451–460 of 544 posts
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For an example of an asymmetrical "rectangle", look at HDMI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#/media/File:HDMI_connecto...
FireWire was great for that. I loved that connector.
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Im not sure this is true, the part in the cable is just tiny pins and far more vulnerable than the wafer. For years now I've dug woodchips and other junk out of my phones usb-c socket with paperclips and never came close to damage. It seems sufficiently recessed to prevent all but the most aggressive attack. Edit: in fact, trying now it seems to be perfectly recessed that I can't even push on it from an angle with th…
It's almost as if the designers have considered this potential failure mode for devices that often get dropped even while plugged into a charger :) I can emphasize with many of the gripes people have with USB-C cables and supported modes being confusing, but the port is really, really well thought out: Make the cable the part that fails more easily [1]; make it so that the plug only minimally acts as a lever while pa…
Alternatively, there are "brick nogging" connectors which stand up straight from the PCB and are therefore unusable for a Yubikey, or "sink board" ones which require a custom jig for assembly.
Meanwhile with USB-A you don't even need a male connector at all - just have a bit of your PCB stuck out in a vaguely USB-A-looking shape and it'll work just fine.
My 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…
This brought back many bad memories of trying to straighten a bent pin with needle-nose pliers and other tools that weren’t made of the job.
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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.
Also I have to say that the situation of USB-C is much better now than in the past. At the beginning of USB-C you had devices that were not implementing the standard correctly, and using the wrong cable could fry a device. Now the devices are better protected, you can charge any device with any charger. Of course the charger needs to be powerful enough but if it's too powerful it's still safe to use.
A common offender is devices which leave out the CC resistors, making them only work with A-C cables. But the soon-to-be-released Raspberry Pi 5 also violates the specs, making it basically only work with their proprietary charger.
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You’ve been fortunate (or far more clued in to usb standards than just about everyone) if you don’t already have multiple usb c cables with different capabilities. It’s possible for noncompliant usb c cable to fry electronics. I don’t know of any other connector standard where the connector doesn’t clearly indicate or imply the cable’s capabilities. I’m sure they exist, but generally for consumer electronics if a cab…
USB-C problems surely exist, but I have never heard of single-side only plugs, and video-only cables simply don’t exist, yet these are GPs specific concerns.
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I used a Bluetooth analyser once that had a USB-C connector that only plugged in one way. It had a dedicated "wrong way around" LED to tell you to rotate it. Kind of hilarious. It's the only example I've ever seen though so not a real problem IMO. The cables issue is real, but I don't really see the alternative. Would everyone really be happier if all USB-C cables had to be expensive thick 40 Gb/s 100W cables? No.
Could they not have done… something else besides make everything visually identical? At least give us a fighting chance? In a perfect world require every port to have the supported modes displayed beside it, and every cable to have the supported modes etched on the metal connector or something? Lightning bolt for PD, little screen icon for video, something? It will fall apart as soon as cheap unlicensed electronics h…
Guess what? That's already the case! Manufacturers just choose to completely ignore that part of the specification.
Not really. I've got a cable which is USB 2.0 type A one side, Micro-B the other side and both the sides are perfectly reversible. It's already been many years since I've bought it and it still serves me reliably for both charging and data needs. The manufacturer didn't even have to change the standard to produce a reversible cable working great with all the old devices whose manufacturers never heard reversible USB cables exist.
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The worst is trying to repair one end of an existing cable and having to think really hard about whether to use A or B wiring.
Random anecdote: I worked at a company with an on-prem server room and the building got struck by lightning. It fried some servers and quite a few nic cards on employee computers. Our CTO decided since we'd be in the building doing hardware replacements anyway, now was the time to redo our wiring closest as well. That was my introduction to wiring up CAT-5 cables and rj45 connectors and, with so many to make, I neede…
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Thanks for the memories!
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I think this is a bit hyperbolic. Once you try to implement any standard in practice to billions of people & devices you're going to find the same constraints and similar trade-offs everywhere. Manufacturers are going to cheap out, always . There's no way around the fact that goods can get on the market claiming a thing that it doesn't do (perfectly) in practice. Tech is littered with semi-compliance. I hate to kick…
USB-IF should publish a table of every possible cable/adapter/receptacle type, with a short alphanumeric code that can be printed or molded onto the connector. The set of permutations is too large to fit into an icon, but a lookup table allows for unlimited detail.
Power-wise it is 60W, 100W (deprecated), and 240W. Data-wise it is 480Mbps, 5Gbps, 20Gbps, 40Gbps, 80Gbps. A simple power/data rating like already specified[0] is enough for >99% of cables.
[0]: https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/usb-if_usb_type-c_ca...