> I confess that the notion that a legitimate "Universal Serial Bus" > cable would not, you know, actually transfer data ... > well, that never occurred to me.
AFAIK the original intention of the name was to say that it's a serial bus that can be used for anything. Of course, that was lie (e.g. its limitations in terms of speed, power delivery, and connection topology, made it definitely non-universal). As the specs have improved, OT1H it has grown closer to this ideal, but OTOH the hardware itself has become less and less universal. Nowadays the "serial bus" is arguably almost universal (as evidenced by some devices having basically nothing else than USB ports), but the cables are very much *not* universal (because of the various connectors, power capacities, and supported protocols). === Stefan
