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Before the first iMac arrived with only USB ports and thereby forced peripheral makers to support USB, USB just wasn't all that common even in the Windows world

by ben_w 7mo ago

Before the first iMac arrived with only USB ports and thereby forced peripheral makers to support USB, USB just wasn't all that common even in the Windows world: why would a 1997 manufacturer bother with USB when all the machines already had all the other ports we here in 2026 find subsumed into USB? But only a few years later, as you say, USB thumb drives were making Zip drives irrelevant.

acdha 7mo ago
USB was slooooooow in comparison to SCSI or later FireWire, though, so that took a hardware generations to really catch on. I think the network effect was more a question of who had tons of data: for example, all of the graphic design shops had Zip or Jazz drives because they needed to schlep client deliverables around so you could just assume they had the hardware. Most people weren’t generating that much data before digital cameras became common.
sublinear 7mo ago
Was it really the iMac that did it? I don't think I remember anyone saying that until recent years. Around the time of the first iMac, just about every home PC already had a pair of USB 1.1 ports because of Windows 98 and a lot more plug and play support. What I recall being sold for Mac were FireWire peripherals back in the late 90s and most of the 2000s. By 2000, USB 2.0 was too good to ignore and addressed all the pain points manufacturers had with USB 1.1 being too slow. That's when I remember USB drives finally being practical and mainstream.
- swiftcoder 7mo ago
  The iMac certainly accelerated the adoption curve. There were USB ports on other PCs, but since they also had normal (at the time) ports, no PC users were going out and buying all-new USB peripherals. Apple's decision to leave out all the other ports meant that a bunch of folks were forced to buy new USB peripherals (and/or adapters), and gave peripheral manufacturers a dedicated market for USB
  - sublinear 7mo ago
    I'm not really convinced. It seems that even Apple quickly caved in and put FireWire on the G3 iMac when they updated the design to a slot loader in 1999. I don't have anything against Apple, but USB before the 2000s was pretty bad. It seems weird that people are now thinking otherwise.
    - swiftcoder 7mo ago
      > but USB before the 2000s was pretty bad Indeed. So bad that no one apart from Apple would have tried to go all-in on it. I doubt things like USB mice and keyboards would ever have happened if Apple didn't give it a kick in the behind Firewire was indeed a nice addition when that came along, but it always remained the domain of pricey high-bandwidth devices.
      - sublinear 7mo ago
        I did some more digging to find out that the infamous BSOD demo with Bill Gates on stage was meant to show off plug and play on Windows 98. It was caused by a USB scanner. This happened 4 months before the release date of the first iMac. https://youtube.com/watch?v=IW7Rqwwth84 https://youtube.com/watch?v=IW7Rqwwth84
        swiftcoder 7mo ago
        Yeah, I mean, I don't disagree with any of this, I just don't think any vendor in the PC world was prepared to rip the PS/2 and serial ports off their motherboards, and tell all the peripheral manufacturers to go take a hike
    - ben_w 7mo ago
      Sure. The point I was claiming was not Apple being first nor early USB being good, though I don't speak for swiftcoder. When Firewire was introduced, it wasn't ever popular enough to get the self-sustaining popularity loop of "all the machines have it" <-> "all the peripheral makers support it". Apple made that happen for USB. Not because USB was amazing in 1997, but because it was the only thing on what was then the cheapest new Mac.
- ben_w 7mo ago
  IIRC, the Mac magazines I read at the time were making this claim. The magazines may have been wrong and their claims turned into an urban legend in the meantime, but it's part of the general sense of what I recall from, ugh, nearly 30 years back now.

by ben_w 7mo ago

acdha 7mo ago

USB was slooooooow in comparison to SCSI or later FireWire, though, so that took a hardware generations to really catch on. I think the network effect was more a question of who had tons of data: for example, all of the graphic design shops had Zip or Jazz drives because they needed to schlep client deliverables around so you could just assume they had the hardware. Most people weren’t generating that much data before digital cameras became common.

sublinear 7mo ago

Was it really the iMac that did it? I don't think I remember anyone saying that until recent years. Around the time of the first iMac, just about every home PC already had a pair of USB 1.1 ports because of Windows 98 and a lot more plug and play support. What I recall being sold for Mac were FireWire peripherals back in the late 90s and most of the 2000s. By 2000, USB 2.0 was too good to ignore and addressed all the pain points manufacturers had with USB 1.1 being too slow. That's when I remember USB drives finally being practical and mainstream.

swiftcoder 7mo ago
The iMac certainly accelerated the adoption curve. There were USB ports on other PCs, but since they also had normal (at the time) ports, no PC users were going out and buying all-new USB peripherals. Apple's decision to leave out all the other ports meant that a bunch of folks were forced to buy new USB peripherals (and/or adapters), and gave peripheral manufacturers a dedicated market for USB
- sublinear 7mo ago
  I'm not really convinced. It seems that even Apple quickly caved in and put FireWire on the G3 iMac when they updated the design to a slot loader in 1999. I don't have anything against Apple, but USB before the 2000s was pretty bad. It seems weird that people are now thinking otherwise.
  - swiftcoder 7mo ago
    > but USB before the 2000s was pretty bad Indeed. So bad that no one apart from Apple would have tried to go all-in on it. I doubt things like USB mice and keyboards would ever have happened if Apple didn't give it a kick in the behind Firewire was indeed a nice addition when that came along, but it always remained the domain of pricey high-bandwidth devices.
    - sublinear 7mo ago
      I did some more digging to find out that the infamous BSOD demo with Bill Gates on stage was meant to show off plug and play on Windows 98. It was caused by a USB scanner. This happened 4 months before the release date of the first iMac. https://youtube.com/watch?v=IW7Rqwwth84 https://youtube.com/watch?v=IW7Rqwwth84
      - swiftcoder 7mo ago
        Yeah, I mean, I don't disagree with any of this, I just don't think any vendor in the PC world was prepared to rip the PS/2 and serial ports off their motherboards, and tell all the peripheral manufacturers to go take a hike
  - ben_w 7mo ago
    Sure. The point I was claiming was not Apple being first nor early USB being good, though I don't speak for swiftcoder. When Firewire was introduced, it wasn't ever popular enough to get the self-sustaining popularity loop of "all the machines have it" <-> "all the peripheral makers support it". Apple made that happen for USB. Not because USB was amazing in 1997, but because it was the only thing on what was then the cheapest new Mac.
ben_w 7mo ago
IIRC, the Mac magazines I read at the time were making this claim. The magazines may have been wrong and their claims turned into an urban legend in the meantime, but it's part of the general sense of what I recall from, ugh, nearly 30 years back now.