Connectors That Changed the World

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 1:58 AM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #6

Switchcraft 280 and XLR connectors deserve mention for longevity and ubiquity in music and recording.

Post by exmadscientist » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 2:13 AM UTC

myself248 wrote: post #7

exmadscientist wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet I wonder how many of those machines have USB to RS-232 converters internally... not that I've ever been asked to design such a thing.... Properly implemented RS-232 is a thing of beauty, in a way that USB just can't be. It's a shame so many implementations (of both!) fall short.

The ones that barf out a debug console from the processor's first init steps are probably not USB internally. ;) But yeah, USB never came up with a good way to do peer-to-peer. On-the-go is super driver heavy and just not useful in the way RS232 is. New TVs still ship with it, for home automation reasons.

Post by myself248 » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 3:21 AM UTC

exmadscientist wrote: post #13

myself248 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ones that barf out a debug console from the processor's first init steps are probably not USB internally. ;) But yeah, USB never came up with a good way to do peer-to-peer. On-the-go is super driver heavy and just not useful in the way RS232 is. New TVs still ship with it, for home automation reasons.

And neither are they RS-232, unless you've got a transceiver (MAX232 etc) in there :) Man... USB CDC is painful. It's so much "fun" that a serious solution on one product was two back-to-back FTDI transceivers. I think they finally designed that out, but I'm scared to look at what might be in its place now....

Post by jbindel » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 3:54 AM UTC

Arainach wrote: post #4

This article is a list of connectors that doesn't go into much detail into how each changed the world. The idea that APIs are a singular thing - or started as late as the article suggested - is also sufficiently wrong to put everything else written in the article into doubt.

Post by exmadscientist » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 4:39 AM UTC

m463 wrote: post #16

exmadscientist wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet I wonder how many of those machines have USB to RS-232 converters internally... not that I've ever been asked to design such a thing.... Properly implemented RS-232 is a thing of beauty, in a way that USB just can't be. It's a shame so many implementations (of both!) fall short.

Is it two lines with ^S/^Q/BREAK, or hardware flow control, with or without ring, db25->db9 converters (never of the right gender), etc... I was pretty happy to throw it out the window in favor of USB. Of course, firewire was better than usb and the whole cycle started again.