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USB 2.0 creeps out, deviceless

Show us yer peripherals...

Remember how, when Intel announced the upstart USB 2.0 spec eighteen months ago, it promised we'd be buried by compliant peripherals in time for Xmas? Well it's late, but assuredly on its way.

From what we gleaned USB 2.0 cards will be shipping in volume early next year. At Comdex, Aten showed a four port 2.0 Hub and a five port PCI card earmarked for a February release. Asic builder In System Design said it was working on bridges for DVD-RAM, CD-RW, Magneto Optical drives and portable hard disks. The faster USB should provide for burn rates of 12x.

Fujistu had showed its DynaMO drive streaming video at around 3.5MB/s - still way below the 480mbits/s Intel has claimed, but enough to make portable CD-RW and drives based on USB usable. In contrast to the rather sad v1.x devices.

With the infrastructure falling into place in the spring, and USB 2.0 motherboard support lagging only slightly behind, products ought to be ramping nicely for next fall. Just in time for the 800Mbits/s IEEE 1394 revision. ®

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