TechRadar traces USB to an effort to simplify the many different interfaces once used for computer peripherals. The early standard emerged from cooperation among major technology companies, with USB 1.0 arriving in 1996 and USB 1.1 helping adoption accelerate afterward.

That history explains why a familiar connection family now spans many generations of devices and cables. Seeing USB on a product is therefore only the beginning of a compatibility check. Identify the actual connector and the supported capabilities of the equipment in front of you, instead of assuming that the name describes one unchanging level of performance.