- ISBN: 9780130811530 | 013081153X
- Cover: Paperback
- Copyright: 9/24/1998
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.
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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