The Universal Serial Bus is an instant connector that is on just about ever new computer. It is a connector the can be plugged into it's USB port to transfer in and out files or connect something to the computer. It makes it extreamly fast and easy to connect mice to printers, flash drives, scanners, joysticks, digital cameras, web cams, telephones, and speakers. It also is the way that you put your new songs on to your IPOD. The Universal Serial Bus ports are usually found on the back of the computer and can sometimes be located on the front. On a laptop the USB would be located on the side.

If you are looking to buy a usb cable or port ebay is the place to find them cheap. It is about $4.00 for a cable and if you want to buy a USB port it will be about $10.00.

The Universal Serial Bus is manufactured all around the world but is mostly commanly manufactued in asia.

In 1994 the USB core companies came together. in 1995 the USB Forum (USB-IF) formed with 340 companies. the Intel company introduced the first USb silicon. In 1996 the USB 1.0 specification was released, and the first USB product introduced. In 1997 USB-IF increased to over 400 companies. Over 500 USB products were being developmented worldwide. IN 1998 the UsB 1.1 specification was released. IN 2000 USB 2.0 specification was released. In 2001 USB OTG specification was released. In 2005 Wireless USB was released.

In the USB connector there are four pins inside. They are VCC, D-,D+,and GND. The VCC is RED, the d- is WHITE, and the d+ is GREEN, the GND is BLACK. The VCC is +5v, the D- is data-, the D+ is data+, and the GND is ground.

The typical universal serial bus that you will find on your computer is called an "A connection". The connection heads "upstream" and into the computer. The other type you will find is a type "B Connection". The connection heads downstream towards the individual devices.

USB is at version 2.0 . Microsoft, NEC,Intel and Philips joined to develop a higher data transfer rate than the one we have now. The USB 2.0 was released in the year 2000 and was made by the USB-IF at the end of 2001. Before the 2.0 version was released there was 0.9, 1.0, and 1.1 version.

USB ports usually have a power of about 5V. People have found unusual alternate ways of using the USB power. Someone found that you can charge you iPOD on two batteries and a USB cable. Another person cooked meat on a coffee heater by connecting several USB cables to that coffee heater.

For USB to work, your computer must have an Operating System that was built to understand USB. Most computres now feature the an operating system. You can tell if you have the USB-compliant version of Windows installed by using a free USB evaluation utility. You can download directly from a link on my page usb.org

USB was originally seen as a complement to FireWire ,which was designed as a high-speed serial bus which could connect things such as hard disks, audio interfaces, and video equipment, ipods, and mouses. USB originally operated at a far lower rate and used much simpler hardware, and was suitable for small things as keyboards and mice. USB networks use a tiered-star topology, while FireWire networks use a repeater-based topology.USB uses a "speak-when-spoken-to" protocol; A FireWire device can communicate with any other node at any time, the only catch is that there needs to be good network conditions.A USB network relies on a single host to control the network.

USB Implementers Forum, Inc. is a non-profit corporation founded by the group of companies that developed the Universal Serial Bus . The USB-IF was made to provide a support organization and forum for Universal Serial Bus technology. Us IF promotes the benefits of USB and the quality of products that have passed compliance testing

Matt H's USB

www.matthbrc.pbwiki.com

http://matthbrc.pbwiki.com/UniversalSerialBus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB

http://www.usb.org

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/usb.htm