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> The iMac gets remembered for a lot of things, and rightly so, but it doesn’t get enough credit for essentially kick-starting the USB revolution That's not tr

> The iMac gets remembered for a lot of things, and rightly so, but it doesn’t get enough credit for essentially kick-starting the USB revolution That's not true. USB ports were already standard before the iMac release. A quick check of old PC World magazines from Dec-97 for example shows it. The iMac was released in Aug-98. Apple innovated a lot, but frequently get credit for many that didn't come from them.

sosborn 3y ago
"Kick-starting the USB revolution" doesn't mean the same thing as "innovation." They only included USB on the original iMac, which was a death-knell for the legacy connectors, and quite controversial at the time given the iMac's place in the cultural zeitgeist.
- green_leaves 3y ago
  I pretty much see adoption of technology as innovation. Not technical innovation for sure, but innovation in the sense of significant improvement over other solutions. Don't you consider the original Mac adoption of the 3.5" floppy drive as innovation?
  - LanceH 3y ago
    No, it's forced adoption. You have a houseful of 5.25" and need a new computer and have no options now. That's hardly innovative.
krger 3y ago
>USB ports were already standard before the iMac release. A quick check of old PC World magazines from Dec-97 for example shows it. The iMac was released in Aug-98. Yes. USB ports certainly existed on PCs prior to the iMac's release in August 1998 and announcement in May 1998. They were, however, largely unused because of a lack of mass-market USB peripherals. Keyboards and mice used PS/2 ports. Printers (and ZIP drives!) used parallel ports. More expensive peripherals (storage and scanners) used SCSI. A handful of other devices used RS-232 serial. Go back to those old PC World magazines and look for the mass-market USB peripherals available for sale and let me know what you find. Starting with the iMac-inspired Cambrian explosion in USB peripherals and for a rather lengthy period of time measured in years afterwards, it was actually rather difficult to find USB peripherals that were not made out of translucent plastic to match iMacs. Apple wasn't the first to market with USB (and Snell didn't claim it was), but Apple most certainly drove its mass-market adoption.
- green_leaves 3y ago
  USB ports not only existed, but were standard in new PCs. A quick search shows peripherals and monitors with USB hubs in PC World May-1998 (4/5 months before iMac launch). From that months number (Pages 172-184): "UNTIL RECENTLY , USB hardware was as scarce as hen's teeth . Now, after almost two years of foot-dragging, hardware companies are fina ll y delivering peripherals. We tested 18 of these new products" Among the products there are keyboards, mouses, joysticks, cameras, scanners, speakers... you name it. >Apple wasn't the first to market with USB (and Snell didn't claim it was), but Apple most certainly drove its mass-market adoption. Sure they were scarcely used, support began with Windows 95 OSR 2 in Aug-97. And relatively new computers were only a fraction of the market. But the real market driver was the PC. https://vintageapple.org/pcworld/ https://vintageapple.org/pcworld/ Edited to add link and page reference.
  - xenadu02 3y ago
    You can attempt to rewrite history all you like but as someone who lived it there was a clear shift in the market pre-iMac and post-iMac. Less than a year after the iMac shipped there was at least an order of magnitude more USB devices than had been available previously. Every manufacturer jumped on the bandwagon. Funny enough you can't even question it - a ton of those devices used iMac-like translucency, color, or both. I was a diehard PC user way back then but even I wasn't shameless enough to claim the iMac had nothing to do with pushing USB forward.
    - green_leaves 3y ago
      The change to USB was on the move already much before the iMac launches. Just check magazines since the end of 97, there are reviews of products before the launch. The iMac rode the wave with the rest. Sure a few USB peripherals would have been made translucent, so what?
      - xenadu02 3y ago
        I'm not saying the iMac was the sole driver of USB adoption nor even the majority of it... but it definitely had an impact far larger than the Mac's tiny marketshare at the time would otherwise indicate. A big enough impact to help drive USB adoption overall. So many peripherals were still PS/2 (for mice), parallel (eg Zip/Tape drives), or serial (soooooo many things especially bespoke, industrial, or specialized equipment). Think about it: do all PCs have USB ports? Definitely not. Do all PCs have a serial port? 99% yes. You're a manufacturer making a non-top-100 product. Do you use the new-fangled USB or do you use a serial FIFO? Obviously you use serial. That maximizes your audience. But the iMac changed the thinking: This new iMac thing is hot. Seems like Apple is on the rise again. If I want to sell to these customers (who are more affluent and known to buy more software/accessories) I don't have a choice: it must be USB. I know the majority of the PC install base doesn't have USB yet but most new PCs do so I can still reach a lot of the PC audience. So the next version of my product uses USB (or a USB-FIFO bridge). As more of the market switched to USB even existing PC users installed USB expansion cards. Would USB have eventually gotten there? Yes. Would it have done so as quickly? I don't think so. The wide-open nature of the PC has always been both its boon and bane. See the many attempts to supplant x86 in the PC world, the several attempts to replace or expand ISA before PCI, etc.
philistine 3y ago
What you're completely sidestepping is that the iMac did not just have USB ports, it only had USB ports. They retired all the legacy ports at the same time as they moved to USB. Forcing all their users to move to USB for peripherals. That was the big difference.
- green_leaves 3y ago
  I'm not sidestepping it. My point was of mass market adoption and innovation. I remember testing the original iMac at a computer trade fair back in it's day, and I was not impressed at all. For me it was a cheap looking plastic computer that didn't have a floppy drive (but hey they sold you one) and _forced_ you into an integrated monitor.
  - philistine 3y ago
    Your opinion doesn’t change the fact that USB was niche before Apple went all in on USB. When people give praise to Apple for making something mainstream that’s all they mean. Apple has a tendency to set trends and be rewarded for that.
    - green_leaves 3y ago
      Check my other comment for data and arguments. USB was already pretty much standard in new PCs and all kind of peripherals were available many months before iMac release. By the time the iMac was released the yearly computer sales were in the 90 million range >90% PCs, easily were 10s of millions of PCs USB equipped by Aug-1998. I find it hard to justify that a computer that sold 5 million units over 3 years made USB mainstream. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2001/04/19Apple-Ships-5-Millionth-iMac/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2001/04/19Apple-Ships-5-Milli... Edit typo.
      - detourdog 3y ago
        There were no/barely any working PC devices because the hardware is only half the battle the rest is software.
detourdog 3y ago
They may have been standard I have my doubts. What standard config was it? Until 1998 there weren't many USB peripherals if any.
- green_leaves 3y ago
  You can see USB ports in computer adverstised in the magazine I linked. Laptops and desktops alike. A majority of PC chipsets had support for it since at least Aug97: https://www.anandtech.com/show/72 https://www.anandtech.com/show/72 It's true however that until year change 97/98 USB devices were very rare. Windows got support half a year before in Aug97.

sosborn 3y ago

"Kick-starting the USB revolution" doesn't mean the same thing as "innovation." They only included USB on the original iMac, which was a death-knell for the legacy connectors, and quite controversial at the time given the iMac's place in the cultural zeitgeist.

green_leaves 3y ago
I pretty much see adoption of technology as innovation. Not technical innovation for sure, but innovation in the sense of significant improvement over other solutions. Don't you consider the original Mac adoption of the 3.5" floppy drive as innovation?
- LanceH 3y ago
  No, it's forced adoption. You have a houseful of 5.25" and need a new computer and have no options now. That's hardly innovative.

krger 3y ago

>USB ports were already standard before the iMac release. A quick check of old PC World magazines from Dec-97 for example shows it. The iMac was released in Aug-98. Yes. USB ports certainly existed on PCs prior to the iMac's release in August 1998 and announcement in May 1998. They were, however, largely unused because of a lack of mass-market USB peripherals. Keyboards and mice used PS/2 ports. Printers (and ZIP drives!) used parallel ports. More expensive peripherals (storage and scanners) used SCSI. A handful of other devices used RS-232 serial. Go back to those old PC World magazines and look for the mass-market USB peripherals available for sale and let me know what you find. Starting with the iMac-inspired Cambrian explosion in USB peripherals and for a rather lengthy period of time measured in years afterwards, it was actually rather difficult to find USB peripherals that were not made out of translucent plastic to match iMacs. Apple wasn't the first to market with USB (and Snell didn't claim it was), but Apple most certainly drove its mass-market adoption.

green_leaves 3y ago
USB ports not only existed, but were standard in new PCs. A quick search shows peripherals and monitors with USB hubs in PC World May-1998 (4/5 months before iMac launch). From that months number (Pages 172-184): "UNTIL RECENTLY , USB hardware was as scarce as hen's teeth . Now, after almost two years of foot-dragging, hardware companies are fina ll y delivering peripherals. We tested 18 of these new products" Among the products there are keyboards, mouses, joysticks, cameras, scanners, speakers... you name it. >Apple wasn't the first to market with USB (and Snell didn't claim it was), but Apple most certainly drove its mass-market adoption. Sure they were scarcely used, support began with Windows 95 OSR 2 in Aug-97. And relatively new computers were only a fraction of the market. But the real market driver was the PC. https://vintageapple.org/pcworld/ https://vintageapple.org/pcworld/ Edited to add link and page reference.
- xenadu02 3y ago
  You can attempt to rewrite history all you like but as someone who lived it there was a clear shift in the market pre-iMac and post-iMac. Less than a year after the iMac shipped there was at least an order of magnitude more USB devices than had been available previously. Every manufacturer jumped on the bandwagon. Funny enough you can't even question it - a ton of those devices used iMac-like translucency, color, or both. I was a diehard PC user way back then but even I wasn't shameless enough to claim the iMac had nothing to do with pushing USB forward.
  - green_leaves 3y ago
    The change to USB was on the move already much before the iMac launches. Just check magazines since the end of 97, there are reviews of products before the launch. The iMac rode the wave with the rest. Sure a few USB peripherals would have been made translucent, so what?
    - xenadu02 3y ago
      I'm not saying the iMac was the sole driver of USB adoption nor even the majority of it... but it definitely had an impact far larger than the Mac's tiny marketshare at the time would otherwise indicate. A big enough impact to help drive USB adoption overall. So many peripherals were still PS/2 (for mice), parallel (eg Zip/Tape drives), or serial (soooooo many things especially bespoke, industrial, or specialized equipment). Think about it: do all PCs have USB ports? Definitely not. Do all PCs have a serial port? 99% yes. You're a manufacturer making a non-top-100 product. Do you use the new-fangled USB or do you use a serial FIFO? Obviously you use serial. That maximizes your audience. But the iMac changed the thinking: This new iMac thing is hot. Seems like Apple is on the rise again. If I want to sell to these customers (who are more affluent and known to buy more software/accessories) I don't have a choice: it must be USB. I know the majority of the PC install base doesn't have USB yet but most new PCs do so I can still reach a lot of the PC audience. So the next version of my product uses USB (or a USB-FIFO bridge). As more of the market switched to USB even existing PC users installed USB expansion cards. Would USB have eventually gotten there? Yes. Would it have done so as quickly? I don't think so. The wide-open nature of the PC has always been both its boon and bane. See the many attempts to supplant x86 in the PC world, the several attempts to replace or expand ISA before PCI, etc.

philistine 3y ago

What you're completely sidestepping is that the iMac did not just have USB ports, it only had USB ports. They retired all the legacy ports at the same time as they moved to USB. Forcing all their users to move to USB for peripherals. That was the big difference.

green_leaves 3y ago
I'm not sidestepping it. My point was of mass market adoption and innovation. I remember testing the original iMac at a computer trade fair back in it's day, and I was not impressed at all. For me it was a cheap looking plastic computer that didn't have a floppy drive (but hey they sold you one) and _forced_ you into an integrated monitor.
- philistine 3y ago
  Your opinion doesn’t change the fact that USB was niche before Apple went all in on USB. When people give praise to Apple for making something mainstream that’s all they mean. Apple has a tendency to set trends and be rewarded for that.
  - green_leaves 3y ago
    Check my other comment for data and arguments. USB was already pretty much standard in new PCs and all kind of peripherals were available many months before iMac release. By the time the iMac was released the yearly computer sales were in the 90 million range >90% PCs, easily were 10s of millions of PCs USB equipped by Aug-1998. I find it hard to justify that a computer that sold 5 million units over 3 years made USB mainstream. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2001/04/19Apple-Ships-5-Millionth-iMac/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2001/04/19Apple-Ships-5-Milli... Edit typo.
    - detourdog 3y ago
      There were no/barely any working PC devices because the hardware is only half the battle the rest is software.

detourdog 3y ago

They may have been standard I have my doubts. What standard config was it? Until 1998 there weren't many USB peripherals if any.

green_leaves 3y ago
You can see USB ports in computer adverstised in the magazine I linked. Laptops and desktops alike. A majority of PC chipsets had support for it since at least Aug97: https://www.anandtech.com/show/72 https://www.anandtech.com/show/72 It's true however that until year change 97/98 USB devices were very rare. Windows got support half a year before in Aug97.