In early 1990s, there was a mishmash of ports and cables that connected computers to printers, mouse, keyboard etc. It was frustrating to make them work with the right drivers. 2/n

One day while guiding his struggling wife over phone to connect a printer to home PC, he was inspired to create a "universal" port that would allow seamless interconnection of devices.



On a side note, yes behind every successful man stands a woman. 😉

3/n

There were few takers for Ajay Bhat's idea at that time. IrDA (infrared forum) and Apple both rejected his suggestions. Apple was backing FireWire that connected Apple devices in a daisy chain.



Ajay's bosses at Intel told him to either get industry consensus or forget it

Shunned by almost all big guys, Ajay Bhat spearheaded the creation of an industry consortium for USB development. Working both on defining the technology and winning friends over the aisles. 5/n

By early 2000s USB had won over all other standards, becoming de-facto port for all peripherals. Ajay Bhat became a 'Fellow' at Intel and developed a fan following.



In 2011 Intel released a TV commercial showing Ajay Bhat's "rockstar" status at work.

Here is the link to the actual advertisement. https://youtu.be/q-8GVi2Fdi4

It is often said that USB stick gets into the port only one ways, but still takes 3 tries. Consumer irritation aside, it helped keep the cost low which would have doubled with dual side insertion capabilities. It has helped USB win designs from Flash drives to chargers





Though visualised as a simple low cost, low speed port earlier, USB today delivers blazing fast speeds at 10 Gbps. It truly has become the one port that rules them all



Next time you plug in that flash drive or charger, remember the story of this Indian engineer who changed lives

You can follow @OnlyNakedTruth.

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