Innovation and technology have been engaged in a harmonious waltz ever since the Industrial Revolution. Every societal doodad has had to go through a series of evolutionary steps to get us where we are today. When carburetion begat fuel injection, that was big. When rotary telephones switched to touch-tone, it changed everything. When television was made available through coaxial cable, the broadcasting giants were stood on their heads. When the Internet was deployed, ecyclopedias were driven to near-extinction.

Get Me The Connection

These days, computers and their related applications are where we see the greatest expansion. It is quite possibly the case that nobody has built a better mousetrap in the last couple of centuries, but the leaps and bounds in computer devices seem to be centered around one feature: The Universal Serial Bus (commonly known as USB). It started out as a faster and more efficient way to connect your computer to common accessories such as printers and scanners, and has since spawned an entire industry unto itself.

Storage and So Much More

Now, USB storage devices – often referred to as “flash drives” or “thumb drives” – are given away as part of the average corporate promotional package. The flash drives themselves have become capable of ever more storage, enough to contain even music files, but without the USB connection they might as well be spare hard drives. And even portable hard drives today are equipped with the ability to plug into any computer’s USB port.

The methods of data transfer to computers that were left behind in the rush to make everything USB compatible are long forgotten barely ten years after they were considered top of the line. ZIP drives used to be a symbol of opulence on one’s PC. Now they’re a symbol of obsolescence. And while some people may remember having heard the term “scuzzy”, barely anyone remembers what SCSI stands for – sorry; stood for.