211–220 of 279 posts
I'd be curious about 40Gbps for what cable length. TB3 is great, you can in theory dock a laptop with a single cable that will do charging, 10gbe, USB hub, etc, but with a max 50cm cable, which makes it quite "un-lappable". I'd love to do the same with a 2m cable.
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So remind me, why can you walk into any apple store, pick up a new MacBook and a 5K LG monitor, and when you plug in the monitor using the USB-C cable that was bundled with the MacBook it just won't work at all? My point is - the standards might be back and forward compatible. But the cables and ports definitely aren't - and your average consumer has absolutely no way of knowing. They look absolutely identical on the…
There are two problems: 1. the same connector is used for a wide variety of capabilities, and it can get confusing knowing what you can use together. 2. the names of these connectors is confusing. You're complaining about the first, and that's a very hard problem. There are huge advantages to using the same connector and cables that can support 100W of power, 5K displays and also support peripherals that retail for l…
Well In your example the Connector and Cable, specifically cable will have to be an expensive PD 100W Cable for it to correct, if the cable were designed for the $1 peripherals it wouldn't work with the 100W and 5K Display.
The sentence would have been correct without the word cable, but without it the argument wouldn't stand. Because you just can't find a Cable with the same Connector and expect it to work with 5 / 10 / 20 years peripherals because the cable didn't support it.
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Yes, if you buy it standalone. But what about in the computer box? I've opened a lot of MacBook Pros, and I can't remember seeing any labeling.
I’ve gotten into the habit of taking the supplied cable on all Mac portables and replacing it with a Thunderbolt 3 40gbs 100w cable from Monoprice before handing it over to the staff person. It cuts down on “why won’t this work” questions surrounding monitors and such.
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So remind me, why can you walk into any apple store, pick up a new MacBook and a 5K LG monitor, and when you plug in the monitor using the USB-C cable that was bundled with the MacBook it just won't work at all? My point is - the standards might be back and forward compatible. But the cables and ports definitely aren't - and your average consumer has absolutely no way of knowing. They look absolutely identical on the…
A lot (most?) charge cables are USB 2.0 — just enough data to negotiate the higher power. If they supported faster data too, they'd be more expensive. But it definitely should be more clear! Apple's minimalism doesn't help in this case, either.
IIRC it was a deliberate decision by USB-IF to not enforce any additional labels on USB cables and connectors beyond the USB logo.
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Don't get your hopes up, as this is just a dream. USB-C only specifies the connector. What your cables support, and what end devices support is anyone's guess. See for example https://superuser.com/questions/1199917/what-is-the-d-shaped... In my opinion, the mess is actually much worse with USB-C, as with earlier connectors I at least had a chance of guessing whether the cable/connection will work by looking at the c…
In practice this is significantly smaller issue than most media and techies made out to be. Most devices are USB, they work and charge over the connector just fine. On laptops, connecting displays work as well. They will either use TB or negotiate for HDMI/DP which is also fine. The only real outliers are crappy companies which deliberately break protocols like Nintendo on their Switch.
There are USB-C Charge Cable, that does no Data ( To save cost )
>On laptops, connecting displays work as well. They will either use TB or negotiate for HDMI/DP which is also fine.
That is assuming the cable could do TB, which is also not true.
Once you get USB-C to everywhere to everyday normal users, they expect it to plug in and work.
Whoa. Does the addition of Thunderbolt imply that all USB4 host systems are exposed to DMA attacks[0]? Doesn't this open up every USB system (all systems?) to arbitrary, uncontrolled memory access including silently flashing new firmware/microcode to system components? 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMA_attack
The option also exists to require approving or whitelisting devices before they are allowed to work over Thunderbolt.
I had to add a few things to manage expectations and more accurately reflect reality, but I think we've got it now.
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> At the physical layer, is it the materials in the cables are getting better? Yes, and more expensive on that. Laptop makers totally hate usb 3.0+ for that. The industry standard for internal digital connectivity was the FPC - flexible printed circuit board, a very economical and ergonomic solution, but then came USB 3.0. Regular polyimide FPC can't reliably handle the high frequency signalling. Still, many laptop m…
Thanks for sharing and interesting industry perspective. Color me unconvinced on one point though: > Only very recently, there came an FPC maker that makes custom cabling with some proprietary dielectric that can handle 3.0. A brief glance at IPC-4203A (which has been around since 2013) tells me this is a consequence of market cost sensitivity, not one driven by the inherent performance limitations of available mater…
Is it an unpopular opinion that USB is already fast enough and has enough features and USB implementers should instead work on cost reduction and compatibility so that we can all move away from USB 2 and pre-type-C connectors?
It's not fast enough. USB cannot drive a 4k monitor at 60hz. You can use the physical interface to do it, but this uses Thunderbolt. This means that the dream of a one-cable-for-everything setup is not here yet, unless you use a Thunderbolt dock, which multiplexes the USB stuff in with the monitor signal. A thunderbolt dock costs around 10x more than a simple USB dock.
What's optional? That's the most important thing to know is what's optional in the spec. That could make it great or a major pain. I'm referring to how many features the specification defines as "optional" for manufactures and that the USB organization requires for logos. This is why even USB-C is a nightmare. Consider a USB-C cable or device port. It could be charge only, data only, monitor support. There are even m…
The only way you can make a specification like USB "universal" is for parts of it to be optional. No one is going to build a USB mouse with a 40Gbit link speed, for example.