I'm a cable hoarder. I have cables for technologies that have been dead, for decades. I need help.
> I need help.
Call SOS on your telegraph?
Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables
301–310 of 464 posts
Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
What marker do you use to mark them? Is the ink durable and easy to read?
I bought a cheap pack of 5 colors of 3m electrical tape. Each cable gets one or two pieces of tape: Data: White if usb2 Blue if it supports USB 3 data (because 5Gbps USB 3 ports are mostly blue) Green if TB/USB4/40Gbps Power: None if low/no Power Delivery Yellow for 45W PD Red for 65W+ PD
Might get sticky residue after a few years
Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables
#303Recently visited Seoul, Korea, and took the subway to Yongsan station and walked over to what is left of the Yongsan Electronics Market (building 21).
1) It still exists. Cool. 2) What's left: Nobody taking their boxes of cables away!
Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not for everybody (what ever is, rite?) and since you "hardly have any pairs of cables that are similar enough to be interchangeable" then congrats, you're winning at life and don't need anything like this. The sounds hard Doesn't feel hard to me. I have a bag for USB A, a bag for USB C, and a bag for USB A C. My USB-C charging cables are all 3' or longer, so they're visually distinct from the crappy little cabl…
I would consider tossing the usb-a to usb-c cables that do not have a confirmed 56k ohm resistor.
How do you test that?
Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables
#305I do group them using one "type" per box too. However I do not use zip-bags, instead I use core of toilet rolls - suitable to add length labeling too.
Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables
#306Key for me is to "group" cables. For example, I have a bag of USB-C cables, a bag of USB-A cables, etc. Grouping them is key to deduplicating. It's easy to look at a single legacy USB A-to-B "printer" cable in isolation and think "I might need this someday!" Because you really might need it someday. However, if you group them you might see that you have ten of them. And then you can get rid of... maybe 8 of them. I a…
I do group them using one "type" per box too (either "audio cables" or "usb not-C", "usb C" etc. However I do not use zip-bags, instead I use core of toilet rolls - suitable to add length labeling too.
Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables
#307We moved a few months ago and it was so satisfying seeing the inventory of cables I had been saving for years getting used up. The cable-watermark in the box actually started noticably lowering. Nobody gave me the loud praise I deserved but it sure was satisfying saying "yeah I have the cable for it, here you go" with a distinct feeling of superiority.
Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables
#308The delight of having one of those cables be useful is immeasurable. It doesn't even have to be for your own good. In fact, I bet if we made a site where everyone can catalog their collections and automatically match them up with neighbors that have that cable, people would be more than happy to share cables for free.
Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables
#309 Thunderbolt 3 -> Thunderbolt 2 -> Firewire 800 -> Firewire 400
-> Ethernet
USB 3 -> USB 2/1 --> micro/mini/whatever-USB
VGA, DVI-D, DVI-I, HDMI, microHDMI, [m]DisplayPort
Often people don't realize there is only "downwards-compatibility", meaning later technologies can "tunnel" an "older" signal (such as DisplayPort being able to Tunnel DVI/HDMI) when using passive adapters, while the other way it's not possible.
Re: Don't let anyone take away your big box of cables
#310I decided years ago to limit myself to just one box of cables... So then I ended up having to keep finding a bigger and bigger box to switch them to. One thing that bothers me though (or an excuse my brain uses to justify it maybe) is that it feels so wasteful to dump so many cables that will probably end up in landfill when I know there's someone out there who could make use of them. If anyone has a suggestion on th…
Someone should make a noncommercial website that allows people to post their collection. I bet there's enough people out there willing to share their cables for free just for the delight of having one of their cables being useful to someone for some reason