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USB Explained

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USB Explained

Book

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Description

  • Copyright 1999
  • Dimensions: 7" x 9-1/4"
  • Edition: 1st
  • Book
  • ISBN-10: 0-13-081153-X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0-13-081153-0

Now, there's a complete guide to making the most of USB, the new serial bus standard that handles everything from joysticks to live video at breathtaking speeds. Co-authored by the best-selling author of RS-232 Made Easy, this book is written in layman's terms for every interested computer user -- and it's comprehensive enough for hardware and software developers who need a readable companion to the standards documents. You'll find detailed coverage of USB hosts, devices, bus interconnects, hubs and protocols; hardware and peripheral setup, troubleshooting and more. Review USB support in Windows 98, Windows 95B and other operating systems. Detailed appendices provide more information about the USB spec, Internet-based resources, and a source list for USB devices and software.

Sample Content

Table of Contents



1. Introduction.

Why a book about USB? Just What Is the Universal Serial Bus? What Can I Do with It? Laying It All Out. What Kinds of Devices Are There?. Wrapping It Up.



2. USB Concepts.

Why a new Serial Port? What are the advantages of using the USB? What is a Bus? Serial vs. Parallel. Speeds of Buses. Protocols. Sustained vs. Burst Throughput. Buses vs. Ports vs. Slots vs. Cables vs. Interfaces. Local Buses. ISA/EISA/Microchannel Architecture. PCI Chipsets. What Is a Serial Bus? What are the Pieces of a USB? The USB Protocols. How Much data Can the USB handle? What Are Pipes and Endpoints? How Does software fit in? How Do the Pieces fit together? Wrapping It Up.



3. USB Inside Your Computer.

What Does a USB Host Controller Do? The Host Software. Initialization. Pipe Usage. Talking to Devices. The Host Controller. Configuration and Plug-n-Play. Getting the Current Configuration. Pipe and Bandwidth Management. Handling Errors. Wrapping It Up.



4. Inside a USB Hub.

What does a USB Hub do? How Hubs handle Packets. Maintaining State on Ports. Bus Signaling Behavior. Fault Recovery in the Hub. Power-Management Functions. Hub-Reset Behavior. Hub Power Distribution. Hub Endpoint Configuration. Wrapping It Up.



5. Inside a USB Device.

What does a USB Device do? USB Device States. Bus Enumeration. USB Device Operations. Device Requests. Descriptors. Wrapping It Up.



6. On the Wire.

The USB Protocols. Packet Formats. Token Packets. Transaction Formats. Data Toggle Synchronization. Low-Speed Signaling. Error Detection and Recovery. Wrapping It Up.



7. USB in the Windows World.

Introduction. USB Software Architecture. USB Driver Loading. USB Enumeration. The User Interface. Wrapping It Up.



8. Frequently Asked Questions.

What Do You Want to Know? What Is the Universal Serial Bus? The USB Protocols. What Kind of Devices Can I Plug into the Universal Serial Bus? What Do USB Plugs and Ports Look Like? Will I Need Special Software to Run USB? Is USB Available on Laptop Computers in Addition to Desktops? What Are the Best Applications for USB? Will Traditional PC Serial and Parallel Ports Disappear? Does USB Affect the Cost of PCs and Peripheral Devices? How Many USB Peripherals Can I Connect at Once? How Can I Plug my RS-232 and Parallel-Port Devices Into My Computer's USB Port? What Is Isochrony and Why Is It Important? What Does the USB Mean to Peripherals and Computer Vendors? Where Can I get the Latest Revision of the USB Specifications? How Many USB-Compliant Computers Will Be Available to Buy? What Is the USB-IF.



Appendix A. USB Device and Tool Manufacturers.

Audio/Speakers. Cables. Cameras. Connectors. Telephone and CTI. Gamepads and Joysticks. Hubs. ISDN. Keyboards and Mice. Modems. Monitors. Networking. Printers. Scanners. Test and Measurement. Tools.



Appendix B. Glossary of USB Terms.


Appendix C. USB Cables and Common Industry-Standard Cables.

USB Cables. Null Modem Cables. Standard IBM PC and Compatibles Cables. Standard Macintosh and Compatibles Cables.



Appendix D. Common Connectors, Pinouts, and Numbering Schemes for USB and Other Ports.

D Connectors.



Appendix E. Description of common buses.

The PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) Bus. The EISA Bus. The ISA and PC/104 Bus. VESA Local Bus (VLB). Multibus I.



Appendix F. Pinouts of Common Buses and Ports.

Audio/Video. Buses. Drives (Disk/Tape/CD). Joysticks and Mice. Keyboards. Networking. Parallel Ports. Serial Ports.



Index.

Preface

Preface

What Is This Book?
This is a book about the Universal Serial Bus, or USB. The USB was designed by the computer industry to replace the ailing and ancient RS-232 serial-port technology. The USB is bigger, faster, and better. It's built to handle the demands of audio and video. It's built to be hot pluggable. It's built to be plug-n-play. It's built to host a hundred or more devices at the same time, though it works wonderfully well with just a single device or two. Finally, it's built to be inexpensive enough to seamlessly become a part of the personal computer without burdening the PC owners.
This book explains exactly what the USB is and how it works. It does not explain how to write software for the USB. We'll leave it up to Sun, Apple, and Microsoft to tell us how to write code for their platforms. This is a "concepts" book. If you want to know how it works under the hood, then you picked up the right book. You will get a lot of detail about how the bus and its devices all communicate and keep things straight, but you won't see any state or timing diagrams that require an engineering degree to understand.

Who Is This Book For?
The book was written first and foremost with the curious end user in mind— someone who wants to understand how the USB works under the hood. It is technical enough, however, and explores the standard well enough that it will make an ideal companion to the USB specification for practicing engineers and software developers. In short, this book is for anyone who wants a complete treatment of the Universal Serial Bus in easy-to-understand terms.

Organization
The book takes a top-down approach to the Universal Serial Bus. The first two chapters provide an overview of the USB in general and the USB within a host computer in particular. Chapter 3 talks about setting up USB hardware and all the issues associated with that. Chapter 4 takes us inside a USB Hub. Chapter 5 takes us inside a USB Device. Chapter 6 is dedicated to explaining what actually happens "on the wire"— the USB protocols that keep everything communicating. The main part of the book is rounded out with chapters describing USB on the most popular computer operating systems (Chapter 7) and answering frequently asked questions (Chapter 8). Appendix A provides a comprehensive list of where to go for USB devices and software. Appendices C through F cover some of the more technical aspects of the USB protocols. Readers are encouraged to read and understand the material in Chapter 2, "USB Concepts," and then go to the part of the book that describes what is of particular interest to them. A complete treatment of the subject, though, should include review of each chapter.

Universal Serial Bus Standards and Terminology
This book describes the Universal Serial Bus as described in version 1.0 of the Universal Serial Bus Specification from the USB Implementers Forum. Even though the book does not mirror the organization of the specification, every attempt is made to be consistent with the terminology and concepts used in the specification. Inconsistent terminology is used in a few instances when it makes a concept or technique easier to understand; terminology from the standard is included also. The terms "Universal Serial Bus" and "USB" are interchangeable within this work.

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