USB
external data bus to connect peripheral devices to a host computer
Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical interfaces, and communication protocols to and from hosts, such as personal computers, to and from peripheral devices, e.g. displays, keyboards, and mass storage devices, and to and from intermediate hubs, which multiply the number of a host's ports.
Introduced in 1996, USB was originally designed to standardize the connection of peripherals to computers, replacing various interfaces such as serial ports, parallel ports, game ports, and Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) ports. Early versions of USB became commonplace on a wide range of devices, such as keyboards, mice, cameras, printers, scanners, flash drives, smartphones, game consoles. USB has since evolved into a standard to replace virtually all common ports on computers, mobile devices, peripherals, power supplies, and various other small electronics.
In the latest standard, the USB-C connector replaces many types of connectors for power (up to 240 W), displays (e.g. DisplayPort, HDMI), and many other uses, as well as all previous USB connectors.
As of 2024, USB consists of four generations of specifications: USB 1.x, USB 2.0, USB 3.x, and USB4. The USB4 specification enhances the data transfer and power delivery functionality with "a connection-oriented tunneling architecture designed to combine multiple protocols onto a single physical interface so that the total speed and performance of the USB4 Fabric can be dynamically shared." In particular, USB4 supports the tunneling of the Thunderbolt 3 protocols, namely PCI Express (PCIe, load/store interface) and DisplayPort (display interface).
“USB” enters the record as external data bus to connect peripheral devices to a host computer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what external, data and connect can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“USB” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, external, data and connect provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q42378. The Library of Congress control number is sh96011493. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1996 and 2024.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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This entry incorporates text from “USB” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.