After a week of trying to make a "USB 2.0" hard drive work at anything
but a crawl, including hauling it around to various machines for test and
downloading a zillion drivers and USB utilities (on a 28.8k dialup line,
no less), I finally proved that this "2.0" device is not actually USB 2.0
High Speed, but is only USB 1.1 Full.  

Checking on some other USB devices at the office, I found two others that
are labeled 2.0, but only respond as 1.1.  The first two were no-name
boxes with no chance of finding a valid support address, but the ETCSA box
had a support site and they actually responded.

Their take was that they are "allowed" to label any device that has an
updated bios (or whatever) and will connect to a 2.0 port in 1.1 full
duplex mode as a USB 2.0 device.  They just can't call it USB 2.0 High
Speed.

"Allowed" by whom???  What agency can issue a blanket cancelation of truth
in advertising and false advertising laws???  

WTH???

Konan 

Konan wrote:
> After a week of trying to make a "USB 2.0" hard drive work at anything
> but a crawl, including hauling it around to various machines for test and
> downloading a zillion drivers and USB utilities (on a 28.8k dialup line,
> no less), I finally proved that this "2.0" device is not actually USB 2.0
> High Speed, but is only USB 1.1 Full.  
> 
> Checking on some other USB devices at the office, I found two others that
> are labeled 2.0, but only respond as 1.1.  The first two were no-name
> boxes with no chance of finding a valid support address, but the ETCSA box
> had a support site and they actually responded.
> 
> Their take was that they are "allowed" to label any device that has an
> updated bios (or whatever) and will connect to a 2.0 port in 1.1 full
> duplex mode as a USB 2.0 device.  They just can't call it USB 2.0 High
> Speed.
> 
> "Allowed" by whom???  What agency can issue a blanket cancelation of truth
> in advertising and false advertising laws???  
> 
> WTH???
> 
> Konan 

I remember reading about this some time ago.  Unfortunately 
I don't remember where.

The USB-IF (USB Implementers Forum, Inc.) defines and 
publishes the USB specs and standards.  http://www.usb.org 
They are responsible for this confussion.

 From what I remember reading, it is basically a marketing 
thing.  Everyone wanted to be able to advertixe their stuff 
as USB 2.0, even if it was the old USB 1.x spec.  They 
thought consumers would avoid all USB 1.x devices if they 
had a USB 2.0 computer.  Since most computer users are not 
tremendously knowledgeable about thier computer this does 
make some sense.

So the solution was to call everything USB 2.0 now, even the 
slower USB 1.x Full-speed (12 Mb/s) and Low-speed (1.5 Mb/s) 
so Joe-Average computer user would understand that it will 
still work on his computer that is USB 2.0 High-speed (480 
Mb/s).

They do have to label them correctly, USB 2.0 High-speed, 
USB 2.0 Full-speed, and USB 2.0 Low-speed.

Here is a website I found that explains a bit:
http://www.glyphtech.com/site/_technology_usb20.html


All-in-all, I'd like to take most marketing people out to a 
woodshed for some re-education.  Double that for the 
marketing teachers at American colleges and universities.

"Kevin D. Snodgrass" <nobody@spamcop.net> writes:

> They do have to label them correctly, USB 2.0 High-speed, USB 2.0
> Full-speed, and USB 2.0 Low-speed.

Just how intuitive is the difference between "high speed" and "full
speed", when both are mentioned together with USB 2.0?

-- 
M�ns Rullg�rd
mru@kth.se