Topps

Topps made its first foray into the world of games in July 2003 by acquiring the game company WizKids for $28.4 million in cash. Alternatively, Microchip offers COM port emulation firmware for their range of USB PIC microcontrollers. The Topps Pokémon cards were purely for entertainment and collecting, but a new niche of collectible card games was also developing during this period (a Pokémon trading card game was produced simultaneously by Wizards of the Coast). FTDI Chip provides virtual COM drivers with its chips, to make the USB device look to the host software like a COM (RS-232) port. Pokémon cards would accomplish the same feat for a few years starting in 1999. If your Operating System and language combination is not supported, another option is a USB to RS-232 bridge. For a period beginning in 1973, the Wacky Packages stickers managed to outsell Topps baseball cards, becoming the first product to do so since the company's early days as purely a gum and candy maker. Communication between software and USB devices depends upon the Operating System (Windows, Macintosh, Linux etc) and the language you choose (Java, C++, Delphi etc).

Although baseball cards have been Topps's most consistently profitable item, certain fads have occasionally produced spikes in popularity for non-sports items. See http://www.usb.org/developers/wusb/ for more details. Kennedy. Wireless USB is well suited to wireless connection of PC centric devices, just as Bluetooth is now widely used for mobile phone centric personal networks (at much lower data rates). Topps has also covered celebrities and other cultural phenomena ranging from The Beatles to the life story of John F. Wireless USB is intended as a cable-replacement technology, and will use Ultra wideband wireless technology for data rates of up to 480 Mbit/s. Examples of the latter include The Waltons, The Mod Squad, Emergency!, Welcome Back Kotter, Mork and Mindy, and many others. The USB Implementers Forum is working on a wireless networking standard based on the USB protocol.

Topps has also issued trading card series for movies, including the Star Wars and Star Trek series, and a number of popular television programs. And [Powered USB] uses standard USB signalling with the addition of extra power lines for Point of sale terminals. Among Topps's most notable achievements in this area have been Wacky Packages, a takeoff on various household consumer products, and a series of stickers called Garbage Pail Kids, a parody of the Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. (However, Microsoft uses standard USB 2.0 connectivity in its newer Xbox 360.) Similarly IBM UltraPort uses standard USB signalling, but uses a proprietary connection format. These artistic talents carried over into more general efforts at parody as well. Microsoft's Xbox game console uses standard USB 1.1 signalling in its controllers, but features a proprietary connector rather than the standard USB connector. The 1962 Mars Attacks cards, sketched by Wood and Powell and painted by Norman Saunders, later inspired a Tim Burton movie. It typically uses USB as the underlying communication layer.

Drawing on their previous work, these artists were adept at things like mixing humor and horror, as with the Funny Monsters cards in 1959. The PictBridge standard allows for interconnecting consumer imaging devices. Some artists might work only on a project or two; others were regulars, like Art Spiegelman, who worked for Topps for over twenty years. Wireless USB uses UWB (Ultra Wide Band) as the radio technology. They also brought in others from the underground comix movement, including Bill Griffith and Kim Deitch. Released in May 12, 2005. Topps creative directors Woody Gelman and Len Brown capitalized by hiring a number of artists from the industry, such as Jack Davis, Wally Wood, and Bob Powell. IEEE 1394b also provides rates up to approximately 3.2 Gbit/s; however, the higher rates use special physical layers which are incompatible with 1394a devices.

The shift from sports to other topics better suited the creative instincts of the artists and coincided with turmoil in the comic book industry over regulation by the Comics Code Authority. However unlike USB Hi-Speed systems which can change the speeds on each branch a 1394a device on a 1394b system requires all devices to fall to 1394a speeds. Many Topps artists came from the world of comics and continued to work in that field as well. S800 requires a new physical layer, but S800 nodes can be connected to existing FireWire 1394a ports, just as USB Hi-Speed nodes will operate with older full-speed hosts. Topps has continued to create collectible cards and stickers on a variety of subjects, often centered around movies, TV shows, musicians, and other entertainment phenomena. This provides a new mode called S800, which operates at 786.432 Mbit/s. For example, the Space Race prompted a set of "Space Cards" in 1958. In 2003, FireWire was updated with the IEEE 1394b specification.

As its sports products relied more on photography, Topps redirected its artistic efforts toward editorial trading cards on themes inspired by popular culture. Therefore if high speed transfer is what you need you should match this with a good host controller and operating system. Under pressure by shareholders, the company considered selling off its confectionery business in 2005, but was unable to find a buyer to meet its price and decided to cut management expenses instead. Reducing the maximum transfers from say the theoretical 13 per frame to 10 or 9. One particular focus has been lollipops, such as Ring Pops. In addition to this some operating systems take a conservative approach to scheduling transactions and limit the number of transfers per frame. In recent years, Topps has added more candy items without gum. It is a testament to the flexibilty of the USB bus that it can handle wide variances in device performances.

Sales declined significantly in the 1970s, however, when this relatively hard gum was challenged by Bubble Yum, a new, softer form of bubblegum from Lifesavers. So the sustained transfer rate is a limitation of the individual device technology not the infrastructure. For quite a few years, the company stuck within familiar confines, and virtually all of these products involved gum in some way. Why then can some USB devices only sustain 34 MB/s not 55 MB/s? The main reason is usually that the devices themselves are slow and spend most of the time NAK'ing the host to indicate they are not ready - this is particularly true of memory sticks. Even though baseball cards became the company's primary focus during this period, Topps still developed a variety of candy items. Furthermore, the host-centric nature of USB allows the host to allocate more bandwidth to high priority devices instead of forcing them to compete for bandwidth as in Firewire. In 1953, Topps began selling smaller penny pieces with the Bazooka Joe comic strip on the wrapper as an added attraction. Conversely, for USB the maximum timing model is fixed and is limited only by the host-device branch (not the entire network).

Unlike the gum sold with baseball cards, it was of better quality and capable of selling on its own merit. The more devices on the bus the lower the peak performance. Bazooka was introduced in 1947 as a bar of gum that sold for five cents. The peer to peer nature of Firewire requires devices to arbitrate, which means a FireWire bus must wait until a given signal has propagated to all devices on the bus. The longest-lived Topps product line remains Bazooka bubblegum, small pieces of gum in patriotic red, white, and blue packaging. In a multi device environment Firewire rapidly loses ground to USB: Firewire's mixed speed networks and long connection chains dramatically affect its performance. Its best-selling title was The X-Files, based on the Fox TV show. While for USB 2.0 the rate can be higher 55 MB/s (for a single device).

Topps Comics specialized in licensed titles, particularly movie and television series tie-ins, though it also published a smattering of such original series as Cadillacs and Dinosaurs and several based on concepts by then-retired industry legend Jack Kirby. A single Firewire device may achieve a transfer rate for Firewire 400 as high as 41 MB/s. This division of the company published comic books from 1993 — during the first half-decade's comics-industry boom, which attacted many investors and new companies — through 1998. USB transfer rates are generally higher than Firewire due to the need for Firewire devices to arbitrate for bus access. In imitation of Bowman and other competitors, Topps eventually also began producing trading cards and other collectibles for a variety of topics unrelated to sports. USB can require more host resources than Firewire due to the need for the host to provide the arbitration and scheduling of transactions. Other gum and candy products followed. The signalling rate of USB 2.0 Hi-Speed mode is 480 megabits per second, while the signalling rate of FireWire 400 (IEEE 1394a) is 393.216 Mbit/s [4].

Originally, Topps was purely a gum company, and its first product was simply called "Topps gum". These and other differences reflect the differing design goals of the two busses: USB was designed for simplicity and low cost, while FireWire was designed for high performance, particularly in time-sensitive applications such as audio and video. In a more recent addition to its lineup, Topps began producing cards for soccer in 1996, in partnership with Major League Soccer. The most significant technical differences between FireWire and USB include the following:. Topps finally returned to basketball cards in 1992, several years after its competitors. FireWire retains its popularity in many professional settings, where it is used for audio and video transfer, and data storage. It started again in 1969 and continued until 1982, then abandoned the market for another decade. Today, USB Hi-Speed is rapidly replacing FireWire in consumer products.

Topps first sold cards for basketball in 1957, but stopped after one season. The introduction of USB 2.0 Hi-Speed, with its widely advertised 480 Mbit/s signaling rate, convinced many consumers that FireWire was outdated (although this was not necessarily the case; see "USB 2.0 Hi-Speed vs FireWire" below). This ultimately left the sport to Upper Deck, which emerged as the sole licensee when the league resumed play. However, because FireWire ports were more costly to implement than USB ports, primarily due to their per-port licence fee, they were rarely provided as standard equipment on computers, and peripheral manufacturers offered many more USB devices. However, anticipating the 2004-05 NHL lockout, Topps allowed its license for hockey to expire after the 2003-04 season. USB originally operated at a far lower data rate and used much simpler hardware, and was suitable for small peripherals such as keyboards and mice. Topps then acquired the rights to use the O-Pee-Chee name on sports cards after that company was sold to Nestlé. USB was originally seen as a complement to FireWire, which was designed as a high-speed serial bus which could efficiently interconnect peripherals such as hard disks, audio interfaces, and video equipment.

O-Pee-Chee had already obtained a license to print Topps baseball cards for the Canadian market, and for a number of years the two companies would produce often-identical cards for both sports, but each under its own brand for its respective market. Apple computers have used USB mice and keyboards exclusively since January 1999. After Parkhurst disappeared from the market in the 1960s, Topps then reached an agreement with O-Pee-Chee, another Canadian company, to jointly produce hockey cards. Mouses and keyboards are frequently fitted with USB connectors, but supplied with a small USB-to-PS/2 adaptor so that they can be used with either USB or PS/2 ports. Topps did not make a serious effort to take on Parkhurst Products, the leading Canadian hockey card manufacturer, for a couple more years. Joysticks, keypads, tablets and other human-interface devices are also progressively migrating from MIDI, PC game port, and PS/2 connectors to USB. at the time (Boston Bruins, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, and New York Rangers). Motherboards for non-portable PCs usually have a number of USB 2.0 high-speed ports, some available at the back of the computer case, others requiring USB sockets on the front or rear of the computer to be connected via a cable to a header on the motherboard.

After football, its next venture was into ice hockey, with a 1954 set featuring players from the four National Hockey League franchises located in the U.S. AT keyboard connectors are less frequently found. Topps also makes cards for other major American professional sports. As of 2006, most PCs and motherboards have at least one USB port, but still retain PS/2 keyboard and mouse connectors. The situation continued until growth in the sports card market generally prompted two new companies, Pro Set and Score, to start making football cards in 1989. Additionally, when multiple devices are connected, USB has significant advantages over FireWire,. In spite of the lack of competition, or perhaps to preempt it, Topps also created two sets of cards for the short-lived United States Football League in the 1980s. However, USB ports are more usual than Firewire on consumer-level computers, which enhances the compatibility of a USB drive.

After the AFL-NFL Merger was agreed to, Topps became the only major football card manufacturer beginning in 1968. An operating system designed to handle Hi-Speed USB 2.0 optimally is capable of data rates higher than Firewire, but the most commonly found [early 2006] operating systems and drivers are not. Although more competitive for a time, the football card market was never as lucrative, so the other companies did not fight as hard over it. Additionally, some operating systems transfer blocks limited to the USB 1.1 size of 64 bytes, without taking advantage of the larger block sizes allowed by USB 2.0. Philadelphia Gum then secured the NFL rights for 1964, forcing Topps to go for the AFL and leaving Fleer with no product in either baseball or football. The main reason for this is that the tests are conducted point to point (only one device) which means the USB system is always waiting for the drive. Fleer produced a set for the AFL in 1960, then featured both leagues for one year before focusing on the AFL again. FireWire tends to perform better in speed benchmark tests than even Hi-Speed USB 2.0, although the latter supports a numerically higher bit-rate.

However, the emergence of the American Football League in 1960 to compete with the established National Football League also allowed Topps's competitors, beginning with Fleer, to make inroads. FireWire technology is also commonly used with portable hard drives; some have both USB and FireWire ports. Since then, Topps has sold football cards every season. Functionally, the drive appears to the user just like another internal drive.. After buying out Bowman, Topps took over the market the following year. These external drives usually contain a translating device that interfaces a drive of conventional technology (IDE, ATA, SATA, ATAPI, or even SCSI) to a USB port. For football cards Bowman dominated the field, and Topps did not try again until 1955, when it released an All-American set with a mix of active players and retired stars. Today, a number of manufacturers offer external, portable USB hard drives, or empty enclosures for drives, that offer performance comparable to internal drives.

In addition to baseball, Topps also produced cards for American football in 1951, which are known as the Magic set. However, USB has one important advantage in making it possible to install and remove devices without opening the computer case, making it useful for external drives. The 1964 set issued cards for 2 then-recently-dead players--Ken Hubbs of the Cubs with a different "In Memoriam" front design compared the the standard cards, and Colts pitcher Jim Umbricht's regular card with a special note on its back about his April 1964 death (from cancer). USB is not intended to be a primary bus for a computer's internal storage: buses such as ATA (IDE) and SCSI fulfill that role. The 1959 set had card 550 as "Symbol Of Courage - Roy Campanella", with a color photo of the paralyzed former Dodger in his wheelchair and a black-and-white photo of him in uniform inserted to the upper left. This was initially intended for traditional magnetic and optical drives, but has been extended to support a wide variety of devices. On rare occasions, Topps issued special cards for players who had either died or had been injured. USB implements connections to storage devices using a set of standards called the USB mass-storage device class.

It involved the clearly-readable obscenity on the bottom of the bat of Orioles infielder Billy Ripken. Those problems with the abuse of the USB power supply have inspired a number of April Fool hoaxes, like the introduction of a USB-powered George Foreman iGrill [2] and a desktop USB Fondue Set [3]. The most celebrated error in baseball-card history was not printed by Topps, but by competitor Fleer in 1989. USB-powered devices attempting to draw large currents without requesting the power will not work with certain USB controllers, and will either disrupt other devices on the bus or fail to work themselves (or both). The photo's cropping captured only the last 3 letters of one sign, so that the word "ASS" appears in vivid letters behind Sadecki. Amongst others, a number of peripherals for IBM laptops (now made by Lenovo) are designed to use dual USB connections. The full-figure pitching-pose of Sadecki is normal; the problem was with the advertising signs on the outfield fence that he posed in front of. For portable devices where external power is not available, but not more than 1 A is required at 5 V, devices may have connectors to allow the use of two USB cables, doubling available power but reducing the number of USB ports available to other devices.

The prime example of this was the Topps 1964 card for Cardinals' pitcher Ray Sadecki (#147). Such devices can be used with an external power supply of adequate rating; some external hubs may, in practice, supply sufficient power. Yet another class of card is the "unintentional error," in which something in the photo makes it look as if an actual error has occurred. This is a common requirement of external hard and optical disc drives and other devices with motors or lamps. This gives the card a "3-D" look. Some USB devices draw more power than is permitted by the specification for a single port. An interesting type of error is the print separation. This can cause problems with some computers—the USB specification requires that devices connect in a low-power mode (100 mA maximum) and state how much current they need, before switching, with the host's permission, into high-power mode.

These are generally considered "ghost cards". In most cases, these items contain no electronic circuitry, and thus are not proper USB devices at all. Another error type is when the back stats are overprinted on the front of the card. The typical example is a USB-powered reading light, but fans, battery chargers (particularly for mobile telephones) and even miniature vacuum cleaners are available. Anticipating that possibility, Topps substituted the term "Washington Nat'l League" onto early-series Padres' cards, since the nickname of the potentially re-located team was not known. A number of devices use this power supply without participating in a proper USB network. This came about when there was a strong possibility that the San Diego Padres might move to Washington after the 1973 season. The host operating system typically keeps track of the power requirements of the USB network and may warn the computer's operator when a given segment requires more power than is available (and will generally shut down devices or hubs in order to keep power consumption within the available resource).

The 1974 "Washington Nat'l League" cards are considered errors too, but were corrected during the run. When USB devices (including hubs) are first connected they are interrogated by the host controller, which inquires of each their maximum power requirements. In addition, misspelled words/names, print blotches, missing border sections, and different colored backgrounds (like the 1973 manager cards) are all considered errors although relatively few of these are corrected. Devices that need more than 500 mA must provide their own power. Another type of card that is considered an error is the blankback (or blankfront) Most likely however, these are first run proofs from the company not intended for distribution. Many hubs include external power supplies which will power devices connected through them without taking power from the bus. It is possible to find a centered back and off center front. This disallows connection of a bus-powered hub to another bus-powered hub.

Most wrongbacks have the backs off center. Bus-powered hubs can continue to distribute the bus provided power to connected devices but the USB specification only allows for a single level of bus-powered devices from a bus-powered hub. This occurs when the sheet is mated with a back which is up side down or reversed. A bus-powered device may use as much of that power as allowed by the port it is plugged into. Another type of error is the "wrongback." You can find these in just about any year. This is often enough to power several devices, although this budget must be shared among all devices downstream of an unpowered hub. The Reniff card's number was still incorrect in this second printing, so a third, corrected one of his was produced, resulting in 1 'true' Reniff card and 2 errors (each error card with a different photograph). A given segment of the bus is specified to deliver up to 500 mA.

All remaining photos were re-cropped for the re-printing (e.g., some photos were moved a bit to one side, and others moved up or down), thus giving every card in the series an error card. In typical situations the voltage is close to 5 V. The entire series was re-printed and re-distributed, with the photo inks in proper proportion and with 8 photos replaced with different poses (Reniff's among them). The compliance spec requires no more than 5.25 V anywhere and no less than 4.375 V at the worst case; a low-power function after a bus-powered hub. All the photos were somewhat out of focus, and card number 159 (Yankees Pitcher Hal Reniff) was incorrectly numbered as 139. In practice, delivered voltage can drop well below 5 V, to only slightly above 4 V. The set's entire second series (the 87 cards numbered 110 through 196) was first printed and distributed without the proper amount of ink for the photographs; the result has been known ever since as the "Green Tint" series, for the sky and dirt in the backgrounds of some cards are decidedly green, rather than blue or brown. The USB connector provides a single nominally 5 volt wire from which connected USB devices may power themselves.

The Topps 1962 baseball set saw the 'grandaddy' of all error situations. The maximum length of a USB cable is 5 meters; greater lengths require hubs [1]. The result was that said cards occur in two variations, based on the back color. Wireless USB is a standard being developed to extend the USB standard while maintaining backwards compatibility with USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 on the protocol level. The photographs and information on the cards themselves were not in error. USB On-The-Go has therefore defined two small form factor connectors, the mini-A and mini-B, and a hermaphroditic socket (mini-AB), which should stop the proliferation of proprietary designs. Certain cards were printed on two different types of cardstock; one produced a white back, and the other a darker gray. This facility targets units such as PDAs where the USB link might connect to a PC's host port as a device in one instance, yet connect as a host itself to a keyboard and mouse device in another instance.

One example of "variations" happened in the 1959 and 1960 Topps baseball sets. Even after the cable is hooked up and the units are talking, the two units may "swap" ends under program control. Some errors are corrected and re-printed within the print runs of the same set, resulting in an "Error Card;" others are not corrected, and are referred to among collectors as "Uncorrected Errors.". An extension to USB called USB On-The-Go allows a single port to act as either a host or a device - chosen by which end of the cable plugs into the socket on the unit. Topps and other card publishers were not immune to production 'glitches,' and such mistakes gave collectors unusual items to seek for their collections. For specification purposes, these devices were treated as having a captive cable. In 1993, Topps finally managed again to incorporate a player photo on the back as well as the front of the card, after some competitors had been doing so for a number of years. Other manufacturers of small items also developed their own small form factor connector, and a wide variety of these have appeared.

These appeared on card backs as late as 1982, but gradually declined in the prominence of their placement and the proportion of cards on which they appeared. It uses a different mechanical connector while preserving the USB signaling and protocol. This primarily involved using various types of cartoons drawn by its stable of artists. For example, the IBM UltraPort is a proprietary USB connector located on the top of IBM's laptop LCDs. Before statistics, biographical information, and commentary became the dominant element on the backs of cards, Topps also featured artwork there. However, the mechanical layer has changed in some examples. These problems diminished as Topps's selection of photographs gradually improved. The A-plug is approximately 4x12 mm, the B-plug is approximately 7x8 mm, and the B-mini plug is approximately 3x7 mm.

In a few cases, a misidentification meant that the player didn't even appear in the picture. Thus all compliant USB cables have an A plug on one end, and either a B or Mini-B on the other end. The photos were sometimes out of focus or included several players, making it difficult to pick out the player who was supposed to be featured on the card. Hosts and devices include connectors (female) while cables contain plugs (male). When used for the cards of individual players, some of the early action photography had awkward results. All connectors are mechanically incompatible, with an A connector always used on the upstream (host) end, and a B connector always used on the downstream (device) end. Since that time, Topps has mixed game photography with posed shots in its sets. The USB 2.0 specification also introduces the mini-B connector, for smaller devices such as PDAs, mobile phones or digital cameras.

Starting in 1960 a few cards showed true game action, primarily highlights from the World Series, but the photographs were either in black-and-white or hand-tinted color until 1971. The USB 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0 specifications define two types of connectors for the attachment of devices to the bus: A, and B. In the absence of real action photography, Topps still occasionally used artwork to depict action on a handful of cards. In particular:. (Cards for 'rookies' were also prepared by airbrushing over their minor-league uniforms in photos.). The connectors which the USB committee specified were designed to support a number of USB's underlying goals, and to reflect lessons learned from the varied menagerie of connectors then in service. Another was to paint out, by airbrush, the former team logo on both cap and uniform, or to paint on their new team cap logo. The Mini A also has an additional piece of plastic inside to prevent insertion into slave only device.

One way was to show the player without any team cap. This indicates if a device supporting usb on the go (with a mini AB socket) should initially act as host, in the mini B this is open circuit. Topps used various ways to cope with players changing teams before the company could issue a card of them in their new uniform. Pin 4 is called ID and is connected to pin 5 for a mini-A. Photographs did not appear in sharp focus and natural color until 1962. Most of the pins of a mini USB connector are the same as a standard USB connector, except pin 4. If using such a prop, the player might pose in a position as if he were in the act of batting, pitching, or fielding. This segregation is for bandwidth only; bus rules about power and hub depth still apply.

From 1957 on, virtually all cards were posed photographs, either as a head shot or together with a typical piece of equipment like a bat or glove. The Transaction Translator in a Hi-Speed hub (or possibly each port depending on the electrical design) will function as a completely separate Full Speed bus to Full Speed and Low Speed devices attached to it. The close-up head shots of some individual players were reused each year. Hi-Speed hubs have a special function called the Transaction Translator that segregates Full Speed and Low Speed bus traffic from Hi-Speed traffic. For 1956, the close-up tinted photo was placed against a tinted full-background 'game-action' photo of the player. Hi-Speed devices should fall back to the slower data rate of Full Speed when plugged into a Full Speed hub. The same basic format was used in 1955, this time with the full-length photo also hand-tinted. All devices are tested according to the latest spec, so recently-compliant Low Speed devices are also 2.0.

After starting out with simple portraits, in 1954 Topps put two pictures on the front of the card--a hand-tinted 'color' close-up photo of the player's head, and the other a black-and-white full-length pose. The USB-IF certifies devices and provides licenses to use special marketing logos for either "Basic-Speed" (low and full) or High-Speed after passing a compliancy test and paying a licensing fee. The cards themselves had been in color from the beginning, though for the first few years this was done by using artist's portraits of players rather than actual photographs. Though Hi-Speed devices are commonly referred to as "USB 2.0", not all USB 2.0 devices are Hi-Speed. A USB device should specify the speed it will use by correct labeling on the box it came in or sometimes on the device itself. Although the 1971 set was an aborted experiment in terms of putting photos on card backs, that year was also a landmark in terms of baseball card photography, as Topps for the first time included cards showing color photographs from actual games. USB supports three data rates. The practice of showing complete career statistics became permanent in 1963, except for one year, 1971, when Topps sacrificed the full statistics in order to put a player photo on the back of the card as well. D+ and D− operate together; they are not separate simplex connections.

Over the next few years, Topps alternated between this format and merely showing the past season plus career totals. These collectively use half-duplex differential signaling to combat the effects of electromagnetic noise on longer lines. For the first time in 1957, Topps put full year-by-year statistics for the player's entire career on the back of the card. USB signals are transmitted on a twisted pair of data cables, labelled D+ and D−. Bowman promptly imitated this by putting statistics on its own cards where it had previously only had biographical information. The most used device classes (grouped by assigned class ID) are:. the 1951 season for cards in the 1952 set) and another with the player's lifetime totals. These can be used as the main device classes are continuously revised.

The cards originally had one line for statistics from the most recent year (i.e. Each class also optionally supports a SubClass and Protocol subdefinition. It also had some pedagogical benefit by encouraging youngsters to take an interest in the underlying math. If bDeviceClass is set to 0x00, the operating system will look at bInterfaceClass of each interface to determine the device class. Those who played with baseball cards could study the numbers and use them as the basis for comparing players, trading cards with friends, or playing imaginary baseball games. Both of these are a single byte each, so a maximum of 253 different device classes are possible (values 0x00 and 0xFF are reserved). While baseball cards themselves had been around for years, including statistics was a relative novelty that fascinated many collectors. If the class is to be set for the entire device, the number is assigned to the bDeviceClass field of the device descriptor, and if it is to be set for a single interface on a device, it is assigned to the bInterfaceClass field of the interface descriptor.

At the time, complete and reliable baseball statistics for all players were not widely available, so Topps actually compiled the information itself from published box scores. Device classes are decided upon by the Device Working Group of the USB Implementers Forum. One of the features that contributed significantly to Topps's success beginning with the 1952 set was providing player statistics. An operating system is supposed to implement all device classes so as to provide generic drivers for any USB device. Some of these were the company's own innovations, while some were ideas borrowed from others that Topps helped popularize. These classes define an expected behavior in terms of device and interface descriptors so that the same device driver may be used for any device that claims to be a member of a certain class. In addition to establishing a standard size, Topps developed various design elements that are considered typical of baseball cards. Devices that attach to the bus can be full-custom devices requiring a full-custom device driver to be used, or may belong to a device class.

Although Topps did not invent the concept of baseball cards, its dominance in the field basically allowed the company to define people's expectations of what a baseball card would look like. On BSD systems, dmesg will show the detailed information hierarchy. The amount of the transaction was not disclosed, but Topps charged a $3.7 million after-tax loss on its books in connection with the sale. Most Linux systems also provide the lsusb command which provides USB-specific details about ports and controllers. This undertaking was not very successful, however, and Topps unloaded the site on Naxcom in January 2006. On Microsoft Windows platforms, one can tell whether a USB controller is version 2.0 by opening the Device Manager and checking for the word "Enhanced" in its description; only USB 2.0 drivers will contain the word "Enhanced." On Linux systems, the lspci -v command will list all PCI devices, and controllers will be named OHCI, UHCI or EHCI respectively, which is also the case in the Mac OS X system profiler. The purchase was for $5.7 million cash in August 2001 after Topps had earlier committed to invest in a round of venture capital financing for the company. All other vendors use virtual OHCI controllers.

Topps also acquired ThePit.com, a startup company that earlier in 2000 had launched a site for online stock-market style card trading. The virtual HCD on Intel and Via EHCI controllers are UHCI. After a sale, the cards are held in a climate-controlled warehouse unless the buyer requests delivery, and the cards can be traded online without changing hands except in the virtual sense. Each EHCI controller contains four virtual HCD implementations to support Full Speed and Low Speed devices. The quantity sold depends on how many people offer to buy, but is limited to a certain maximum. Only EHCI can support high-speed transfers. These cards are sold exclusively online through individual "IPOs" in which the card is offered for a week at the IPO price. The USB 2.0 HCD implementation is called the Extended Host Controller Interface (EHCI).

Working in partnership with eBay, Topps launched a new brand of sports cards called etopps in December 2000. During the design phase of USB 2.0 the USB-IF insisted on only one implementation. Although most of its products were distributed through retail stores and hobby shops, Topps also attempted to establish itself online, where a significant secondary market for sports cards was developing. The dueling implementations forced operating system vendors and hardware vendors to develop and test on both implementations which increased cost. The union announced that for 2006, licenses would only be granted to Topps and Upper Deck, the number of different products would be limited, and players would not appear on cards before reaching the major leagues. The main difference between OHCI and UHCI is the fact that UHCI is more software-driven than OHCI is, making UHCI slightly more processor-intensive but cheaper to implement (excluding the license fees). The resulting glut of different baseball sets caused the MLBPA to take drastic measures as the market for them deteriorated. VIA Technologies licensed the UHCI standard from Intel; all other chipset implementers use OHCI.

Topps continued adding more sets and trying to distinguish them from each other, as did its competitors. However, Intel subsequently created a specification they called the Universal Host Controller Interface (UHCI) and insisted other implementers pay to license and implement UHCI. The initial Topps effort at producing a premium line of cards, in 1991, was called Stadium Club. Compaq's Open Host Controller Interface (OHCI) was adopted as the standard by the USB-IF. Following Topps's example, other manufacturers now began to diversify their product lines into different sets, each catering to a different niche of the market. At version 1.0 and 1.1 there were two competing HCD implementations. Also beginning in 1989 with the entry of Upper Deck into the market, card companies began to develop higher-end cards using improved technology. In practice, these are hardware registers (ports) in the computer.

As a further step in this race, Topps resurrected its former competitor Bowman as a subsidiary brand in 1989, with Bowman sets similarly chosen to include a lot of young players with bright prospects. The hardware that contains the host controller and the root hub has an interface toward the programmer which is called Host Controller Device (HCD) and is defined by the hardware implementer. This card from the 1984 squad appeared in Topps's regular 1985 set, but by the next Olympic cycle the team's cards had been migrated to the "Traded" set. An endpoint may however be reused among several interfaces and alternate interface settings. Olympic baseball team and thus produced the first card of Mark McGwire, one that would become quite valuable to collectors. These interface descriptors in turn have one default interface setting and possibly more alternate interface settings which in turn have endpoint descriptors, as outlined above. For example, Topps obtained a license to produce cards featuring the U.S. Each configuration descriptor in turn has one or more interface descriptors, which describe certain aspects of the device, so that it may be used for different purposes: for example, a camera may have both audio and video interfaces.

Increasingly, they also included highly touted minor league players who had yet to play in the major leagues. low power mode. Since a "rookie card" is typically the most valuable for any given player, the companies now competed to be the first to produce a card of players who might be future stars. active vs. In order to fill out a 132-card set (the number of cards that fit on a single sheet of the uncut cardboard used in the production process), it would contain a number of rookie players who had just reached the major leagues and not previously appeared on a card. These configurations often correspond to states, e.g. While "Traded" or "Update" sets were originally conceived to deal with players who changed teams, they became increasingly important for another reason. The device connected to the bus has one (and only one) device descriptor which in turn has one or more configuration descriptors.

In response to the competition, Topps began regularly issuing additional "Traded" sets featuring players who had changed teams since the main set was issued, following up on an idea it had experimented with a few years earlier. To access an endpoint, a hierarchical configuration must be obtained. Other manufacturers later followed, but Topps remains one of the leading brands in the baseball card hobby. The interrupt transfers on corresponding endpoints does not actually interrupt any traffic on the bus, they are just scheduled to be queried more often and in between any other large transfers, thus "interrupt traffic" on a USB bus is really only high-priority traffic. Fleer and Donruss began making large, widely distributed sets to compete directly with Topps, although they still avoided packaging their cards with gum. The host controller then polls the bus for traffic, usually in a round-robin fashion, so no device can transfer any data on the bus without explicit request from the host controller. The Topps monopoly on baseball cards was finally broken by a lawsuit that let Fleer and another company, Donruss, enter the market in 1981. When a device (function) or hub is attached to the host controller through any hub on the bus, it is given a unique 7 bit address on the bus by the host controller.

Topps appears not to have considered the Kellogg's cards a threat and took no action to stop them. The pipes are also divided into four different categories by way of their transfer type:. The Kellogg's sets contained fewer cards than Topps sets, and the cards served as an incentive to buy the cereal rather than being the intended focus of the purchase, as tended to be the case for cards distributed with smaller items like candy or gum. There is always an inward and an outward pipe numbered 0 on each device. A semblance of competition returned to the baseball card market in the 1970s when Kellogg's began producing "3-D" cards and inserting them in boxes of breakfast cereal (originally Corn Flakes, later Raisin Bran and other brands). All USB devices have at least two such pipes/endpoints: namely endpoint 0 which is used to control the device on the bus. In addition, Topps is the only manufacturer able to produce cards of players who worked as replacement players during the 1994-95 baseball strike, since they are barred from union membership and participation in the group licensing program. Each endpoint can transfer data in one direction only, either into or out of the device/function, so each pipe is uni-directional.

Topps, however, can negotiate individually and was belatedly able to create a 2004 card of Bonds. Each pipe has a maximum packet length, typically 2ⁿ bytes, so a USB packet will often contain something on the order of 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512 or 1024 bytes. On the other hand, if a player opts out of group licensing, as Barry Bonds did in 2004, then manufacturers who depend on the MLBPA system will have no way of including him. In these pipes, data is transferred in packets of varying length. Players who decline to sign individual contracts will not have Topps cards even when the group licensing system allows other manufacturers to produce cards of the player, as happened with Alex Rodriguez early in his career. (The OUT direction shall be interpreted out of the host controller and the IN direction is into the host controller.) Endpoint 0 is however reserved for the bus management in both directions and thus takes up two of the 32 endpoints. The difference has occasionally affected whether specific players are included in particular sets. These endpoints (and their respective pipes) are numbered 0-15 in each direction, so a device/function can have up to 32 active pipes, 16 inward and 16 outward.

This contrasts with other manufacturers, who all obtain group licenses from the MLBPA. The pipes are synonymous to byte streams such as in the pipelines of Unix, however in USB lingo the term endpoint is (sloppily) used as a synonym for the entire pipe, even in the standard documentation. As a byproduct of this history, Topps continues to use individual player contracts as the basis for its baseball card sets today. These devices/functions (and hubs) have associated pipes (logical channels) which are connections from the host controller to a logical entity on the device named an endpoint. Although Fleer declined the proposal, by the end of the year Topps had agreed to double its payments to each player from $125 to $250, and also to begin paying players a percentage of Topps's overall sales. There always exists one hub known as the root hub, which is attached directly to the host controller. After continued discussions went nowhere, the union before the 1968 season asked its members to stop signing renewals on these contracts, and offered Fleer the exclusive rights to market cards of most players (with gum) starting in 1973. The hubs are special purpose devices that are not officially considered functions.

At this time, Topps had every major league player under contract, generally for five years plus renewal options, so Shorin declined. In USB terminology devices are referred to as functions, because in theory what we know as a device may actually host several functions, such as a router that is a Secure Digital Card reader at the same time. MLBPA executive director Marvin Miller then approached Joel Shorin, the president of Topps, about renegotiating these contracts. USB connects several devices to a host controller through a chain of hubs. After initially putting players on Coca-Cola bottlecaps, the union concluded that the Topps contracts did not pay players adequately for their rights. The specification is at revision 1.0a (Jan 2006). Struggling to raise funds, the MLBPA discovered that it could generate significant income by pooling the publicity rights of its members and offering companies a group license to use their images on various products. Smaller USB plugs and receptacles, called Mini-A and Mini-B, are also available, as specified by the On-The-Go Supplement to the USB 2.0 Specification.

That same year, however, Topps faced an attempt to undermine its position from the nascent players' union, the Major League Baseball Players Association. Equipment conforming with any version of the standard will also work with devices designed to any of the previous specifications (backwards compatibility). The decision gave Topps an effective monopoly of the baseball card market. Previous notable releases of the specification were 0.9, 1.0, and 1.1. However, Fleer chose not to pursue such options and instead sold its remaining player contracts to Topps for $395,000 in 1966. The USB 2.0 specification was released in April 2000 and was standardized by the USB-IF at the end of 2001. The Commission concluded that because the contracts only covered the sale of cards with gum, competition was still possible by selling cards with other small, low-cost products. Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Lucent, Microsoft, NEC, and Philips jointly led the initiative to develop a higher data transfer rate than the 1.1 specification.

A hearing examiner ruled against Topps in 1965, but the Commission reversed this decision on appeal. The USB specification is at version 2.0 (with revisions) as of February 2006. Stymied, Fleer turned its efforts to supporting an administrative complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission, alleging that Topps was engaging in unfair competition through its aggregation of exclusive contracts. Notable members have included Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard, NEC, Microsoft, Intel, and Agere. However, Topps held onto the rights of most players and the set was not particularly successful. The design of USB is standardized by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), an industry standards body incorporating leading companies from the computer and electronics industries. Two of these sets were produced before Fleer finally tried a 67-card set of currently active players in 1963. As of 2005, the only large classes of peripherals that cannot use USB, because they need a higher data rate than USB can provide, are displays and monitors, and high-quality digital video components.

Williams retired the next year, so Fleer began adding around him other mostly retired players in a Baseball Greats series, which was sold with gum. As of 2004 there were about 1 billion USB devices in the world. Fleer signed star Ted Williams to an exclusive contract in 1959 and sold a set of cards oriented around him. USB is also used extensively to connect non-networked printers, replacing the parallel ports which were widely used; USB simplifies connecting several printers to one computer. The next company to challenge Topps was Fleer, another gum manufacturer. For many devices such as scanners and digital cameras, USB has become the standard connection method. This left Topps as the dominant producer of baseball cards for a number of years. USB can connect peripherals such as mice, keyboards, gamepads and joysticks, scanners, digital cameras, printers, external storage, networking components, etc.

The competition, both for consumer attention and player contracts, continued until 1956, when Topps bought out Bowman. When a device is first connected, the host enumerates and recognises it, and loads the device driver it needs. As the contract situation was sorted out, several Topps sets during these years had a few "missing" cards, where the numbering of the set skips several numbers because they had been assigned to players whose cards could not legally be distributed. USB was designed to allow peripherals to be connected without the need to plug expansion cards into the computer's ISA, EISA, or PCI bus, and to improve plug-and-play capabilities by allowing devices to be hot-swapped (connected or disconnected without powering down or rebooting the computer). The contract issue proved more difficult because it turned on the dates when a given player signed contracts with each company, and whether the player's contract with one company had an exception for his contract with the other. USB cables do not need to be terminated. The court rejected Bowman's attempt to claim a trademark on the word "baseball" in connection with the sale of gum, and disposed of the unfair competition claim because Topps had made no attempt to pass its cards off as being made by Bowman. Modern computers often have several host controllers, allowing a very large number of USB devices to be connected.

The lawsuit alleged infringement on Bowman's trademarks, unfair competition, and contractual interference. Not more than 127 devices, including the bus devices, may be connected to a single host controller. federal court. Additional USB hubs may be included in the chain, allowing branching into a tree structure, subject to a limit of 5 levels of branching per controller. Bowman responded by adding chewing gum "or confections" to the exclusivity language of its 1951 contracts, and also sued Topps in U.S. A USB system has an asymmetric design, consisting of a host controller and multiple daisy-chained devices. Topps also tried to establish exclusive rights through its contracts by having players agree not to grant similar rights to others, or renew existing contracts except where specifically noted in the contract. .

However, because Bowman had signed many players in 1950 to contracts for that year, plus a renewal option for one year, Topps included in its own contracts the rights to sell cards with gum starting in 1952 (as it ultimately did). Universal Serial Bus (USB) provides a serial bus standard for connecting devices, usually to computers such as PCs and the Apple Macintosh, but is also becoming commonplace on video game consoles such as Sony's PlayStation 2, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Nintendo's Revolution, and PDAs, and even devices like televisions and home stereo equipment. To avoid the language of Bowman's existing contracts, Topps sold its 1951 cards with caramel candy instead of gum. It appears that no work has been done on this package since 2003 so it may be abandoned. The language of these contracts focused particularly on the rights to sell cards with chewing gum, which had already been established in the 1930s as a popular product to pair with baseball cards. The usb.windows package has a partial Windows implementation of a usb.core.Host object, bootstrapping support, and other classes leveraging Windows USB support. Bowman had become the primary maker of baseball cards and driven out several competitors by signing its players to exclusive contracts. Java - The Mike Stahl started work on this combination in 2003.

This promptly brought Topps into furious competition with Bowman Gum, another company producing baseball cards. Java development is possible via JNI. The later acquisition of rights to additional players allowed Topps to release its second series. Their COM interface allows for Delphi, C# and VB development. Topps first became active in this process through an agent called Players Enterprises in July 1950, in preparation for its first 1951 set. General - USBIO has C++ drivers for USB communication on windows from C & C++. During this period, baseball card manufacturers generally obtained the rights to depict players on merchandise by signing individual players to contracts for the purpose. Java - No info is available on this combination.

It was finally dropped from baseball card packs in 1992. General - Apple has this page on General Mac USB Development. In fact, the gum eventually became a hindrance because it tended to stain the cards, thus impairing their value to collectors who wanted to keep them in pristine condition. This API is unfortunately limited to Linux. The combination of baseball cards and bubblegum was popular among young boys, and given the mediocre quality of the gum, the cards quickly became the primary attraction. Java - The jUSB project provides a Free Software (and Open Source) Java API for USB, supporting applications using Java host-side software to drive USB devices. The last series in 1952 started with card #311, which is Topps' first card of Mickey Mantle and remains the most valuable Topps card ever. General - http://www.linux-usb.org/.

As a result, cards with higher numbers from this period are rarer than low numbers in the same set, and collectors will pay significantly higher prices for them. This is the current revision. In later years, Topps either printed series in smaller quantities late in the season or destroyed excess cards. USB On-The-Go Supplement 1.0a: Released in June 2003. Topps was left with a substantial amount of surplus stock in 1952, which it largely disposed of by dumping many cards into the Atlantic. USB On-The-Go Supplement 1.0: Released in December 2001. However, the later series did not sell as well, as the baseball season wore on and popular attention began to turn towards football. As an example, a computer's port could be incapable of USB 2.0's hi-speed fast transfer rates, but still claim USB 2.0 compliance (since it supports some of USB 2.0).

The cards were released in several series over the course of the baseball season, a practice Topps would continue with its baseball cards until 1974. This makes the backwards compatibility explicit, but it becomes more difficult to determine a device's throughput without seeing the symbol. This set became a landmark in the baseball card industry, and today the company considers this its first true baseball card set. Added three speed distinction to this standard, allowing all devices to be USB 2.0 compliant even if they were previously considered only 1.1 or 1.0 compliant. (In 1957, Topps shrank the dimensions of its cards slightly, to 2-1/2 inches by 3-1/2 inches, setting a standard that remains the basic format for most sports cards produced in the United States.) The cards now had a color portrait on one side, with statistical and biographical information on the other. USB 2.0: Revised in December 2002. The company also decided that its playing card model was too small (2 inches by 2-5/8 inches) and changed the dimensions to 2-5/8 inches by 3-5/8 inches with square corners. This is the current revision.

Topps changed its approach in 1952, this time creating a much larger (407 total) set of baseball cards and packaging them with its signature product, bubblegum. The major feature of this standard was the addition of high-speed mode. The other side featured the portrait of a player within a baseball diamond in the center, and in opposite corners a picture of a baseball together with the event for that card, such as "fly out" or "single". USB 2.0: Released in April 2000. Also like playing cards, the cards had rounded corners and were blank on one side, which was colored either red or blue (hence the names given to these sets). USB 1.1: Released in September 1998. Each set contained 52 cards, like a deck of playing cards, and in fact the cards could be used to play a game that would simulate the events of a baseball game. USB 1.0: Released in January 1996.

In 1951, Topps produced its first baseball cards in two different sets known today as Red Backs and Blue Backs. USB 1.0 FDR: Released in November 1995, the same year that Apple adopted the IEEE 1394 standard known as FireWire. Management was left in the hands of the Shorin family throughout all of these maneuverings. In a FireWire network, any capable node can control the network. In this incarnation, the company was incorporated in Delaware for legal purposes, but company headquarters remained in New York. A USB network relies on a single host at the top of the tree to control the network. The new ownership group again made Topps into a publicly traded company in 1987, now renamed to The Topps Company, Inc. A FireWire device can communicate with any other node at any time, subject to network conditions.

The company returned to private ownership when it was acquired in a leveraged buyout led by Forstmann Little & Company in 1984. USB uses a "speak-when-spoken-to" protocol; peripherals cannot communicate with the host unless the host specifically requests communication. After being privately held for several decades, Topps offered stock to the public for the first time in 1972 with the assistance of investment banking firm White, Weld & Co. USB networks use a tiered-star topology, while FireWire networks use a repeater-based topology. In 1994, the headquarters would move to One Whitehall Street in Manhattan. Compliant devices must either fit within the size restrictions or support a compliant extension cable which does. Corporate offices remained at 254 36th Street in New York, a location in the Brooklyn waterfront district by the Gowanus Expressway. This was done to avoid circumstances where a device complied with the connector specification but its large size blocked adjacent ports.

The entire company originally operated out of Brooklyn, but production facilities were moved to a plant in Duryea, Pennsylvania in 1965. Unlike most other connector standards, the USB spec also defines limits to the size of a connecting device in the area around its plug. It later incorporated under New York law in 1947. The USB standard specifies relatively low tolerances for compliant USB connectors, intending to minimize incompatibilities in connectors produced by different vendors (a goal that has been very successfully achieved). The company began its existence as Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., a partnership between the four Shorin brothers. This type of enclosure also means that there is a (moderate) degree of protection from electromagnetic interference afforded to the USB signal while it travels through the mated connector pair (this is the only location when the otherwise twisted data pair must travel a distance in parallel). Topps then added baseball cards as a product, which quickly became its primary emphasis. This sheath is typically connected to the system ground, allowing otherwise damaging static charges to be safely discharged by this route (rather than via delicate electronic components).

Starting in 1950, the company decided to try increasing gum sales by packaging them together with trading cards featuring Western character Hopalong Cassidy. The connector construction always ensures that the external sheath on the plug contacts with its counterpart in the receptacle before the four connectors within are connected. Topps's most successful early product was Bazooka bubblegum, which was packaged with a small comic on the wrapper. The force needed to make or break a connection is modest, allowing connections to be made in awkward circumstances or by those with motor disabilities. At the time, chewing gum was still a relative novelty sold in individual pieces. USB cables and small USB devices are held in place by the gripping force from the receptacle (without the need for the screws, clips, or thumbturns other connectors require). The chosen field was the manufacture of chewing gum, selected after going into the produce business was considered and rejected. A moderate insertion/removal force is specified.

To do this, they relaunched the company as Topps, with the name meant to indicate that it would be "tops" in its field. RJ-45 cabling) gender-changers are never used, making it difficult to create a cyclic USB network. Shorin's sons, Abram, Ira, Philip, and Joseph, decided to focus on a new product but take advantage of the company's existing distribution channels. Unlike other communications systems (e.g. American Leaf Tobacco encountered difficulties as World War I cut off Turkish supplies of tobacco to the United States, and later as a result of the Great Depression. USB does not support cyclical networks, so the connectors from incompatible USB devices are themselves incompatible. (American Leaf Tobacco should not be confused with the American Tobacco Company, which monopolized US-grown tobacco during this period.). The connectors enforce the directed topology of a USB network.

imported tobacco to the United States and sold it to other tobacco companies. The connectors are particularly cheap to manufacture. Founded in 1890 by Morris Shorin, the American Leaf Tobacco Co. However, it is not obvious at a glance to the inexperienced user which way round a connector goes, so it is often necessary to try both ways. Topps itself was founded in 1938, but the company can trace its roots back to an earlier firm, American Leaf Tobacco. Connectors cannot be plugged-in upside down, and it is clear from the appearance and kinesthetic sensation of making a connection when the plug and socket are correctly mated. . It is difficult to incorrectly attach a USB connector.

It is best known as a leading producer of baseball cards and other sports-related trading cards. The encasing sheath and the tough moulded plug body mean that a connector can be dropped, stepped upon, even crushed or struck, all without damage; a considerable degree of force is needed to significantly damage a USB connector. The Topps Company, Inc. NASDAQ: TOPP is a publicly traded company based in New York City that manufactures candy and collectibles. As a result USB connectors can safely be handled, inserted, and removed, even by a small child. New York: Warner Books. The electrical contacts in a USB connector are protected by an adjacent plastic tongue, and the entire connecting assembly is further protected by an enclosing metal sheath. Topps Baseball Cards: The complete picture collection, a 40 year history. Many previous connector designs were fragile, with pins or other delicate components prone to bending or breaking, even with the application of only very modest force.

Slocum, Frank & Red Foley (1990). The connectors are designed to be robust. ISBN 0-312-32222-4. A Hi-Speed rate of 480 Mbit/s (57 MiB/s). Martin's Press. All USB Hubs support Full Speed. New York: St. Full Speed devices divide the USB bandwidth between them in a first-come first-served basis and it is not uncommon to run out of bandwidth with several isochronous devices.

The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination with Statistics. Full Speed was the fastest rate before the USB 2.0 specification and many devices fall back to Full Speed. Schwarz, Alan (2004). A Full Speed rate of 12 Mbit/s (1.4 MiB/s). Chicago Reader, 25 June 2004. A Low Speed rate of 1.5 Mbit/s (183 KiB/s) that is mostly used for Human Interface Devices (HID) such as keyboards, mice and joysticks. "Culture Jamming for the Swingset Set". file transfers.

Schwartz, Ben. bulk transfers - large sporadic transfers using all remaining available bandwidth (but with no guarantees on bandwidth or latency), e.g. 1953). pointing devices and keyboards. 904 (E.D.N.Y. interrupt transfers - devices that need guaranteed quick responses (bounded latency), e.g. Topps Chewing Gum Co., 112 F.Supp. realtime audio or video.

v. isochronous transfers - at some guaranteed speed (often but not necessarily as fast as possible) but with possible data loss, e.g. Haelan Laboratories, Inc. by the bus control pipe number 0. 1953). control transfers - typically used for short, simple commands to the device, and a status response, used e.g. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., 202 F.2d 866 (2d Cir.

v. Haelan Laboratories, Inc. 1981). Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., 658 F.2d 139 (3d Cir.

v. Fleer Corp. 1980). Pa.

485 (E.D. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., 501 F.Supp. v. Fleer Corp.

Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., 103 F.Supp. v. Bowman Gum, Inc.