361–370 of 461 posts
Throughout the years they were cautious when it was introduced, thankful after it was established, and now they are too young to know any other world.
And yes, USB as main connection standard was driven by Apple. But USB as main charging standard was set by the EU.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> HDMI and display port are in a similar boat. Putting the spec on the connector would be so much help. What if we just have different connectors for different specs? Then you'd know what supports what by what fits into the connection in the first place.
I have a box full of old SCSI cables that adapt between the various SCSI standards, it's pure hell. USB-C is a dream.
These days, ye olde parallel SCSI bus is gone. We have USB C, which is similar to SCSI in that the number of ways it can work is way more than 1. But because the connectors are all the same and the defacto labeling is awful, I can't necessarily identify the functions by sight or feel. If I have needs that extend very far beyond charging a phone and/or USB 2, then I don't know if any of the USB C cables that I find in a box will support those needs without testing them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those two resistors cost money. It's not incompetence. It's a deliberate choice.
You're saving a fraction of a cent per device, while banking on customers not sending it back as defective because it didn't charge when they tried it with a random cable. If it is a deliberate choice, it's a really, really dumb one.
USB-C maximalism is great for travel. I personally recommend travelling with a USB-C desktop charger, but use one that accepts a IEC C7 ("figure-8") cable. Then, travel with only the cable corresponding to your destination (or buy one when you get there). That avoids having a wall wart that might not fit in narrow spaces, or whose weight might make it fall out of older sockets. I wrote about it a few years ago; the p…
Except this isn't true. Different power delivery capabilities, different standards. Some can transfer data, some can transfer 4K, some support quick charge, others don't. I love USB C but different cable standards all looking identical is infuriating sometimes
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 40gbps is an insane data rate that requires shielding, precision, and testing. There is no way you are getting that for $2. I dunno, Cat8 is 40gbps and pretty cheap. DOCSIS 4.0 does 10Gbps on some really ancient cables. I'm sure Cat9 will do even better, at least the cat people and the doc people are trying harder than the USB people. Unifi even has a PoE-over-coax solution. Add some Anker GaN shit and I'm sure it…
99% of user use cases for USB are charging batteries and copying a word document on a flash drive. For those cases literally every port and cable works. For video, in every office and home, the thunderbolt cable just sits in the monitor at all times with just the USB end free. Meaning there is no confusion around which cable is the video one because the video one only ever sits connected to the monitor. While I now n…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> HDMI and display port are in a similar boat. Putting the spec on the connector would be so much help. What if we just have different connectors for different specs? Then you'd know what supports what by what fits into the connection in the first place.
I have a box full of old SCSI cables that adapt between the various SCSI standards, it's pure hell. USB-C is a dream.
USB-C maximalism is great for travel. I personally recommend travelling with a USB-C desktop charger, but use one that accepts a IEC C7 ("figure-8") cable. Then, travel with only the cable corresponding to your destination (or buy one when you get there). That avoids having a wall wart that might not fit in narrow spaces, or whose weight might make it fall out of older sockets. I wrote about it a few years ago; the p…
I think your suggestion and also the author's are too big for my taste. I carry a US-style 45W GaN charger, a couple of usb-c cables, and an EU adapter (which, off the record, also works for UK outlets so it covers anywhere I normally travel to). I carry this daily and for travel even though I live in Europe as this combination is the same size as the EU version of my charger by itself. For devices I have a work lapt…
What type of adapter is this? EU and UK plugs are very different.
It's been a joy to not need to bring 3 chargers along when I travel. I think the only thing we're missing to make the USB-C experience perfect is cable labelling. It's unreasonable to make every cable perform to the max spec, but if we could standardise on some labelling or colours for cables that are charging-only, 480 mbit (usb 2 speed), 5 Gbit (usb 3 speed), 10 GB (usb 3.1 speed), 20 GB (usb 3.2 speed), plus whate…
At this point I have a switched pretty much everything to Club3d. They used to make GPUs but are now firmly connectors only. In the past 5 years no issues with any of the cables I bought from them.
USB-C maximalism is great for travel. I personally recommend travelling with a USB-C desktop charger, but use one that accepts a IEC C7 ("figure-8") cable. Then, travel with only the cable corresponding to your destination (or buy one when you get there). That avoids having a wall wart that might not fit in narrow spaces, or whose weight might make it fall out of older sockets. I wrote about it a few years ago; the p…
... if you're hopelessly stuck without your cloverleaf charging cable you can kind of batter a figure-8 power lead over the phase and neutral pins, and you can probably find a figure-8 power lead more easily than a cloverleaf one.
Don't leave it unattended or where non-hackers can get at it.
Don't make a habit of it.
This will get you out of a hole.