USB has been with us for 26 years. At the time, the technology's co-developer Ajay Bhatt thought it would just be a "[one-off] $40 million opportunity" for Intel. And without his persistence, it wouldn't have happened at all. From IEEE Spectrum:
In the early 1990s, Bhatt told his boss about his idea of developing a universal "plug -and-play" communication system—something the user didn't need to adjust. His manager wasn't interested.
Bhatt was passionate about his idea, though, so he decided to join a different research team at Intel. And there he was given the green light.
In 1992 Bhatt visited the Jones Farm Conference Center, in Hillsboro, Ore., where he met with engineers from different tech companies who also were looking into developing a plug-and-play scheme. It was there that engineers from Compaq, Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC, and Nortel formed an alliance[…]
For a name, the development team looked for something users could relate to, and they also wanted it to describe the technology. The engineers chose the word bus because it was both a technical term (a bus is used to carry data in a computer) and one consumers would recognize, according to the Fast Company article. Buses, in most people's minds, were vehicles that got passengers from Point A to Point B, Bala Cadambi, who worked on the USB development team, said…
image: JANNTA/Shutterstock.com
