The game port is a device port that was found on IBM PC compatible and other computer systems throughout the 1980s and 1990s. It was the traditional connector for joystick input, and occasionally MIDI devices, until made obsolete by USB in the late 1990s.
87-470: Originally located on a dedicated Game Control Adapter expansion card , the game port was later integrated with PC sound cards , and still later on the PC's motherboard. During the transition to USB, many input devices used the game port and a USB adapter dongle was included for systems without a game port. At the time IBM was developing its game port, there was no industry standard for controller ports, although
174-521: A de facto standard was Altair with the Altair 8800 , developed 1974–1975, which later became a multi-manufacturer standard, the S-100 bus . Many of these computers were also passive backplane designs, where all elements of the computer, (processor, memory, and I/O) plugged into a card cage which passively distributed signals and power between the cards. Proprietary bus implementations for systems such as
261-443: A riser card in part because they project upward from the board and allow expansion cards to be placed above and parallel to the motherboard. Expansion cards allow the capabilities and interfaces of a computer system to be extended or supplemented in a way appropriate to the tasks it will perform. For example, a high-speed multi-channel data acquisition system would be of no use in a personal computer used for bookkeeping, but might be
348-411: A single serial RS232 port or Ethernet port. An expansion card can be installed to offer multiple RS232 ports or multiple and higher bandwidth Ethernet ports. In this case, the motherboard provides basic functionality but the expansion card offers additional or enhanced ports. One edge of the expansion card holds the contacts (the edge connector or pin header ) that fit into the slot. They establish
435-523: A PCI Bus. Generally speaking, most PCI expansion cards will function on any CPU platform which incorporates PCI bus hardware provided there is a software driver for that type. PCI video cards and any other cards that contain their own BIOS or other ROM are problematic, although video cards conforming to VESA Standards may be used for secondary monitors. DEC Alpha, IBM PowerPC, and NEC MIPS workstations used PCI bus connectors. Both Zorro II and NuBus were plug and play , requiring no hardware configuration by
522-481: A USB adapter in the box. The rapid takeover of USB meant that this was superfluous when the Precision Pro 2 was released the next year in 1998. By 2000, game ports were purely for backward compatibility with now outdated devices. Microsoft Windows discontinued support for the game port with Windows Vista , though USB converters can serve as a workaround. The game port's DA-15 connector includes inputs for
609-445: A built-in hub that connects to the physical USB cable. USB device communication is based on pipes (logical channels). A pipe connects the host controller to a logical entity within a device, called an endpoint . Because pipes correspond to endpoints, the terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Each USB device can have up to 32 endpoints (16 in and 16 out ), though it is rare to have so many. Endpoints are defined and numbered by
696-412: A discrete GPU. Most other computer lines, including those from Apple Inc. , Tandy , Commodore , Amiga , and Atari, Inc. , offered their own expansion buses. The Amiga used Zorro II . Apple used a proprietary system with seven 50-pin-slots for Apple II peripheral cards , then later used both variations on Processor Direct Slot and NuBus for its Macintosh series until 1995, when they switched to
783-429: A key part of a system used for industrial process control. Expansion cards can often be installed or removed in the field, allowing a degree of user customization for particular purposes. Some expansion cards take the form of "daughterboards" that plug into connectors on a supporting system board. In personal computing , notable expansion buses and expansion card standards include the S-100 bus from 1974 associated with
870-682: A new coding schema (128b/132b symbols, 10 Gbit/s; also known as Gen 2 ); for some time marketed as SuperSpeed+ ( SS+ ). The USB 3.2 specification added a second lane to the Enhanced SuperSpeed System besides other enhancements so that the SuperSpeedPlus USB system part implements the Gen 1×2 , Gen 2×1, and Gen 2×2 operation modes. However, the SuperSpeed USB part of the system still implements
957-543: A passive adapter can be made to connect XT cards to a PLUS expansion connector. Another feature of PLUS cards is that they are stackable. Another bus that offered stackable expansion modules was the "sidecar" bus used by the IBM PCjr . This may have been electrically comparable to the XT bus; it most certainly had some similarities since both essentially exposed the 8088 CPU's address and data buses, with some buffering and latching,
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#17327805773301044-642: A second connector for extending the address and data bus over the XT, but was backward compatible; 8-bit cards were still usable in the AT 16-bit slots. Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) became the designation for the IBM AT bus after other types were developed. Users of the ISA bus had to have in-depth knowledge of the hardware they were adding to properly connect the devices, since memory addresses, I/O port addresses, and DMA channels had to be configured by switches or jumpers on
1131-538: A standard to replace virtually all common ports on computers, mobile devices, peripherals, power supplies, and manifold other small electronics. In the current standard, the USB-C connector replaces the many various connectors for power (up to 240 W), displays (e.g. DisplayPort, HDMI), and many other uses, as well as all previous USB connectors. As of 2024, USB consists of four generations of specifications: USB 1. x , USB 2.0 , USB 3. x , and USB4 . USB4 enhances
1218-634: A tethered connection (that is: no plug or receptacle at the peripheral end). There was no known miniature type A connector until USB 2.0 (revision 1.01) introduced one. USB 2.0 was released in April 2000, adding a higher maximum signaling rate of 480 Mbit/s (maximum theoretical data throughput 53 MByte/s ) named High Speed or High Bandwidth , in addition to the USB ;1. x Full Speed signaling rate of 12 Mbit/s (maximum theoretical data throughput 1.2 MByte/s). Modifications to
1305-405: A total of four analog channels and four buttons. These were almost always implemented as two joysticks with two buttons each, but it is also possible to support four paddle controllers each with one button, or a single gamepad with two analog sticks and four buttons using the same inputs. The port includes redundant pins, including a total of four +5 V supplies, and separate grounds for most of
1392-453: A two-axis analog joystick, touchpad , trackball , or mouse (some of these being eventually developed for Atari systems). The Apple II , BBC Micro , TRS-80 Color Computer , and other popular 8-bit machines all used different, incompatible, joysticks and ports. In most respects, the IBM design was similar to, or more advanced than, existing designs. The IBM PC game port first appeared during
1479-508: Is full-duplex ; all earlier implementations, USB 1.0-2.0, are all half-duplex, arbitrated by the host. Low-power and high-power devices remain operational with this standard, but devices implementing SuperSpeed can provide increased current of between 150 mA and 900 mA, by discrete steps of 150 mA. USB 3.0 also introduced the USB Attached SCSI protocol (UASP) , which provides generally faster transfer speeds than
1566-409: Is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an electrical connector , or expansion slot (also referred to as a bus slot) on a computer's motherboard (see also backplane ) to add functionality to a computer system. Sometimes the design of the computer's case and motherboard involves placing most (or all) of these slots onto a separate, removable card. Typically such cards are referred to as
1653-437: Is an industry standard that allows data exchange and delivery of power between many types of electronics. It specifies its architecture, in particular its physical interface , and communication protocols for data transfer and power delivery to and from hosts , such as personal computers , to and from peripheral devices , e.g. displays, keyboards, and mass storage devices, and to and from intermediate hubs , which multiply
1740-412: Is an expansion card that attaches to a system directly. Daughterboards often have plugs, sockets, pins or other attachments for other boards. Daughterboards often have only internal connections within a computer or other electronic devices, and usually access the motherboard directly rather than through a computer bus . Such boards are used to either improve various memory capacities of a computer, enable
1827-497: Is essentially a compact version of the ISA bus. The CardBus expansion card standard is an evolution of the PC card standard to make it into a compact version of the PCI bus. The original ExpressCard standard acts like it is either a USB 2.0 peripheral or a PCI Express 1.x x1 device. ExpressCard 2.0 adds SuperSpeed USB as another type of interface the card can use. Unfortunately, CardBus and ExpressCard are vulnerable to DMA attack unless
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#17327805773301914-402: Is made using two connectors: a receptacle and a plug . Pictures show only receptacles: The Universal Serial Bus was developed to simplify and improve the interface between personal computers and peripheral devices, such as cell phones, computer accessories, and monitors, when compared with previously existing standard or ad hoc proprietary interfaces. From the computer user's perspective,
2001-648: The Apple II co-existed with multi-manufacturer standards. IBM introduced what would retroactively be called the Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus with the IBM PC in 1981. At that time, the technology was called the PC bus . The IBM XT , introduced in 1983, used the same bus (with slight exception). The 8-bit PC and XT bus was extended with the introduction of the IBM AT in 1984. This used
2088-777: The Atari joystick port was close. It was introduced in 1977 with the Atari Video Computer System , and was later used on the VIC-20 (1980), Commodore 64 (1982), and Amstrad's PC1512 (1986). In contrast with the IBM design, the Atari port was primarily designed for digital inputs (including a pair of two-axis/four-contact digital joysticks, each with a single pushbutton trigger). Its only analog connections were intended for paddles -- although, as there were two analog inputs per port, each port could theoretically support
2175-685: The CP/M operating system , the 50-pin expansion slots of the original Apple II computer from 1977 (unique to Apple), IBM's Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) introduced with the IBM PC in 1981, Acorn 's tube expansion bus on the BBC Micro also from 1981, IBM's patented and proprietary Micro Channel architecture (MCA) from 1987 that never won favour in the clone market, the vastly improved Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) that displaced ISA in 1992, and PCI Express from 2003 which abstracts
2262-596: The MPU-401 used their own separate expansion cards and a complex external adapter, whereas the Sound Blaster only required an inexpensive adapter to produce the same result. By the end of the year the Sound Blaster was the best selling expansion card on the PC, and the game port was receiving widespread software support. With the exception of laptops—for which companies released joystick adapters for parallel or serial ports, which needed custom software drivers—through
2349-655: The Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Genesis included expansion buses in some form; In the case of at least the Genesis, the expansion bus was proprietary. In fact, the cartridge slots of many cartridge-based consoles (not counting the Atari 2600 ) would qualify as expansion buses, as they exposed both read and write capabilities of the system's internal bus. However, the expansion modules attached to these interfaces, though functionally
2436-696: The PCMCIA connector, is a PCI format that attaches peripherals to the Host PCI Bus via PCI to PCI Bridge. Cardbus is being supplanted by ExpressCard format. Intel introduced the AGP bus in 1997 as a dedicated video acceleration solution. AGP devices are logically attached to the PCI bus over a PCI-to-PCI bridge. Though termed a bus, AGP usually supports only a single card at a time ( Legacy BIOS support issues). From 2005 PCI Express has been replacing both PCI and AGP. This standard, approved in 2004, implements
2523-661: The VESA Local Bus Standard, were late 1980s expansion buses that were tied but not exclusive to the 80386 and 80486 CPU bus. The PC/104 bus is an embedded bus that copies the ISA bus. Intel launched their PCI bus chipsets along with the P5 -based Pentium CPUs in 1993. The PCI bus was introduced in 1991 as a replacement for ISA. The standard (now at version 3.0) is found on PC motherboards to this day. The PCI standard supports bus bridging: as many as ten daisy-chained PCI buses have been tested. CardBus , using
2610-456: The form factor of the motherboard and case , around one to seven expansion cards can be added to a computer system. 19 or more expansion cards can be installed in backplane systems. When many expansion cards are added to a system, total power consumption and heat dissipation become limiting factors. Some expansion cards take up more than one slot space. For example, many graphics cards on the market as of 2010 are dual slot graphics cards, using
2697-915: The mezzanine of a theatre . Wavetable cards ( sample-based synthesis cards) are often mounted on sound cards in this manner. Some mezzanine card interface standards include the 400 pin FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC); the 172 pin High-Speed Mezzanine Card (HSMC); the PCI Mezzanine Card (PMC); XMC mezzanines; the Advanced Mezzanine Card ; IndustryPacks (VITA 4), the GreenSpring Computers Mezzanine modules ; etc. Examples of daughterboard-style expansion cards include: USB Universal Serial Bus ( USB )
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2784-495: The 5, 10, and 20 Gbit/s capabilities as SuperSpeed USB 5Gbps , SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps , and SuperSpeed USB 20 Gbps , respectively. In 2023, they were replaced again, removing "SuperSpeed" , with USB 5Gbps , USB 10Gbps , and USB 20Gbps . With new Packaging and Port logos. The USB4 specification was released on 29 August 2019 by the USB Implementers Forum. The USB4 2.0 specification
2871-545: The BOT (Bulk-Only-Transfer) protocol. USB 3.1 , released in July 2013 has two variants. The first one preserves USB 3.0's SuperSpeed architecture and protocol and its operation mode is newly named USB 3.1 Gen 1 , and the second version introduces a distinctively new SuperSpeedPlus architecture and protocol with a second operation mode named as USB 3.1 Gen 2 (marketed as SuperSpeed+ USB ). SuperSpeed+ doubles
2958-528: The Gameport, and then measure the time it takes to charge them again by constantly polling Gameport. Using original IBM formula, Time = 24.2 μs + 0.011 (r) μs and assuming 100Kohm potentiometers this process can take up to 1.1ms per readout, or over 60ms if we decide to read joystick position 60 times a second. This significant overhead was the reason why using original Gameport on the PC could consume up to 10% of CPU time independent of CPU speed. Initially there
3045-501: The SuperSpeed USB Developers Conference. USB 3.0 adds a new architecture and protocol named SuperSpeed , with associated backward-compatible plugs, receptacles, and cables. SuperSpeed plugs and receptacles are identified with a distinct logo and blue inserts in standard format receptacles. The SuperSpeed architecture provides for an operation mode at a rate of 5.0 Gbit/s, in addition to
3132-454: The USB 2.0 bus operating in parallel. The USB 3.0 specification defined a new architecture and protocol named SuperSpeed (aka SuperSpeed USB , marketed as SS ), which included a new lane for a new signal coding scheme (8b/10b symbols, 5 Gbit/s; later also known as Gen 1 ) providing full-duplex data transfers that physically required five additional wires and pins, while preserving
3219-416: The USB interface improves ease of use in several ways: The USB standard also provides multiple benefits for hardware manufacturers and software developers, specifically in the relative ease of implementation: As with all standards, USB possesses multiple limitations to its design: For a product developer, using USB requires the implementation of a complex protocol and implies an "intelligent" controller in
3306-401: The USB specification have been made via engineering change notices (ECNs). The most important of these ECNs are included into the USB 2.0 specification package available from USB.org: The USB 3.0 specification was released on 12 November 2008, with its management transferring from USB 3.0 Promoter Group to the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) and announced on 17 November 2008 at
3393-547: The USB 2.0 architecture and protocols and therefore keeping the original four pins/wires for the USB 2.0 backward-compatibility resulting in 9 wires (with 9 or 10 pins at connector interfaces; ID-pin is not wired) in total. The USB 3.1 specification introduced an Enhanced SuperSpeed System – while preserving the SuperSpeed architecture and protocol ( SuperSpeed USB ) – with an additional SuperSpeedPlus architecture and protocol (aka SuperSpeedPlus USB ) adding
3480-582: The addition of interrupts and DMA provided by Intel add-on chips, and a few system fault detection lines (Power Good, Memory Check, I/O Channel Check). Again, PCjr sidecars are not technically expansion cards, but expansion modules, with the only difference being that the sidecar is an expansion card enclosed in a plastic box (with holes exposing the connectors). Laptops are generally unable to accept most expansion cards intended for desktop computers. Consequently, several compact expansion standards were developed. The original PC Card expansion card standard
3567-430: The basic functionality of an electronic device, such as when a certain model has features added to it and is released as a new or separate model. Rather than redesigning the first model completely, a daughterboard may be added to a special connector on the main board. These usually fit on top of and parallel to the board, separated by spacers or standoffs , and are sometimes called mezzanine cards due to being stacked like
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3654-401: The board for limited changes or customization. Since reliable multi-pin connectors are relatively costly, some mass-market systems such as home computers had no expansion slots and instead used a card-edge connector at the edge of the main board, putting the costly matching socket into the cost of the peripheral device. In the case of expansion of on-board capability, a motherboard may provide
3741-423: The buttons. In most similar game ports, like those on the Atari, a single +5 V and ground is used for all the channels. The game port was originally mounted on a dedicated ISA card. Since the early 1990s, when the game port moved from dedicated expansion cards to PC I/O or sound cards , these connectors have usually doubled as connectors for MIDI instruments; two of the redundant +5 V and GND pins of
3828-530: The card to match the settings in driver software. IBM's MCA bus, developed for the PS/2 in 1987, was a competitor to ISA, also their design, but fell out of favor due to the ISA's industry-wide acceptance and IBM's licensing of MCA. EISA, the 32-bit extended version of ISA championed by Compaq , was used on some PC motherboards until 1997, when Microsoft declared it a "legacy" subsystem in the PC 97 industry white-paper. Proprietary local buses (q.v. Compaq) and then
3915-452: The computer to connect to certain kinds of networks that it previously could not connect to, or to allow for users to customize their computers for various purposes such as gaming. Daughterboards are sometimes used in computers in order to allow for expansion cards to fit parallel to the motherboard, usually to maintain a small form factor . This form are also called riser cards , or risers. Daughterboards are also sometimes used to expand
4002-862: The data transfer and power delivery functionality with ... a connection-oriented, tunneling architecture designed to combine multiple protocols onto a single physical interface so that the total speed and performance of the USB4 Fabric can be dynamically shared. USB4 particularly supports the tunneling of the Thunderbolt 3 protocols, namely PCI Express (PCIe, load/store interface) and DisplayPort (display interface). USB4 also adds host-to-host interfaces. Each specification sub-version supports different signaling rates from 1.5 and 12 Mbit/s total in USB 1.0 to 80 Gbit/s (in each direction) in USB4. USB also provides power to peripheral devices;
4089-506: The development of USB in 1995: Compaq , DEC , IBM , Intel , Microsoft , NEC , and Nortel . The goal was to make it fundamentally easier to connect external devices to PCs by replacing the multitude of connectors at the back of PCs, addressing the usability issues of existing interfaces, and simplifying software configuration of all devices connected to USB, as well as permitting greater data transfer rates for external devices and plug and play features. Ajay Bhatt and his team worked on
4176-402: The device during initialization (the period after physical connection called "enumeration") and so are relatively permanent, whereas pipes may be opened and closed. There are two types of pipe: stream and message. When a host starts a data transfer, it sends a TOKEN packet containing an endpoint specified with a tuple of (device_address, endpoint_number) . If the transfer is from the host to
4263-417: The early 1990s, the game port was universally supported on sound cards, and increasingly became built-in features as motherboards added sound support of their own. This remained true through the second half of the 1990s, by which time integrated sound support had displaced the third-party sound card to a large degree. By the early 2000s, such support was so widespread that newer sound cards began to dispense with
4350-563: The early days of the IBM PC, and most games used the keyboard as an input. IBM did not release a joystick of its own for the PC, which did not help. The most common device available was the Kraft joystick, originally developed for the Apple II but easily adapted to the IBM with the addition of another button on the back of the case. When IBM finally did release a joystick, for the IBM PCjr , it
4437-468: The electrical contact between the electronics on the card and on the motherboard. Peripheral expansion cards generally have connectors for external cables. In the PC-compatible personal computer, these connectors were located in the support bracket at the back of the cabinet. Industrial backplane systems had connectors mounted on the top edge of the card, opposite to the backplane pins. Depending on
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#17327805773304524-452: The endpoint, the host sends an OUT packet (a specialization of a TOKEN packet) with the desired device address and endpoint number. If the data transfer is from the device to the host, the host sends an IN packet instead. If the destination endpoint is a uni-directional endpoint whose manufacturer's designated direction does not match the TOKEN packet (e.g. the manufacturer's designated direction
4611-432: The following ECNs: A USB system consists of a host with one or more downstream facing ports (DFP), and multiple peripherals, forming a tiered- star topology . Additional USB hubs may be included, allowing up to five tiers. A USB host may have multiple controllers, each with one or more ports. Up to 127 devices may be connected to a single host controller. USB devices are linked in series through hubs. The hub built into
4698-494: The game port as it was certain the machine they would be used in already had such support, including MIDI. Every Sound Blaster card from the first model up to August 2001 included a game port. In 2001 the Sound Blaster Audigy moved the game port to a second expansion slot, which connected to a header on the card. The introduction of the first USB standard in 1996 was aimed squarely at the sort of roles provided by
4785-484: The game port was given a major boost in usage in 1989, with the introduction of the first Sound Blaster . As sound cards were primarily used with computer games, Creative Labs took the opportunity to include a game port on the card, producing an all-in-one gaming solution. At the same time, they re-purposed two otherwise redundant pins on the port, 12 and 15, to produce a serial bus with enough performance to drive an external MIDI port adapter. Previous MIDI systems like
4872-413: The game port, but initially had little market impact. The subsequent release of the iMac , which featured no legacy ports in favor of USB, started a rapid expansion of USB in the market. This led both to new gaming devices using USB, as well as the profusion of adapters. For instance, the 1997 Microsoft Precision Pro joystick was re-introduced in a version that used a game port connector, but also included
4959-448: The host controller is called the root hub . A USB device may consist of several logical sub-devices that are referred to as device functions . A composite device may provide several functions, for example, a webcam (video device function) with a built-in microphone (audio device function). An alternative to this is a compound device , in which the host assigns each logical device a distinct address and all logical devices connect to
5046-474: The initial launch of the original IBM PC in 1981, in the form of an optional US$ 55 expansion card known as the Game Control Adapter. The design allowed for four analog axes and four buttons on one port, allowing two joysticks or four paddles to be connected via a special "Y-splitter" cable. Originally available only as add-on that took up an entire slot, game ports remained relatively rare in
5133-416: The interconnect into high-speed communication "lanes" and relegates all other functions into software protocol. Vacuum-tube based computers had modular construction, but individual functions for peripheral devices filled a cabinet, not just a printed circuit board. Processor, memory and I/O cards became feasible with the development of integrated circuits . Expansion cards make processor systems adaptable to
5220-414: The laptop has an IOMMU that is configured to thwart these attacks. One notable exception to the above is the inclusion of a single internal slot for a special reduced size version of the desktop standard. The most well known examples are Mini-PCI or Mini PCIe . Such slots were usually intended for a specific purpose such as offering "built-in" wireless networking or upgrading the system at production with
5307-964: The latest versions of the standard extend the power delivery limits for battery charging and devices requiring up to 240 watts ( USB Power Delivery (USB-PD) ). Over the years, USB(-PD) has been adopted as the standard power supply and charging format for many mobile devices, such as mobile phones, reducing the need for proprietary chargers. USB was designed to standardize the connection of peripherals to personal computers, both to exchange data and to supply electric power. It has largely replaced interfaces such as serial ports and parallel ports and has become commonplace on various devices. Peripherals connected via USB include computer keyboards and mice, video cameras, printers, portable media players, mobile (portable) digital telephones, disk drives, and network adapters. USB connectors have been increasingly replacing other types of charging cables for portable devices. USB connector interfaces are classified into three types:
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#17327805773305394-526: The logical PCI protocol over a serial communication interface. PC/104(-Plus) or Mini PCI are often added for expansion on small form factor boards such as Mini-ITX . For their 1000 EX and 1000 HX models, Tandy Computer designed the PLUS expansion interface, an adaptation of the XT-bus supporting cards of a smaller form factor. Because it is electrically compatible with the XT bus (a.k.a. 8-bit ISA or XT-ISA),
5481-614: The many various legacy Type-A (upstream) and Type-B (downstream) connectors found on hosts , hubs , and peripheral devices , and the modern Type-C ( USB-C ) connector, which replaces the many legacy connectors as the only applicable connector for USB4. The Type-A and Type-B connectors came in Standard, Mini, and Micro sizes. The standard format was the largest and was mainly used for desktop and larger peripheral equipment. The Mini-USB connectors (Mini-A, Mini-B, Mini-AB) were introduced for mobile devices. Still, they were quickly replaced by
5568-596: The maximum signaling rate to 10 Gbit/s (later marketed as SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps by the USB 3.2 specification), while reducing line encoding overhead to just 3% by changing the encoding scheme to 128b/132b . USB 3.2 , released in September 2017, preserves existing USB 3.1 SuperSpeed and SuperSpeedPlus architectures and protocols and their respective operation modes, but introduces two additional SuperSpeedPlus operation modes ( USB 3.2 Gen 1×2 and USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 ) with
5655-557: The needs of the user by making it possible to connect various types of devices, including I/O, additional memory, and optional features (such as a floating point unit ) to the central processor. Minicomputers, starting with the PDP-8 , were made of multiple cards communicating through, and powered by, a passive backplane . The first commercial microcomputer to feature expansion slots was the Micral N , in 1973. The first company to establish
5742-508: The new USB-C Fabric with signaling rates of 10 and 20 Gbit/s (raw data rates of 1212 and 2424 MB/s). The increase in bandwidth is a result of two-lane operation over existing wires that were originally intended for flip-flop capabilities of the USB-C connector. Starting with the USB 3.2 specification, USB-IF introduced a new naming scheme. To help companies with the branding of the different operation modes, USB-IF recommended branding
5829-452: The number of a host's ports. Introduced in 1996, USB was originally designed to standardize the connection of peripherals to computers, replacing various interfaces such as serial ports , parallel ports , game ports , and ADB ports. Early versions of USB became commonplace on a wide range of devices, such as keyboards, mice, cameras, printers, scanners, flash drives, smartphones, game consoles, and power banks. USB has since evolved into
5916-537: The one-lane Gen 1×1 operation mode. Therefore, two-lane operations, namely USB 3.2 Gen 1× 2 (10 Gbit/s) and Gen 2× 2 (20 Gbit/s), are only possible with Full-Featured USB-C. As of 2023, they are somewhat rarely implemented; Intel, however, started to include them in its 11th-generation SoC processor models, but Apple never provided them. On the other hand, USB 3.2 Gen 1(×1) (5 Gbit/s) and Gen 2(×1) (10 Gbit/s) have been quite common for some years. Each USB connection
6003-528: The optional functionality as Thunderbolt 4 products. USB4 2.0 with 80 Gbit/s speeds was to be revealed in November 2022. Further technical details were to be released at two USB developer days scheduled for November 2022. The USB4 specification states that the following technologies shall be supported by USB4: Because of the previous confusing naming schemes, USB-IF decided to change it once again. As of 2 September 2022, marketing names follow
6090-457: The options through DirectInput with the "joystick mini-driver" with a number of new capabilities. Among these were support for up to six analog axes, a point-of-view hat, and up to 64 buttons. It also supported up to 16 such devices, which could be connected using any interface, not just the game port. Expansion card In computing , an expansion card (also called an expansion board , adapter card , peripheral card or accessory card )
6177-480: The original Sound Blaster and Sound Blaster Pro) used a proprietary interface that was not compatible with the MPU-401. The analog channels are read by sending voltage into the line, through a potentiometer in the controller, in this case 100,000 ohm, and then into a capacitor. The value is read by timing how long it took for the voltage in the capacitor to cross a certain threshold. The rate varied depending on
6264-660: The original standard were rededicated to MIDI input and output to make this possible. To use a game port with MIDI instruments, a break-out cable with the necessary opto-isolation hardware and compatible connectors is required - typically these consisted of a male and a female DA-15 and two male 5-pin DIN connectors . For many sound cards, the game port midi capabilities were based around the Roland MPU-401 MIDI interface (in UART mode only), however some older sound cards (notably
6351-532: The peripheral device. Developers of USB devices intended for public sale generally must obtain a USB ID, which requires that they pay a fee to the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF). Developers of products that use the USB specification must sign an agreement with the USB-IF. Use of the USB logos on the product requires annual fees and membership in the organization. A group of seven companies began
6438-403: The resistance, and thus physical position, of the potentiometer. In the Atari port, which had similar analog channels, there is a convenient timer available in the form of the video clock circuitry. In the PC there is no similar clock because video functionality is normally provided on an expansion card. Instead, a software routine needs to first trigger capacitor discharge by issuing an IO write to
6525-547: The same as expansion cards, are not technically expansion cards, due to their physical form. The primary purpose of an expansion card is to provide or expand on features not offered by the motherboard. For example, the original IBM PC did not have on-board graphics or hard drive capability. In that case, a graphics card and an ST-506 hard disk controller card provided graphics capability and hard drive interface respectively. Some single-board computers made no provision for expansion cards, and may only have provided IC sockets on
6612-582: The second slot as a place to put an active heat sink with a fan. Some cards are "low-profile" cards, meaning that they are shorter than standard cards and will fit in a lower height computer chassis such as HTPC and SFF . (There is a "low profile PCI card" standard that specifies a much smaller bracket and board area). The group of expansion cards that are used for external connectivity, such as network , SAN or modem cards, are commonly referred to as input/output cards (or I/O cards). A daughterboard , daughtercard , mezzanine board or piggyback board
6699-542: The standard at Intel; the first integrated circuits supporting USB were produced by Intel in 1995. Released in January 1996, USB 1.0 specified signaling rates of 1.5 Mbit/s ( Low Bandwidth or Low Speed ) and 12 Mbit/s ( Full Speed ). It did not allow for extension cables, due to timing and power limitations. Few USB devices made it to the market until USB 1.1 was released in August 1998. USB 1.1
6786-481: The syntax "USB x Gbps", where x is the speed of transfer in Gbit/s. Overview of the updated names and logos can be seen in the adjacent table. The operation modes USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 and USB4 Gen 2×2 – or: USB 3.2 Gen 2×1 and USB4 Gen 2×1 – are not interchangeable or compatible; all participating controllers must operate with the same mode. This version incorporates
6873-415: The thinner Micro-USB connectors (Micro-A, Micro-B, Micro-AB). The Type-C connector, also known as USB-C, is not exclusive to USB, is the only current standard for USB, is required for USB4, and is required by other standards, including modern DisplayPort and Thunderbolt. It is reversible and can support various functionalities and protocols, including USB; some are mandatory, and many are optional, depending on
6960-489: The three existing operation modes. Its efficiency is dependent on a number of factors including physical symbol encoding and link-level overhead. At a 5 Gbit/s signaling rate with 8b/10b encoding , each byte needs 10 bits to transmit, so the raw throughput is 500 MB/s. When flow control, packet framing and protocol overhead are considered, it is realistic for about two thirds of the raw throughput, or 330 MB/s to transmit to an application. SuperSpeed's architecture
7047-468: The type of hardware: host, peripheral device, or hub. USB specifications provide backward compatibility, usually resulting in decreased signaling rates, maximal power offered, and other capabilities. The USB 1.1 specification replaces USB 1.0. The USB 2.0 specification is backward-compatible with USB 1.0/1.1. The USB 3.2 specification replaces USB 3.1 (and USB 3.0) while including the USB 2.0 specification. USB4 "functionally replaces" USB 3.2 while retaining
7134-400: The user. Other computer buses were used for industrial control, instruments, and scientific systems. One specific example is HP-IB (or Hewlett Packard Interface Bus) which was ultimately standardized as IEEE-488 (aka GPIB). Some well-known historical standards include VMEbus , STD Bus , SBus (specific to Sun's SPARCStations), and numerous others. Many other video game consoles such as
7221-627: Was a version of the Kraft stick. However, it connected to the computer using two incompatible 7-pin connectors, which were mechanically connected together as part of a larger multi-pin connector on the back of the machine. This eliminated the need for the Y-adapter. Adapters for Atari-style "digital" sticks were also common during this era. The game port became somewhat more common in the mid-1980s, as improving electronic density began to produce expansion cards with ever-increasing functionality. By 1983, it
7308-400: Was common to see cards combining memory, game ports, serial and parallel ports and a realtime clock on a single expansion card. The era of combo expansion cards largely came to an end by the late 1980s, as many of the separate functions normally provided on plug-in boards became common features of the motherboard itself. Game ports were not always part of this supported set of ports. However,
7395-588: Was no standardized software for running the joysticks; applications would poll the known ports associated with the sticks as part of their game loop. This did, however, leave the implementation of a lot of housekeeping tasks to every application that used them, such as looking for and enumerating the active devices, and calibrating them. This changed in Windows 95 , which introduced standardized Windows Registry entries to hold these values and make it easier for applications to find these devices. DirectX further expanded
7482-524: Was released on 1 September 2022 by the USB Implementers Forum. USB4 is based on the Thunderbolt 3 protocol. It supports 40 Gbit/s throughput, is compatible with Thunderbolt 3, and backward compatible with USB 3.2 and USB 2.0. The architecture defines a method to share a single high-speed link with multiple end device types dynamically that best serves the transfer of data by type and application. During CES 2020 , USB-IF and Intel stated their intention to allow USB4 products that support all
7569-434: Was the earliest revision that was widely adopted and led to what Microsoft designated the " Legacy-free PC ". Neither USB 1.0 nor 1.1 specified a design for any connector smaller than the standard type A or type B. Though many designs for a miniaturized type B connector appeared on many peripherals, conformity to the USB 1. x standard was hampered by treating peripherals that had miniature connectors as though they had
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