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by sublinear 57 days 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.
2 comments
ben_w 57 days 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.

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sublinear 56 days ago
> Apple made that happen for USB

Yup I do think that's true for Mac users, and questioning Apple fans' just-so stories are usually worthwhile to anyone curious. They sure do keep history alive and well. I mean, hey, The Beatles made an entire career out of doing that with their fans!

I just realized this month was Apple's 50th anniversary, so that's likely part of why this is making the rounds. I guess I have my answer.

Probably also worth noting the list of founding members of the USB-IF did not include Apple (not surprising). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_Implementers_Forum

The motivations behind the "legacy-free PC" has its own Wikipedia page too which is pretty neat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy-free_PC

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swiftcoder 57 days 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.

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sublinear 57 days 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

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swiftcoder 56 days 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
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