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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)
#292Re: USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (2019)
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or displayport. Personally I find hdmi almost as annoying as usb, though I can’t explain why that happens!
One problem with HDMI is that it has no clips or screws or similar holding it in, unlike DP, DVI, VGA, BNC... I remember I used to knock the HDMI out of one of my monitors with my foot all the time. It plugged in going straight up and barely could resist a bit more force than gravity, and the cable dangled behind the desk since the tower was on the floor.
I can not express how much infuriating the DP retaining clip can be.
Often manufacturers don't leave much space for fingers around the cable ends, which means trying to squeeze fingers in to release the clip.
Re: USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (2019)
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had to do a double take after reading this comment to make sure I wasn't reading an old thread from 2014 or something. USB-C has been out for years now and neither of these predictions have come to pass. Your comment aged poorly before you even finished writing it. USB-C isn't without its problems, but neither of those are one of them.
New iphone ships with a beautiful braided USB-C cable that's charge only. I'm going to cannibalize the usb-c cable from my external nvme drive if I ever want to plug the new phone in. Some usb-c cables are 100W compliant, many are not. None of them are clearly labeled.
The new iPhone ships with a USB 2.0 cable, it does data transfer, just not at USB 3 speeds
Re: USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (2019)
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is somewhat related as it's the next step of the above. The floating tongue of the USB connection is in the socket, not the on the cable. As in the most fragile part of the design is on the device side, not the cable side. This means that you can more easily break your $1000 device not the $2 cable. They repeated this mistake with USB-C as well. It's not hard to make a port where the cable is the free floating t…
Idk, lightning has the opposite problem where the contacts are exposed and degrade very quickly on the cable and need to be replaced constantly. Great for apple. And lightning has the gripping pins on the phone which degrade rather quickly too over repeated use. No cable is perfect I fear
Fwiw as a known clutz i haven't yet broken a USB C socket, the worst i've done is gummed a socket up with pocket lint. The symmetry helps avoid as many issues.
I did break USB A sockets though. They could easily be jammed in backwards and with the offset from center tongue and the cable perfectly designed to wedge in the wrong way and snap the tongue i did it far too often.
Re: USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (2019)
#296I just realized, all this time, i should have known which way the USB ports were on the back of the pc.
All I had to do was visualize the motherboard inside the case and I'd immediately and easily know which way to plug the cables in without looking.
Wish I'd thought of this 15 years ago...
Re: USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (2019)
#297My take on USB-A: aside from audio connectors that have axial symmetry (and have no meaningful orientation), I never used any reversible computer cables prior to USB-C, and that’s not the main issue. Nor is it the axis of symmetry of the casing allowing failed upside down plugin attempts. The shitty part of USB-A is that the tactile feedback of being slightly misaligned is identical to it being upside down. My experi…
I fail to understand what you mean with plugging a mini-DIN plug "off-center". Please explain! I find it easy to use by feel alone. You can feel when the sleeve fits the socket. Then you can rotate it in the socket until it can go all the way in.
You’re reaching around the back of a computer and you can’t see the exact location of the mini-din jack, you have to angle the plug normal to the plane of the computer back (more or less), you have to center the plug (translate the plug horizontally and vertically) to align it with the jack, and you have to rotate it so the the indentation (and of course pins) align.
But… My old computers all had a slippery steel plate surrounding the jacks, and the jacks had plastic centers aligned flush with the plate, having the plug overlap the steel plate never felt terribly different from only having the rotation wrong.
Re: USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (2019)
#298> Making USB reversible to begin with would have necessitated twice as many wires and twice as many circuits, and would have doubled the cost. This is... not correct. You can make USB reversible with 1 extra pin and 1 extra wire. Grounds on pins 1 and 5, data on pins 2 and 4, and VCC on pin 3. Then have those pins on both sides of the plug and a socket with a single set of contacts on one side. That's BASICALLY what…
The problem with USB-a isn't that it's non reversible, it's that it's non-reversible _and_ rectangular, so it's not clear at a glance which way round it should go. All they had to do was make the connector have a non-symmetrical shape so that it's immediately obvious which way round it goes when you pick it up - you could do it without even looking. Think of how much time we'd have collectively saved with this minor…
Just curious if you have seen the special irregular USB A plug for the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro. If so, what are your thoughts on it?
https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1XeKTDHSYBuNjSspiq6xNzpXae.jpg...
imgur mirror https://i.imgur.com/RQvMfhT.png
random newegg link: https://www.newegg.com/p/2MV-00MD-00DX3
Re: USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (2019)
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ethernet hardware now has auto-crossover. However, that hasn't always been the case. There was a good decade in the 90's where you needed a special cable wiring if you wanted to connect two computers vs a computer to a switch.
Easily going into the early 2000s. I remember trying to setup LAN parties in 2004/2005, where the wrong combination of patch or normal cable with hub/switch/PC made everything a nightmare.
I found a few patch cables mixed in with regular cables. one day, i got so tired of messing with them, i cut the cables and put them in the trash. i could have just trashed, them, but that didn't feel right. i mean, what if someone were to go dumpster diving. the curse would then be on them.
Re: USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (2019)
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is somewhat related as it's the next step of the above. The floating tongue of the USB connection is in the socket, not the on the cable. As in the most fragile part of the design is on the device side, not the cable side. This means that you can more easily break your $1000 device not the $2 cable. They repeated this mistake with USB-C as well. It's not hard to make a port where the cable is the free floating t…
Idk, lightning has the opposite problem where the contacts are exposed and degrade very quickly on the cable and need to be replaced constantly. Great for apple. And lightning has the gripping pins on the phone which degrade rather quickly too over repeated use. No cable is perfect I fear
Unless we go to something radically different then one side or the other is going to have the flimsy bits.
For my money, I’d take a flimsy cable over a flimsy device port. Replacing a cable is a two minute trip to Amazon. Replacing a device port is a pricey and annoying trip to a repair shop or an evening with my soldering iron cursing the universe.