Mark Newland wrote: > Warning!!! This is just a rumor but from what I have been told, > USB is DEAD!! From what I have been told, the industry is pushing > towards Firewire instead so be careful about developing around USB. Um, no. Although they're both high-speed plug-and-play serial protocols, USB and Firewire don't really compete against each other; USB is overwhelmingly dominant in the PC/Macintosh market, while Firewire dominates Sony's line of video cameras and recorders. > If anyone knows the REAL story, I would like to know also. Every major desktop operating system (Windows, Mac, Linux) supports and will continue to support USB, and PCs will continue to include USB ports for the foreseeable future. Neither Intel/Microsoft nor Apple have announced plans to replace USB with anything else. The 480-Mbit high-speed USB 2.0 is real: You can buy USB 2.0 host-controller cards at almost any retail consumer-electronics store, drivers are available from Microsoft, and USB 2.0 support will be integrated on PC motherboards in a few months. My company is shipping samples of and development kits for our USB 2.0 microcontroller, our USB 2.0-to-IDE chip, and our USB 2.0 SIE chip. Other semiconductor vendors are also shipping USB 2.0 chips. USB 2.0 hard-drives -- ATA/100 drives that run at their full speed over a plug-and-play USB wire! -- are currently available, and there should be LOTS of USB 2.0 products released in time for Christmas. Meanwhile, many millions of 1.5- and 12-Mbit/sec USB 1.1 devices (keyboards, mice, printers, scanners, digicams, modems, etc.) are being sold every month. USB is alive and doing QUITE well. -Andy === Andrew Warren --- aiw@cypress.com === IPD Systems Engineering, CYSD === Cypress Semiconductor Corporation === === Opinions expressed above do not === necessarily represent those of === Cypress Semiconductor Corporation -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.