3 ms·

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

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.

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.