USB Design by Example: A Practical Guide to Building I/O Devices

The Universal Serial Bus (USB) specification is a boon for users in that it makes the process of connecting peripherals to computers effortless, in most cases. As is often the case with user-friendliness, though, the cosmetic ease comes about as a result of behind-the-scenes complexity. USB Design by Example explains what USB means to hardware developers, taking an approach that combines academic elucidation of the official specification with some experimental setups. Though not everything a hardware developer could wish for, John Hyde's explanations represent a valuable supplement to the notably obtuse specification documents.

This book does a good job of explaining USB input/output from both the hardware and software perspectives. You'll find both driver code and pinout diagrams here. All the software information has to do with the IBM-compatible PC platform and the Windows 98 operating system, so Macintosh developers will have to look elsewhere. Some of Hyde's explanations of how various hardware companies solved USB problems--Symbol Technologies' use of a keyboard emulator for its barcode scanners, for example--are intriguing, but more information (in the form of circuit diagrams, preferably) would be better. The clear explanation of what happens when a new device is plugged into a live USB bus is very intriguing, though. Overall, peripheral developers will find this book useful, but not encyclopedic. --David Wall

Topics covered: Universal Serial Bus (USB) architecture, packet contents, device detection, drivers and run-time software, and bridging older connection specifications (RS-232, parallel, SCSI and I2C) to USB.