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USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (2019)

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Re: USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (2019)

#61

Post by Izkata »

slikrick wrote: post #41
lesuorac wrote: post #13

I know everybody is still on the high from USB-C but I'm still going to go on the record it will be one of the biggest disasters in cable history. 1) There's going to be video-only cables; low-voltage only cables; etc and this time everything is usb-c so you can literally only tell which ables work by testing all of the dozen cables instead of the 1-2 USB-As you have. 2) The connector is symmetrical but the pins aren…

USBC has been out for over a decade, have you ever run into 2)

Up until this year I've had exactly 3 USB-C cables: Nintendo Switch, which is always plugged into its dock; laptop charger, also always plugged in at my desk; and phone charger. No real room for the mistakes they're describing.

Re: USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (2019)

#62

Post by Neil44 »

usrusr wrote: post #50
Neil44 wrote: post #17

I thought the tongue should have a little bump on the right or left, so if you're upside down you can tell straight away because the connector will want to angle over, rather than wiggling and wondering and doing the standard 3 tries thing.

Making the part that is PCB on cheap USB sticks protrude a little from the metal rectangle? Would have required slightly deeper sockets, but I like the idea, would have saved some frustration.

Yeah just a little 1mm hump on one side of the plastic tongue, but yeah the 1mm would have to come from somewhere.

Re: USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (2019)

#63

Post by lesuorac »

Izkata wrote: post #61
slikrick wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USBC has been out for over a decade, have you ever run into 2)

Up until this year I've had exactly 3 USB-C cables: Nintendo Switch, which is always plugged into its dock; laptop charger, also always plugged in at my desk; and phone charger. No real room for the mistakes they're describing.

Nintendo Switch is non-compliant [1] so you've already seen (2) it just hasn't been a big enough problem to be visible to you. I suspect a big reason for that is the Switch is a wallUSB-C charger so you don't try to connect it between many USB-C devices.

[1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/87vmud/the_...

Re: USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (2019)

#64

Post by tzs »

lesuorac wrote: post #13

I know everybody is still on the high from USB-C but I'm still going to go on the record it will be one of the biggest disasters in cable history. 1) There's going to be video-only cables; low-voltage only cables; etc and this time everything is usb-c so you can literally only tell which ables work by testing all of the dozen cables instead of the 1-2 USB-As you have. 2) The connector is symmetrical but the pins aren…

I wish there was a requirement that USB C cables must have sort of ID chip that can be easily read that tells what the cable supports, so that we could have simple testers that you can plug a cable into and be told what speed and power it supports.

Re: USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (2019)

#65

Post by usrusr »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #59
usrusr wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(1) as in Video only, as in they won't work to top up the battery in random Bluetooth gadgets and the like? Amongst compliant cables, you might occasionally find some that are rated 40 Gbps but do not identify as high voltage capable. But I suspect that once manufacturers stomach the wire cost of those fat 40+ cables (display!), skimping out on PD capability just won't make enough of a difference to abandon efficienc…

I didn't take it that literally.

What would be the alternative? An entirely new physical connector every time manufacturers feel the desire to make this year's model slightly more capable than last year's? Some form of "physical semver" where "not all new features are possible with all old cables" mandates a new plug shape?

If we were still limited to domain specific connectors (one for storage, one for networking, one for audio, one for video, one for each type of user input) we'd still run into the same (non)issues: unless every revision of, say, displayport came with it's own unique connector, without digging a little deeper (checking some version/capability symbols) you don't know wether a given cable supports the latest feature set or not. The universal in USB is not the problem.

Re: USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (2019)

#66

Post by tzs »

nubinetwork wrote: post #4

I've seen people try to connect ps/2 and vga cables upside down, and mash all the pins in the process. I'm fine with flipping a USB cable over a couple times until it goes in. /shrug

Back in the days when 200 MB was a big drive for a personal computer, IBM was working on a 1 GB drive. I worked at a place that was doing firmware for a company that was going to use those 1 GB drives in their product, and that company had access to some of the earliest test units. We were writing the firmware for that product, so IBM allowed them to loan us a couple of the drives.

I once put one of the drives into my test system, and plugged in the power connector. It used a standard Molex connector [1].

The way the drive was mounted I couldn't actually see the plug or socket. It's a keyed connector so that should not be a problem. Yet somehow I managed to plug it in upside down which fried the drive.

Afterwards I did some tests and found that the plastic on the connector on the drive was very soft. If you tried to plug in the wrong way the parts that were supposed to get in the way due to the keying would just deform out of the weight.

It took more force to insert it the wrong way, but not more than was often needed when you happened across a plug and socket combination that were a tight fit so that didn't tip you off.

I reported that to the person who had loaned us the drive and he told me he'd fried two of them that way. He said that when he told IBM about that his contact there said that they were losing something like 10% of the drives during testing right after manufacturing due to their technicians getting it backward, and the parts list had already been revised to switch to a connector hard enough for the keying to actually work.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molex_connector

Re: USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (2019)

#67

Post by Izkata »

lesuorac wrote: post #63
Izkata wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up until this year I've had exactly 3 USB-C cables: Nintendo Switch, which is always plugged into its dock; laptop charger, also always plugged in at my desk; and phone charger. No real room for the mistakes they're describing.

Nintendo Switch is non-compliant [1] so you've already seen (2) it just hasn't been a big enough problem to be visible to you. I suspect a big reason for that is the Switch is a wall USB-C charger so you don't try to connect it between many USB-C devices. [1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/87vmud/the_...

I was responding to the "out for over a decade" part; how long they've been available doesn't mean much if they haven't been very common for consumer electronics for that long. Up until this year I've had only 1 such cable, my phone charger, that could get mixed up in any way... and that one couldn't be mixed up because I didn't have a second unused cable to mix it up with.

Re: USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (2019)

#69

Post by moffkalast »

_moof wrote: post #26
SeanLuke wrote: post #21

> It was in 1998 that USB made some real headway, courtesy of the iMac G3, the first computer to ship with only USB ports for external devices (there were no serial or parallel ports). Um, no? The iMac had an Ethernet port, a phone jack for an internal modem, and TWO FIREWIRE PORTS. And Microphone and Speaker jacks.

The first iMac was USB only. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_G3#Specifications

It is genuinely surprising that out of all companies Apple was the one to pioneer USB usage.

Quite the stark contrast with their current modus operandi of always making something custom so it can be as incompatible as possible with anything non-Apple (and so they can sell more dongles). Well until they were dragged kicking and screaming to USB-C by the EU anyway.

Re: USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (2019)

#70

Post by tomjakubowski »

tzs wrote: post #64
lesuorac wrote: post #13

I know everybody is still on the high from USB-C but I'm still going to go on the record it will be one of the biggest disasters in cable history. 1) There's going to be video-only cables; low-voltage only cables; etc and this time everything is usb-c so you can literally only tell which ables work by testing all of the dozen cables instead of the 1-2 USB-As you have. 2) The connector is symmetrical but the pins aren…

I wish there was a requirement that USB C cables must have sort of ID chip that can be easily read that tells what the cable supports, so that we could have simple testers that you can plug a cable into and be told what speed and power it supports.

If you have two USB-C ports on one computer which both support "everything", could you write a cable tester in software?
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