Do you ever wonder why nearly every external device you connect to a PC uses a USB port?
Well the simple answer is, because that's a lot better than the way it used to be.
Before USB was around, we had a whole litany of port types, so today we're going to show you
just how annoying it could be to connect your electronics back in the 80s and 90s.
Let's start out with a port some of you might still be familiar with today, the PS2 port.
This chocolate chip cookie looking little guy was introduced not with the PlayStation,
but in 1987 on the IBM Personal System Slash 2.
It replaced an older connector called the DIN, which was originally an audio connector from the
1950s, but was used as the keyboard connector on the original IBM PC, as well as a tape drive
connector on the IBM PC Junior, which was like the IBM PC, but more naive.
Once PS2 took over, it was common for systems to include two of them, one for your keyboard and
one for your mouse, and color code them purple and green respectively, since each port was
often coded at a low level to only work with that specific device.
The PS2 port was useful back in the day because it provided a dedicated link on the motherboard
for mice, something older systems didn't always have.
But seeing as how USB provided an equally easy way to connect them,
PS2 ports aren't that common anymore, especially as their pin-based design made them more fragile
than the typical USB port, and they're not technically meant to be hot swapped.
However, PS2 ports can still be found on some modern motherboards, usually as a combined
keyboard and mouse port, and that's because they do still have some advantages.
PS2 tends to work more reliably with some older BIOSes, and in settings where security is paramount,
PS2 ports allow an organization to just disable all USB ports on their computers
to ensure people aren't connecting things like unauthorized flash drives.
But the PS2 connector wasn't the only connector for keyboards and mice during the late 80s.
This thing is called the Apple Desktop Bus, found on Apple systems starting in 1986.
But it supported more peripherals, like joysticks and graphics tablets,
and could even be daisy-chained. But this port too was replaced by USB once the original iMac came out.
But let's move on from keyboards and mice and talk about what the heck these things are.
Instead of being intended for a specific use like the keyboard and mouse ports we've discussed,
this guy was kind of the OG do-it-all connection.
It's called a serial port, and just like today's USB ports, it's sent or received data one bit at a time.
Serial ports were used for all sorts of things. Not only could you connect a mouse to them, but people used them for modems, routers, PC to PC connections,
uninterruptible power supplies, text displays, and even old-school smart home hubs.
Although the serial port can still be found today in some specialized applications,
older implementations of the port were quite limited in real-world speed to around 9600 bits per second,
which, in addition to its clunky design, contributed to its downfall and the rise of USB.
Now this big chonker is called a parallel port, also more specifically known as a printer port or
1284 port, and was typically labeled LPT followed by a number in Windows.
As the name suggests, it was mainly used for connecting printers and was fairly ubiquitous
for this purpose during the 1990s. Although there were some printers that could connect through the
aforementioned serial port, the parallel port became more popular because it could deliver
both data and control signals to the printer at the same time. What? Technology.
A few other data-heavy devices, including optical drives, zip drives, and even a few MP3 players,
also used the parallel port because it could move more data than the serial port. However,
it still couldn't do more than around a couple of megabytes per second at most. At high speeds,
it becomes difficult to keep the multiple data streams of a parallel connection synchronized,
which was part of the reason that the parallel port also became displaced by USB,
a much faster serial connection. However, both parallel and serial ports are still in use in
some industrial and scientific applications as they provide simple interfaces that just work
with older equipment. Finally, we'd like to say a few words about the game port. Somewhere between
the parallel and serial ports and physical size, this was a common way to connect joysticks and
game paddles in the 1980s and 90s. In the mid-1980s, game ports were often included on expansion
cards that also contained other types of ports. But during the 1990s, game ports became very popular,
as it was typical for them to be placed on sound cards. And seeing as gamers were a key market for
better sound quality, the game port was a natural choice for a cool value add. Does that mean those
sound cards were technically dongles? Hmm. However, the game port could only support a limited number
of buttons without a specialized driver. And on top of that, it was an analog connection,
leaving joysticks vulnerable to electrical noise that could mess with your inputs.
USB's digital nature, which allowed easier support for fancier controllers, meant the game port fell
out of fashion quickly during the 2000s. And Windows dropped native support for it starting
with Vista. You know, because they had to make room for the important things. Did you use another
gone but not forgotten port before the days of USB? Comment down below and you might see your
submission in a future episode. But as for this episode, it's over. Thanks for watching. Hey,
like the video if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it. Check out our other videos,
comment below with video suggestions, and don't forget to subscribe and follow
using the peripheral of your choice. It could use you at USB, it could not. I don't know.