XD

    • @SproutyPottedPlant
      @SproutyPottedPlant 6 ปีที่แล้ว +109

      Capta Praelium not all ports are right side up.

    • @captapraelium1591
      @captapraelium1591 6 ปีที่แล้ว +25

      Then they are not USB ports. The alignment of the ports is in the spec, that's why "logo side up" always works.
      Keep in mind that "up" isn't *your* "up", it's the device's "up".

    • @sunyavadin
      @sunyavadin 6 ปีที่แล้ว +79

      Yes, but there's not a consistent "up" between all devices of the same form factor. I have tablets and phones where the USB ports are aligned towards the screen, and ones where they are aligned away from the screen, since it all comes down to which way up the board goes, which can often depend on which way most economically uses the space within the case.

    • @captapraelium1591
      @captapraelium1591 6 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Exactly, it's the device's 'up'.

  • @jetjazz05
    @jetjazz05 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    USB C and we've finally made it, you can power, transfer data, plug in peripherals, and transmit video in high def on USB. It only took 1/3 of a century! lol

    • @jkobain
      @jkobain 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      It's not over yet! ;D

  • @nexus7tablet610
    @nexus7tablet610 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    i like to keep a system with fdd, serial and parallel ports for those rare times i have to use low level programming stuff like motherboard bios chip recovery or old hardware.

  • @burretploof
    @burretploof 6 ปีที่แล้ว +9

    "Splendid" is not exactly the word I'd use for the connector chaos that reigned before USB! 😃 But it was indeed kind of fun to figure this crap out back then. I remember being super proud when I managed to connect two computers via their parallel ports and set up Windows 98 correctly to allow transferring files.

  • @AccountInactive
    @AccountInactive 5 ปีที่แล้ว +16

    This makes me feel old and I'm not even 30 yet. Excuse me while I go clean the gunk from my ball mouse.

  • @arsenii_yavorskyi
    @arsenii_yavorskyi 4 ปีที่แล้ว +79

    and so we're back to square one, with a million different USB types.

    • @mourgos1234
      @mourgos1234 4 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      They are 5 types at most. www.memorysuppliers.com/blogs/memory-suppliers-blog/guide-to-the-differences-between-mini-usb-micro-usb-and-usb-c

    • @andywolan
      @andywolan 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      HAHA! Yep! And USB2 devices don't always work in USB3 ports.

    • @arsenii_yavorskyi
      @arsenii_yavorskyi 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@andywolan isn't it the other way around?

    • @andywolan
      @andywolan 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@arsenii_yavorskyi Both actually. USB3 devices are supposed to be USB2 compatible sometimes don't work on USB2 ports.

    • @souljastation5463
      @souljastation5463 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      they're all compatible though

  • @obfuscated3090
    @obfuscated3090 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    Useful video! Most people are NOT hardware literate and vids like this help them learn. Those connectors have many other uses to but the vast majority of TH-cam viewers are not techies and don't need to know them.

  • @DamienCooley
    @DamienCooley 6 ปีที่แล้ว +27

    I remember when USB first came around. The guy at my local computer shop told me about it - and I couldn't quite believe it. It sounded amazing and so cool. First time I used one it was so amazing not having to mess with DMA and IRQ settings. Honestly would have never believed that they would have been as prevalent as they continue to be today at the time.

    • @aaroninclub
      @aaroninclub 6 ปีที่แล้ว

      .....mean while Mac OS users have NEVER had to deal with IRQs.... So it’s ironic when people think of Mac OS as the inferior OS. Sure, it’s not as designed for games as windows is, but Mac OS can do things windows isn’t as good at as well.

    • @DamienCooley
      @DamienCooley 6 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Aaron Powell Macs aren't inherently bad they just don't cater to the people that want customization and tinkering that you can get with PC. If you like your system out of the box, Macs are good I guess... If not overpriced.

    • @blamauciXXX
      @blamauciXXX 6 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Actually back in those days you could customize Macintoshes really easily. My Powermacintosh G3 had all kinds of expansion options. It had PCI slots, an AGP Slot, and some other slots I don't quite know what they were. but non customizable macs are something from the recent past.

    • @BraddahSpliff
      @BraddahSpliff 6 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Also USB is Plug N Play hot swappable. Fucking amazing at the time it came out.

    • @aaroninclub
      @aaroninclub 6 ปีที่แล้ว

      Dragon Chrysophy are you forgetting how customisable the first Mac was 😛😛😛

  • @AntiBunnyStudio
    @AntiBunnyStudio 6 ปีที่แล้ว +33

    Saw the title and said to myself. "What a dumb question, of course we had this mess of gameports, serial ports, DIN ports, PS/2 and all other things both standard and proprietary. Who doesn't remember that?" Then it occurred to me. When was the last time I had a computer without USB ports? It doesn't seem like that long ago that USB made computing so much easier, but it's really been a long time hasn't it?

    • @Kajifox
      @Kajifox 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Just got my very first PC -- as in desktop -- with no other ports onboard but USB, and Ethernet and an unused DP. Not even a PS/2 port anymore.
      It's a strange new world.

    • @pwnmeisterage
      @pwnmeisterage 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      I'm still a holdout for dedicated PS/2 keyboard port.
      A PS/2 keyboard could still be used to operate the machine when USB just wasn't working. Maybe it's an old problem already solved long ago, but I still like having the fallback - even if it's only ever used to access BIOS and toggle the "Legacy USB" option - because not having PS/2 when you _need_ it can be crippling.

    • @maxmustermann1455
      @maxmustermann1455 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      P
      yeah it's solved long ago. To do what you suggested anyway. Haven't had a BIOS/UEFI that didn't respond to USB Keyboards ever.
      The problem was more with operating systems. Like Windows XP/7 not having drivers for your USB controller and thus not recognizing your keyboard.
      If that's fixable by "Legacy USB" (usually isn't) you could still do that with only a USB keyboard.
      Still use PS/2 as well tho. In theory it's still better. True N-Key rollover and in theory lower input lag, as PS/2 can directly interrupt your CPU, USB can't.
      But I just use it, because the cheap OEM keyboard I'm using is PS2 and I can't be bothered to switch to something "better".

    • @pwnmeisterage
      @pwnmeisterage 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      Max Mustermann Agreed. And even NKRO is a non-issue these days ... except on the very cheapest and junkiest of keyboards.
      26KRO (or better) is available on many USB keyboards ... and I don't have 26 fingers to type with anyways, lol.

    • @Charlesb88
      @Charlesb88 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      The first mainstream computer to use USB was the original Apple Bondi Blue iMac from 1997 and that was a little over 20 years ago now. That means that their may likely be a not insignificant portion of the audience for this video that was born on or after the 1st mainstream USB equipped computers or who was to young in the early early to mid 90’s to remember what sort of ports the family computer used back then.

  • @SuperCookieGaming_
    @SuperCookieGaming_ 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    I was too young to live in a time of multiple expansion cards but i still like the visual of a bunch of slots being used by expansion cards. so much so that i when i started building an injest machine for converting all the physical storage (cd,dvd,vhs) to a server i went all out and have almost ever slot used up. it looks great.

  • @RomrotMechanikos
    @RomrotMechanikos 5 ปีที่แล้ว +11

    As someone who deals with industrial computers and controllers, 9 pin serial is still used to this day.

    • @brewtalityk
      @brewtalityk 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      it's used because a lot of companies are too cheap to lose the money from down time and the cost to upgrade to use modern technology. Eventually they all have to upgrade because once your shit from the 80s or 90s breaks then you're dead in the water.
      I'm a controls engineer/system integrator (:

    • @jovetj
      @jovetj 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Actually, serial communications is robust, easy to understand and program, and ubiquitous. That's why it's still around.

    • @travcollier
      @travcollier 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      Yep, serial is far from dead. However, that serial (normally UART) connection tends to go into a serial to USB converter on one end ;)

    • @oldtwinsna8347
      @oldtwinsna8347 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@travcollier often those converters don't work reliably with old school serial products. i used to run automated camera controllers that used an old 9 pin and we had migrated to a new server that had no native 9 pin ports. i went through several different vendors for converters and each one of them would cause some weird error that resulted in non-function about 1% of the time. 1% was unacceptable for this application so instead just went for a pci 9 pin serial card and that solved the problem.

    • @travcollier
      @travcollier 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@oldtwinsna8347 I never had any issues with FTDI serialUSB, but I was working with relatively modern microcontrollers mostly. The off-brand and counterfeit converter chips suck though.

  • @Cochese
    @Cochese 6 ปีที่แล้ว +11

    there is something i am missing in this video, and pretty relevant. The fact that before plug and play, every connection has to been set manually in facts of DMA and IRQ, sometimes forced using jumpers or dip switches next to the cables

    • @zusurs
      @zusurs 6 ปีที่แล้ว

      Cochese ...and terminator plugs for the internal flat flex cables.

    • @thatdumbguy6171
      @thatdumbguy6171 6 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      oh the days when something went wrong and spending hours troubleshooting jumpers and irq settings and everything else with no internet and only manuals and you own experience

    • @kallewirsch2263
      @kallewirsch2263 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@thatdumbguy6171
      But ... you could trouble shoot it.
      Today if the modern Plug&Pray driver just refuses to work, you are doomed.

  • @Petertronic
    @Petertronic 6 ปีที่แล้ว +164

    You only gave SCSI a passing mention, when I worked on making computers for video editing in the late 90's, SCSI and SCSI hard drives were King, everything had to have them.

    • @builder396
      @builder396 6 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      I actually had a SCSI hard drive back on a Win98 machine.

    • @theoriginalbabycub
      @theoriginalbabycub 6 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      And there's were so many variants of SCSI ports as well.

    • @builder396
      @builder396 6 ปีที่แล้ว

      Well, I was 6 at the time so god knows what type of SCSI port I had. I was good enough with PCs to run down most of the specs, but not good enough to open the thing up and know exactly what port was what.

    • @tygattyche2545
      @tygattyche2545 6 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      Yeah, and technically you could connect everything using SCSI, not just storage devices or scanner.
      And SCSI was capable for features 20 years ago they now sata praise for...

    • @BraddahSpliff
      @BraddahSpliff 6 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      SCSI was popular because it was great, but it was basically a flash in the pan in the history of technology. So I can see why it only got a passing mention on a video of the tech that basically made it so obsolete so quickly. I remember when everybody thought SCSI was going to replace everything. Turns out USB did that.

  • @madmax5923
    @madmax5923 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I remember using Laplink over serial, then later parallel which was amazing at the time. I always carried my laplink cables and software with me everywhere. I feel old.

  • @GBANI
    @GBANI ปีที่แล้ว

    What memories these ports brings in my mind. Keyboards and mouses, printers and casettes, soundcards and external drives.

  • @tweakpc
    @tweakpc 6 ปีที่แล้ว +11

    If I remember correctly USB was not so resource-saving in the beginning, compared to serial connections.
    Old serial mice and keyboards were more popular with gamers for a while (because of the polling rate of USB Mouse)

    • @KaitouKaiju
      @KaitouKaiju 6 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      This is still the case, because PS/2 hardware functions as a hardware interrupt instead of being polled like USB hardware.

    • @tweakpc
      @tweakpc 6 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Hello,
      Yes, of course, I meant something else.
      Earlier in Pentium and K6 times this was really relevant with increasing CPU performance and better implementation in chipsets this became irrelevant over time.
      The gaming part that has lost importance over the years also today allows any keyboard/mouse to change the polling rate etc.
      But for a while, it was really a big thing

  • @jmpattillo
    @jmpattillo 6 ปีที่แล้ว +238

    I’ve never heard the AT pronounced “at”. I’ve only ever heard people call it “a-t”

    • @ninjamaster3453
      @ninjamaster3453 6 ปีที่แล้ว +26

      John Pattillo it is A-T. Like AT ST AT AT.
      he's english/British they say everything wrong.

    • @micglou
      @micglou 6 ปีที่แล้ว +30

      @Ninja Master... British say everything wrong? He says it wrong yes, but it's not the British that are prone to pronounce words wrong... have you ever heard an American pronounce Jaguar? Or aluminium? Just a couple of examples...

    • @sunyavadin
      @sunyavadin 6 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Everyone calls those Imperial walkers "at"-"at"s, not "a-t" - "a-t"s

    • @ninjamaster3453
      @ninjamaster3453 6 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      micglou shj-ag-wahr and al-loo-mini-um
      That ain't right either. Ever notice british accents disappear when they sing?

    • @captapraelium1591
      @captapraelium1591 6 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      Yeh I mean, if AT is "at", then what is XT? ;)

  • @skyler948
    @skyler948 4 ปีที่แล้ว +24

    Me: it has 2 USB 2 ports 4 USB 3 ports and 1 Ps/2 por--
    friend: so it can play Ps/2 games?

    • @sidewinder3411
      @sidewinder3411 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      stolen

    • @googa9965
      @googa9965 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@sidewinder3411 ok? not like anyone cares.

    • @SabirTheHuman
      @SabirTheHuman 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@sidewinder3411 Jokes can't be stolen, they can only be shared, because someone says a joke and someone else thought it was very funny and decides to share it doesn't mean it's stolen. By the way, does "stealing" a joke hurt people monetarily like how real stealing does, I'll let you answer that.

  • @SA77888
    @SA77888 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    3:54 I remember those ports, I remember thinking how clever it was that they had colour coded them lol.

  • @feywerfolevado6286
    @feywerfolevado6286 6 ปีที่แล้ว +10

    Videos like this make me feel super old and I’m only 22.

    • @zusurs
      @zusurs 6 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Feywer Folevado Haha, same here. I’m 29, started to fiddle with computers and electronics at very early age (mid 90s). I feel really old when I watch video like these, where they talk about expansion cards, IRQs, null-modem cables and similar stuff that was just my regular everyday challange back in the days, like some ‘retro, vintage’ stuff...

    • @XrisD147
      @XrisD147 6 ปีที่แล้ว

      You're not old. Wait till you get in you're forties.

    • @CanuckGod
      @CanuckGod 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      +Chris Debnam Which I just did (turned 40 last week)... Funny to think, there are people of adult age at present who never knew of a time before the Internet, when I only got on it when I started university.

    • @wolfshanze5980
      @wolfshanze5980 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Videos like this make me feel super old, and i'm 51.

    • @maxmustermann1455
      @maxmustermann1455 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      I'm 27, got my first own PC in late 1996. A used 486 running Win95. But I later downgraded to DOS because Win95 sucked. Even as a kid, I rather typed some commands instead of dealing with constant random bluescreens.
      It does make me feel a bit old, but... it was the golden age. Since over 10 years now, everything basically stayed the same. Times were more interesting back then.
      I switched from a Pentium 1 130mhz to a AMD Duron 700mhz. Over 5 times as fast. Next leap 1400Mhz Athlon. Then 2400Mhz Athlon XP (the one with real 2400Mhz, not just 2000 and 2400 Pentium Rating).
      My first USB stick had 16mb and cost 15€, which was a brilliant deal back then....next one up was 128mb, 256mb, 512mb, 1GB, 2GB, 4GB...
      HDD sizes, went from 2GB to 8GB to 40GB to 120GB.
      You almost always doubled what you had.

  • @Wagoo
    @Wagoo 6 ปีที่แล้ว +10

    My motherboard in early 1997 had USB headers, but they weren't hooked up by default.
    One thing I wish USB could do is have a USB 3 link to a hub and then multiple USB 2 streams off of that hub have the full USB 3 bandwidth to the computer.. instead the link runs at single USB 2 stream speed for USB 2 devices

  • @johnalanelson
    @johnalanelson 4 ปีที่แล้ว +8

    I should also point out that the first generation of printers and scanners which used USB 1/1.1 were horribly unreliable and gave USB a bad name which took a while for it to overcome. Useless Serial Bus is how many called it.

  • @jk1138
    @jk1138 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Thanks for the nostalgia trip! I sold computers and peripherals from the early 1990s to the early 2000s and witnessed most of this first hand. Now it's a USB-C world! I also had an Iomega ZIP drive and it had the dreaded "click of death"...

  • @TehSmokeyMan
    @TehSmokeyMan 6 ปีที่แล้ว +12

    Ahh, yeah! Legacy connectors... Those glorious days of bulky and indestructible (dodgy micro USB, anyone? :P) connectors... :D
    THose evenings where you'd jury-rig a crossover CAT5 UTP for a multiplayer session, or bend that ground pin on your VGA connector to have it fit...
    Yeah, those days a baller PC had all its slots full of all sorts of exotic expansion cards, the more obscure, the better :P

    • @zusurs
      @zusurs 6 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Sebastian Bemrose Right in the feels, bro..

  • @MihaiOprean
    @MihaiOprean 6 ปีที่แล้ว +17

    i miss the old days :(

  • @onair141
    @onair141 4 ปีที่แล้ว +16

    I love how I’m watching this as if I don’t know 🥴

  • @kiwibryntoo
    @kiwibryntoo 5 ปีที่แล้ว +11

    I started with a C64... then a 386DX, DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.1.... and so my descent into madness began...

    • @telephony
      @telephony 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      I started with a Timex Sinclair 1000, then a C=64, then a C=128, then a PC-XT, then a PC-AT (both running DOS 6.22), then a 286 (Win 3.1), then 386, then 486 (Windows 95),then 586, then Pentium 1 (Windows XP), etc...you can probably figure out where this is going. :-)

    • @keybizzoneg5209
      @keybizzoneg5209 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@telephony a Pentium is a 586 :D

    • @nthgth
      @nthgth 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@keybizzoneg5209 officially? Or just as a cool nickname

  • @spidereyes6290
    @spidereyes6290 6 ปีที่แล้ว +82

    The days when connectors didn't just snap off.

    • @AliceTheSpider
      @AliceTheSpider 6 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      I mean for most cases they did atleast one without screws, and pins were too easy to bend that ports and cables didnt last long.

    • @mad_cat431
      @mad_cat431 5 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      I love when those plastic screws get stuck and i forget which way i need to screw them

    • @captain150
      @captain150 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      No instead the pins would bend.

    • @AAhmou
      @AAhmou 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      They can... If you're extremely careless.

    • @pwnmeisterage
      @pwnmeisterage 5 ปีที่แล้ว +12

      Try plugging in USB ... oops, upside down.
      Flip over, try again ... wtf, upside down again, extra attempt confirms.
      Flip over, try again ... fits fine, weird.

  • @nicknarcowich5040
    @nicknarcowich5040 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Wow, you brought back a lot of memories :-) Well Done!

  • @codygaudet8071
    @codygaudet8071 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    This was so worth watching! Thanks for this!

  • @two_tone_xlophone2630
    @two_tone_xlophone2630 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    this video makes me feel older than the fact my favorite bands are now being played on classic oldies stations.....

  • @thetacoguyy
    @thetacoguyy 6 ปีที่แล้ว +23

    6:12 but smart watches were released 30 years later o.o

  • @kellingc
    @kellingc 5 ปีที่แล้ว +58

    PC-AT (the a and t pronounced separately. It stood for Advanced Technology.

    • @DarrynJones
      @DarrynJones 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      I think the "PC @" was the model between XT and AT - it used the 801.586 processor 😋

    • @keybizzoneg5209
      @keybizzoneg5209 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Yeah... He also said Windows 95 Service Pack 2 which does not exist. :D

    • @RasVoja
      @RasVoja 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      And was not advanced at all with 286 and dirty Dos compared to 020 mac or amiga

    • @RasVoja
      @RasVoja 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@keybizzoneg5209 it Is dubbed win97

    • @phuturephunk
      @phuturephunk 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@keybizzoneg5209 : 95's second service Pack was referred to as "OSR2" or Original Equipment Manufacturer Service Release 2. IIRC, MS didn't refer to it's Service Packs on its consumer OS's as 'Service Packs' until Windows XP where they unified the consumer and enterprise workstation OS's into one lineage.

  • @RaifalM3n
    @RaifalM3n 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    oh. them memories from 2000+ .... i remember pluging the mouse and keyboard ... nightmare !

  • @Ryan.Lohman
    @Ryan.Lohman 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    USB and SATA have made a huge impact in the world of hardware. I remember needing a SCSI for an external hard drive, mouse on the serial port on my first computer- an "IBM 286 AT with PC Front End / DOS"

  • @Space_Reptile
    @Space_Reptile 6 ปีที่แล้ว +47

    that soldered on battery on that board looks flaky , remove it

    • @macdaniel6029
      @macdaniel6029 6 ปีที่แล้ว

      Its leaking badly... typical for VARTA crap.

    • @Space_Reptile
      @Space_Reptile 6 ปีที่แล้ว

      yup

    • @HappyBeezerStudios
      @HappyBeezerStudios 6 ปีที่แล้ว

      Remove it anyway because soldered in batteries are bad design by nature.

    • @elmariachi5133
      @elmariachi5133 6 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      That battery is near to 35years old... Varta once made very good batteries, but this changed to crap in 2002, when the Varta battery brands where sold to "Johnson Controls" and "Spectrum Brands".

    • @jovetj
      @jovetj 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      I've seen worse

  • @srtgrayfrance
    @srtgrayfrance 6 ปีที่แล้ว +18

    Firewire wasn't an Apple-only thing. I have a Dell laptop with a mini Firewire socket, although in the PC world it is commonly known as IEEE 1394 or i.Link. Many Sony laptops also carried it.

    • @magreger
      @magreger 6 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      srtgrayfrance It was developed by Apple but not exclusive to Apple.

    • @rasz
      @rasz 6 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      It was heavily pushed by Apple/Sony, and adopted as standard DV connector for digital cameras.

    • @DooMMasteR
      @DooMMasteR 6 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      IEEE 1394 is a serial bus standard that was collaboratively developed by Apple, Intel, Texas Instruments, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Compaq, and National Semiconductor
      it was a real bus, it was low latency, it was DMA capable and it was HIGH Speed compared to USB.
      But it was also expensive and only was used in professional equipment (the Apache attack helicopter) like audio and video equipment, and early external hard drives including the first 3 gens of apples iPod.
      Nvidia Chipsets offered fire wire as a default. And many other PCs hat it too. And it was often the only way to get digital video of a miniDV camcorder.

    • @pseudotasuki
      @pseudotasuki 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      @osp80 AFAIK the only thing it was used for was local multiplayer. Though I guess Sony was already buying the controller chips at sufficient volume for it to be fairly inexpensive. Possible even cheaper than adding ethernet.

    • @sarkybugger5009
      @sarkybugger5009 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      I still have an early 2000s Sony digital camcorder, and it has a Firewire/1394 port. I never had a PC that I could plug it into... Always had to use the RCA connectors.

  • @daraldlee
    @daraldlee 4 ปีที่แล้ว +18

    The old ports are some of the old timey things I feel absolutely no nostalgia toward-- they were just awful.

    • @nowthatsjustducky
      @nowthatsjustducky 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Those old serial ports are one of the ways to transfer files downloaded from the Internet onto systems that normally would not be able to access the 'net. A null modem cable and a terminal program on the PC and the receiving computer lets your PC sorta work like a BBS or otherwise ftp server.

    • @reh3884
      @reh3884 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Only to morons. Serial port were very versatile.

    • @p3chv0gel22
      @p3chv0gel22 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      Tbh i like having a hardware com Port instead of a virtual one over USB, even though i sometimes need some level shifters for the logic

  • @robvaillancourt
    @robvaillancourt 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    Sincerely one of the most enjoyable videos I have seen in a while...

  • @bobz1736
    @bobz1736 6 ปีที่แล้ว +26

    One thing the designer of the USB plug wants shooting for is the 50/50 chance you have of getting it in the socket the right way around ... grrr!

    • @TradieTrev
      @TradieTrev 6 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Same way with every other serial device.

    • @mrmimeisfunny
      @mrmimeisfunny 6 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      You think that's bad. Thing about the DIN and PS/2 connectors.

    • @strebornayr
      @strebornayr 6 ปีที่แล้ว +24

      It may be 50/50 but everyone's a liar if they say it doesn't take the 3rd try to get it right.

    • @RandomNoob
      @RandomNoob 6 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      they were not that bad the plugs were round and usually had a flat side which went to the top but you did have to power off the computer before changing a keyboard or mouse for them to be detected as they were how hot swappable

    • @MrCaerbannog
      @MrCaerbannog 6 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      On the one hand, there weren't really any computer ports before USB-C (and Lightning) that worked either-side up. On the other hand, the fix companies came up with to make symmetrical USB-A plugs was so simple you wonder why the designers never thought of it to begin with.

  • @PG-gs5vb
    @PG-gs5vb 5 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    Nice overview, though as an Atari fan, I would have expected mention of the Atari SIO port, which was kind of a precursor of USB, being serial and allowing chaining of devices. And of course, its designer Joe Decuir also participated in the design of USB.

    • @MattMcIrvin
      @MattMcIrvin 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      Yeah, the big-deal ports on the Ataris were the 9-pin game-controller port, which actually became something of an industry standard for a while (Commodore and Sega both used versions of it), and the SIO, which didn't. They sold an "Interface Module" that you'd put into the SIO daisy chain to provide RS-232 and Centronics parallel ports, because I think even some of the modems and printers they sold used those.

  • @aneesshaik5556
    @aneesshaik5556 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Man I remember those bulky ISA slots! Even in the 90’s they looked outdated

  • @legalizeme
    @legalizeme 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Thank you for bringing back those old good memories

  • @fauzirahman3285
    @fauzirahman3285 5 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    Many modern desktops still have PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports.

    • @johncrowerdoe5527
      @johncrowerdoe5527 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Faster response time for gaming, plus the major security benefit of not allowing the "Bad USB" attack where a fake memory stick pretends to be a keyboard and automatically types in the commands to hack your computer.

  • @r4microds
    @r4microds 5 ปีที่แล้ว +348

    Video is incorrect. Before we used USB, we used to use USA.

    • @rejiix
      @rejiix 4 ปีที่แล้ว +63

      United States of Bemerica

    • @y00d
      @y00d 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Lol

    • @danparish1344
      @danparish1344 4 ปีที่แล้ว +14

      Kinda reminds me of my Hispanic neighbors’ two kids: Hose-A and Hose-B

    • @tengkusulaiman
      @tengkusulaiman 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Universal Serial Bus -> UnSeBus

    • @Twisted_Code
      @Twisted_Code 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      LOL I get it...well played

  • @Windsorsillest
    @Windsorsillest 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    Love these types of videos thanks mate.

  • @jamestafiltafish5282
    @jamestafiltafish5282 4 ปีที่แล้ว +10

    These serial ports had one great advantage .NO DRIVERS REQUIRED
    The USB spec is a mess

    • @smartypants4571
      @smartypants4571 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      Maybe it was better that way !

    • @jovetj
      @jovetj 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Serial ports still require drivers on platforms like Windows.

    • @happysmash27
      @happysmash27 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      I need no extra drivers on Linux, although partly _because_ I choose most of my devices for plug-and-play Linux compatibility.
      ...Actually, on second thought, the dreaded printers need drivers. Are you talking about printers? Those are the worst. Everything else works fine though: keyboards, mice, webcams, storage media, some wireless adapters, card readers...

    • @keithd2284
      @keithd2284 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@happysmash27 That's because the linux kernal is a monstrosity that includes the drivers for every device ever created.

  • @seanc.5310
    @seanc.5310 6 ปีที่แล้ว +228

    I have never heard it referred to as "AT" before in the U.S. but always as two letters A.T. Is that A British thing?

    • @banedon8087
      @banedon8087 6 ปีที่แล้ว +72

      Sean Corcoran nope. We British pronounce this as 'Ay Tee' not 'at'. Not sure why he calls it 'at' in the video. A personal quirk, perhaps.

    • @limpfishyes
      @limpfishyes 6 ปีที่แล้ว +33

      It absolutely isn't. Don't know why but he mispronounces things an awful lot. Listen to be pronounces 'BBC micro' 'bibbycee' or even 'the' as 'vuh'. Drives me crazy

    • @macartm
      @macartm 6 ปีที่แล้ว +25

      Gah I have no idea. It was always an 'Ay Tee' to me.
      And then to make things WORSE, he calls DEC 'dee ee cee'. Urgh!

    • @soupcan_97
      @soupcan_97 6 ปีที่แล้ว +30

      Yes, it's a British thing. They also call P/S2 "psst".

    • @RWBHere
      @RWBHere 6 ปีที่แล้ว +17

      AT is 'Advanced Technology'. He's unusual in mispronouncing it. It's a fair bet that he doesn't say 'At-ex' for ATX. But if he's not old enough to have used AT boxes, and has only read about them, rather than being told about them, then his error is understandable. On the other hand, he also gets DEC wrong way around. Luck of the draw perhaps? His pronunciation of BBC is acceptable, since he has a particular regional accent.
      I'll not be subscribing, because he makes a number of incorrect assertions in his videos, whilst glossing over important points, probably because of insufficient research of reliable sources. Wikipedia, for instance, needs treating with great care, because anybody can edit and post wrong information on there.

  • @MichaelBennett1
    @MichaelBennett1 6 ปีที่แล้ว +8

    Kids these days...they don’t know how good they have it, USB was indeed a godsend.

    • @jovetj
      @jovetj 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      They sure do have it good. Think back on:
      Pre-on-demand-streaming.
      Pre-wireless networking.
      Pre-internet.Pre-DVDs.
      Pre-DVRs.
      Pre-mobile-phones.
      Pre-compact-discs.
      Pre-networking.
      Pre-cordless-phones.
      Pre-VCRs.
      Pre-television-remotes.
      Pre-microwave-ovens.
      Pre-color-television.
      Pre-television.
      Pre-radio.
      Pre-refrigerators.
      Pre-electricity.
      Pre-indoor-plumbing......

  • @G_Gr00v3
    @G_Gr00v3 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    I feel somewhat lucky to be an age where I got to see a lot of this change. My Dad had to work with older computers for a while, so it was fascinating to see all our keyboards, mice, etc go from these types of cables to USB when we got a brand new iMac in 2007. Mt dad still has a lot of those cables and parts, and it's fun to look back at those times with them

  • @telephony
    @telephony 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    I remember running my BBS *WAY BEFORE* USB came into being.
    Setting up interrupts, being certain that there are no IRQ conflicts, assigning COM ports, blah blah blah. :-)
    How I long for the sound of a 300BPS, 1200BPS, or 2400BPS call coming through (and yes, I was one of those nerds who left the modem speaker on so I could hear my BBS's callers connecting -- and also yes, I could quite easily distinguish a 1200BPS caller from a 2400BPS caller).
    And one of my test instruments from 2001 required a 16-bit ISA slot on the motherboard *AND* a parallel port (DB-25) connector for its security dongle.

  • @rubberwoody
    @rubberwoody 6 ปีที่แล้ว +35

    nowadays there are so many USB types it's basically the old days again

    • @cpufreak101
      @cpufreak101 6 ปีที่แล้ว +14

      rubberwoody not really, only USB A, B, C, mini, and micro, and you can get passive adapters between them, as per the standard.

    • @CarbyGuuGuu
      @CarbyGuuGuu 6 ปีที่แล้ว

      USB Type B and Micro USB are still used today. But they're slowly being phased out by Type C. I don't think that many devices use Type A and Mini USB, nowadays.

    • @freedustin
      @freedustin 6 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      most are backwards compatible so no, it's really not.

    • @taitaisanchez
      @taitaisanchez 6 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      USB Hosts use Type A. So nearly every motherboard, nearly every laptop, desktop, PlayStation, Xbox 360/One, etc. all have Type A slots.

    • @MLGKid420
      @MLGKid420 6 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Printers use Type B too

  • @johneygd
    @johneygd 6 ปีที่แล้ว +38

    The very very first USB appeared in 1994 but started slowly to make it’s way out of the factory dour to became mainstream in 1998.

    • @johneygd
      @johneygd 6 ปีที่แล้ว

      Kenny S yes yes that’s true but the prototype USB existed in 1994.

    • @RWBHere
      @RWBHere 6 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      USB was in limited public use before Windows 98 was released. I tried using USB 1 devices with drivers in Windows 95, and later in Windows 98 but it was far too flakey to be of much use. Windows 98 SE support was a little better. Things improved a lot in 2000 when ME became available. So long as you kept your RAM below 256 MBytes!
      Odd that he didn't mention Laplink. I still have a Laplink connector which enabled two Windows computers to 'talk' to each other via USB. Much slower and shorter range than 10 Mbps Ethernet, but it worked, if you had Laplink installed. I ran the free trial version for years, because for some reason it kept working after the trial period had expired.

    • @ChozoSR388
      @ChozoSR388 6 ปีที่แล้ว

      RWBHere Yeah, I know what you mean; I recently tried to build a bit of a "modern retro" gaming PC running Win98SE out of a system that originally had Windows XP on it. I couldn't even get the USB 1 drivers working for it...

    • @doctorclaw8232
      @doctorclaw8232 6 ปีที่แล้ว

      True, my Pentium MMX had 2 USB ports, what I needed for keyboard and mouse to install Crunchbang++ OS

    • @NimhLabs
      @NimhLabs 6 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      I specifically remember being generally annoyed about USB stuff... as YES, the Windows.95b version has support... but getting support in Windows 95 was a major pain in the ass, as doing version updates of OS back then was... like getting a root canal done up. "Oh yeah... there is a way to get USBs to run in Windows 95... and literally the hoops you jump through actually make it much easier to just simply not use USB"
      It wasn't until Windows 2K and Windows XP started having a decent market share that most computers were running that... that I did not feel like USB stuff was not a pain in the ass to run. (At which time, I was doing most of my stuff on Linux anyways... which has its own weird USB growing pains)
      The reason USB took so long to get support is because Windows 95 did not support it by default. The Windows 95b version did not support it by default either. No machine with a standard install of Windows 95b could use USB ports. You literally had to pull out the install discs/disks for Windows 95b, begin and Install/Update process with it, and tell it to add USB support. Which... the Install/Update process for OS these days is a simple process... in the 90s it required a lot of annoying stuff, and generally was just as likely to fail as it would succeed. I remember install Linux for the first time in the 90s, and being amazed at how user friendly and intuitive the OS install process was by comparison... and... uh... yeah... that is an install process that generally is not available on most modern day distros for the express reason of it being archaic, clunky, and hard to navigate.

  • @MarshallGTV
    @MarshallGTV 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    This video brought me back to all the headaches and anxiety I had back in the early 90’s when setting up my early pc’s. Good times... ish

  • @top_banana
    @top_banana 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    that was a nice trip down memory lane thank you