Intel made USB a chipset default and killed the cable zoo.

In the early 1990s a PC had a serial port, a parallel port, PS/2, a game port and SCSI, and every device needed its own cable and driver, with reboots and configuration fights. Intel engineer Ajay Bhatt started USB to make plug-and-play real: plug the device in and it works.

Intel built the technology and pulled seven companies — Intel, Compaq, Microsoft, DEC, NEC, Nortel and IBM — into the USB Implementers Forum, a non-profit established in 1995 to advance adoption of the spec. The USB 1.0 specification was completed in 1996, and Intel's PIIX3 chipset put a USB host controller on standard PC motherboards.

Because the controller shipped in the chipset, every new PC had USB before any peripheral did; the forum's open membership let anyone build devices. Within a few years serial, parallel and PS/2 ports disappeared from motherboards, and USB became the single connector for keyboards, mice, printers, drives and charging.

Bake the open port into the chipset by default

Chipset integration meant consumers did not have to choose USB; it was already installed.

A non-profit multi-vendor forum kept the spec open to any device maker.

Plug-and-play solved a painful real problem, so device makers adopted it quickly.

One universal connector simplified manufacturing and retail, reinforcing adoption.

A standard wins when the platform owner ships it by default: the decisive choice is chipset placement and an open multi-vendor forum, not raw speed — ubiquity beats performance in an interface war.

USB became the most successful PC interface ever, surviving through USB 2.0, 3.x and Type-C and extending into power delivery and video. The connector zoo it replaced is now a footnote, and the USB-IF has grown past 1,000 member companies.