[HN Gopher] USB inventor explains why the connector was not desi...
___________________________________________________________________
USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be
reversible (2019)
Author : thunderbong
Score : 113 points
Date : 2023-10-09 09:40 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pcgamer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pcgamer.com)
| theogravity wrote:
| > Making USB reversible to begin with would have necessitated
| twice as many wires and twice as many circuits
|
| Is this still true with USB-C?
| eep_social wrote:
| From other comments it sounds like no. Instead, every port must
| detect the orientation and switch to using the correct lines in
| software. IIUC, each cable also needs a small IC to assist with
| this.
| Findecanor wrote:
| Reversibility for USB 2.0 data signals is mechanical: There are
| data pins on both sides and only one set of pins get connected.
| The socket side connects both sets.
|
| There is only one more wire in a USB-C 2.0 cable: it is used to
| signal orientation and if an end is a power source, sink or a
| headphone adaptor.
|
| USB-3 signals are more complicated though. There can be up to
| two bidirectional high-speed channels. The aforementioned
| sensing pin is used to figure out if those channels need to be
| swapped or not.
| donatj wrote:
| Hear me out. The original USB only had 4 pins. I always thought a
| round ringed TRS style plug like headphones use would have been
| great. No way to orient it incorrectly.
| metaphor wrote:
| > _I always thought a round ringed TRS style plug like
| headphones use would have been great. No way to orient it
| incorrectly._
|
| Now consider the forward-looking bandwidth implications with
| that class of physical interconnect.
| adolph wrote:
| The iPod shuffle did this to decrease the connector size and
| count.
| oniony wrote:
| I think the problem these connectors have is that each ring has
| to slide over the other contacts to get to its correct
| location.
|
| USB Type-A has longer contacts for pins 1 and 4, the power
| pins, so they contact first and remain contacted before the
| data pins make contact. You can see that in this picture
| https://www.electroschematics.com/usb-how-things-work/.
| tommiegannert wrote:
| Many of the TRS connectors have a built-in switch to
| (originally) disconnect the internal speaker.
|
| It would probably have been easy to extend that concept to
| isolate all contacts until the tip hits the bottom.
| lesuorac wrote:
| 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't. You can see
| a wiring scheme of how symmetry is handled [1]; literally
| manufactures are going to cheap out and not do that and you have
| 1-way USB-C cables without any kind of orientation markers.
|
| An obviously key'd connector like firewire / ethernet would've
| solved all of USB-A's flip it thrice problems. And this could've
| been allowed in a backwards compatible where old USB-A cables
| were basically a skeleton key and the new USB-A cables had a ward
| that blocked them from fitting incorrectly.
|
| [1]:
| https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/125011/how-d...
| slikrick wrote:
| USBC has been out for over a decade, have you ever run into 2)
| Izkata wrote:
| 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.
| lesuorac wrote:
| 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/87vmu
| d/the_...
| Izkata wrote:
| 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.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| I've been using USB-C on basically every consumer
| electronics device I've used over nearly the past decade.
| Over the years I have accumulated:
|
| 1. A laptop with a USB-C power/data/DisplayPort port
|
| 2. A phone with a USB-C power/data port
|
| 3. Multiple USB power banks which use a single USB-C port
| for both charging and discharging
|
| 4. A smartwatch with a dock that uses USB-C
|
| 5. Multiple flashlights with USB-C charging
|
| 6. Multiple bluetooth speakers with USB-C charging
|
| 7. A pair of earbuds with a case that uses USB-C charging
|
| 8. Dozens of various USB-C cables and power bricks, some
| of which came included with the products above
|
| So far I've had zero issues with any of them. Sure, not
| all cables support full charging speeds/data rates, but
| generally speaking I can just plug things in and expect
| them to work in some fashion.
|
| Maybe to iPhone users USB-C feels like a new thing? To
| everyone else it's been a mature ecosystem for a long
| time now, which is why a lot of the comments in this
| thread commenting about it as if it's a brand new,
| unproven technology seem very strange to me.
|
| Edit: Just remembered I also have an air duster and an
| electric toothbrush that use USB-C. Those didn't
| immediately occur to me because I don't have to charge
| them often. There might be more I'm forgetting...
| Izkata wrote:
| I'm an Android user, and for your points 5, 6, 7, and 8
| all of mine are USB-A to Micro USB (except for a
| flashlight bought this year which came with a USB-A to
| USB-C cable, and I use wraparound bluetooth headphones
| instead of earbuds and get the feeling those designs are
| just extremely rarely updated).
|
| No displayport or smartwatch here, and my power banks all
| came with A-to-micro or A-to-C cables (mostly the former)
| - there's a convention in that ecosystem that power flows
| from the A connector to the other end.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Yes, I have seen some products still using micro-B. I've
| generally just avoided them because I don't want to have
| to carry another type of cable, so maybe that's colored
| my perception a bit of how widespread USB-C usage is.
|
| For the products you've purchased that came with an
| A-to-C cable, have you tried using them with a plain
| C-to-C cable? In my experience usually that will "just
| work". (Maybe there are some power banks out there that
| don't support outputting power through their USB-C port.
| If those exist I've managed to avoid them so far.)
| Izkata wrote:
| Just tried plugging my phone into one of those power
| banks like that: The phone recognized it was plugged into
| USB, but didn't start charging. The light on the power
| bank did turn on though, so I redid it with a USB power
| meter: The power bank was sucking power from my phone at
| about 3.4 watts.
| cesarb wrote:
| > The power bank was sucking power from my phone at about
| 3.4 watts.
|
| At least on Android, there's an option to change the
| power direction (IIRC, it's in the same place where you
| choose the data connection mode). I have to use that
| option to switch the direction whenever I use the USB-C
| cable to charge my phone from my laptop, otherwise it
| tries to charge the laptop from the phone.
| lxgr wrote:
| > there's a convention in that ecosystem that power flows
| from the A connector to the other end
|
| That's not just a convention, it's a vital part of the
| specification :)
|
| USB-C devices go to significant lengths to make it hard
| for users to violate that invariant using an unsafe
| combination of otherwise safe adapters - that's why there
| is no USB-C-to-A adapter, for example (because that would
| let you build an A-to-A cable, and USB-A hosts are not
| required to detect possible loops/short circuits; USB-C
| hosts are).
| Izkata wrote:
| I mean, I feel like they prefer to keep using A-to-C or
| A-to-Micro because of power flow instead of packaging
| C-to-C (and from some quick Amazon searches, C output
| still looks rare, the majority of what I'm seeing is C
| input and A output on the power bank itself).
| fragmede wrote:
| Those C input ports are usually also output ports.
| lxgr wrote:
| _Almost_ always, as I 've noticed only after grabbing a
| friend's power bank and a C-to-lightning cable for a day
| trip...
|
| I believe an USB-C device port is easier to implement
| than a host/power supply port, since the host is only
| allowed to supply Vbus after ensuring that it's connected
| to a device (by actively probing the resistor connected
| to the CC pins etc.), whereas a device port only needs to
| present that resistor. After all, even a passive C-to-
| micro-B cable can do that.
| lxgr wrote:
| The comment you're referencing is claiming that the
| Switch is non-compliant at the power delivery protocol
| level.
|
| Assuming that that's true, this has nothing to do with
| being wired incorrectly, nor is it an implementation
| mistake that's facilitated by the design of the USB-C
| plug being reversible. It could literally happen with
| USB-PD over USB-A/B.
| alexwasserman wrote:
| My keyboard came with a usb A to usb C cable which is
| proprietary in some way. A regular cable doesn't work for it.
| jmbwell wrote:
| 3) The most fragile part (the wafer in the center of the
| receptacle) is on the expensive-to-repair device, while the
| least fragile part is on the cheap-to-replace cable. HDMI makes
| this same mistake. With USB-A, at least the plastic part on the
| device is relatively robust, and with Lightning, both plug and
| socket were rather robust (albeit prone to debris incursion).
| With older pin-type connectors like VGA and DVI, the fragile
| pins are completely on the replaceable cable.
| yreg wrote:
| I was told this exact opposite argument about Lightning being
| worse than USB-C. The line of reasoning was that the springy
| part breaks and in USB-C the springy bit is in the cable,
| while in Lightning the pins are sturdy.
| imtringued wrote:
| My mother bent the "least fragile part" on at least a dozen
| wires meanwhile the port itself kept working.
| petee wrote:
| 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 the
| connector, it has to go straight in a bit before it even
| touches, on any of my devices
| jmbwell wrote:
| I mean, I'm referring to things I've had to deal with.
| Failure isn't obvious until the user complains of random
| disconnects, and then you find that although everything
| looks fine from the outside, you can wiggle the wafer
| inside like a loose tooth. The plastic of the wafer has
| cracked and is being held in place only by the metal in the
| contacts.
|
| I'll grant that it's robust in that it continues to work
| more than I'd expect, for example continuing to charge the
| laptop but not reliable for the external display. And once
| connected, sure it's secure.
|
| I suspect it's not the cable mating that causes the
| failure, but other foreign objects... keys in the bag or
| something... that manage to dislodge it. And some laptops
| have more play in the connector than others, which I think
| allows the connector on the cable end to hit the wafer with
| an angle of attack sufficient to dislodge it. Some of my
| users handle heavy bulk materials all day and are anything
| but gentle with computers.
|
| In any case, I'm sure the designers considered this, and
| far be it from me to second-guess their compromises. It is
| what it is. But if the port has failure modes, this is one
| of them.
| lxgr wrote:
| 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 partially or fully
| plugged in; cover the pins on the plug (because otherwise
| people will inevitably touch them, and these cables can
| carry up to 48 V of voltage).
|
| [1] That part has actually worked well for everything but
| my Yubikey :( USB-A and an adapter it is for the next one.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| It was a specific design goal of USB-C to put the fragile
| part on the cable, not on the device.
|
| For people who are not versed in mechanical connector design
| it might look like the fragile part is that center wafer.
|
| USB-A is massive compared to USB-C, that's why it's so
| robust, thick plastic, thick metal, wide connector lanes.
|
| If USB-C is fragile, is just because it's so small, you can
| easily break it with not so much pressure.
| bandrami wrote:
| The worst connector for that problem is those ----ing antenna
| leads your laptop has for an M2 wifi card.
| CarVac wrote:
| Those connectors are good for one connection and no
| disconnections.
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| I broke the ring on a M.2 Wi-Fi card, but installed the
| cable onto it anyway. I think the part I bent off will
| probably rip off and get stuck in the cable the next time I
| take the connector off the card. Here's hoping I'll never
| have to do that...
| jdfellow wrote:
| I believe those are MCX. My Shure SE215 IEMs (earphones)
| use the same connector.
| Hackbraten wrote:
| > The most fragile part (the wafer in the center of the
| receptacle) is on the expensive-to-repair device, while the
| least fragile part is on the cheap-to-replace cable.
|
| Why do you think that the wafer is the most fragile part?
|
| One might argue that the latch mechanism would be the part
| most exposed to wear and tear due to mechanical stress
| incurred by plugging and removing. Those side latches are
| located in the plug, not in the receptacle.
|
| See also figure 3-14 in the USB-C spec [1].
|
| [1]: https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/USB%20Type-C%20S
| pec%...
| jmbwell wrote:
| Doesn't seem like one would preclude the other.
|
| I guess I'll have to take a video next time I see it.
| kuratkull wrote:
| Personally my last two phones have had this. It starts
| slowly - the cables occasionally don't work, then some
| cables won't work at all, then no cables work without 2
| minutes of gentle manipulation, eventually it becomes
| almost impossible to charge. You waste so much time on this
| before it gets so bad that you can't live another day with
| the phone.
|
| I haven't seen a USB-C cable that has wore out.
| Findecanor wrote:
| USB-C plugs are supposed to have 2.0 data pins only on one
| side. It is only the sockets that should have them on both
| sides. The other data pins are negotiated.
|
| When USB-C was brand new, I got a flawed breakout board where
| only the socket's data pins on one side were connected. I did
| not notice it until it was soldered together and the device got
| power but no connection when the cable was connected in one
| orientation. But then I had already built a metal case to fit
| that breakout board perfectly, so I just left it in.
| lloeki wrote:
| > There's going to be video-only cables
|
| From my understanding I think that is not technically possible
| because to pass video they need the data lines but maybe I'm
| mistaken?
|
| IIUC again even if it did work I think these would be non-
| compliant. People hell-bent on doing non-compliant things would
| do it irrespective of any design.
|
| > low-voltage only cables
|
| That's a given due to physical constraints (length, diameter:
| would you accept that all cables are 0.8m / thick and
| unbendable). It was so with USB-A too, as well as non-standard
| power delivery, at the risk of setting things on fire or
| destroying devices. USB-PD makes it so that you basically can't
| fry anything or melt a cable, it falls back to the best
| possible through negotiation. But then again, people hell-bent
| on doing non-compliant things would do it irrespective of any
| design.
|
| > literally manufactures are going to cheap out and not do that
| and you have 1-way USB-C cables without any kind of orientation
| markers.
|
| Non-compliant for sure. Ah, yes, people hell-bent on doing non-
| compliant things would do it irrespective of any design.
|
| At least with USB-C+USB-4+USB-PD we get a fighting chance.
|
| > An obviously key'd connector like firewire / ethernet
| would've solved all of USB-A's flip it thrice problems
|
| Rumour has it that USB-B which is keyed, has five positions due
| to squareness. FireWire and Ethernet have the same state
| superpositions as USB-A. Hell I've seen people shove an
| Ethernet cable the wrong way in _and have it fit_ (breaking the
| infamous clip in the process). USB-C? I lay it basically flat
| and clip it in, barely looking at the connector and not even
| taking a glance at the port. Worst case it needs a few degrees
| rotation.
| dharmab wrote:
| > From my understanding I think that is not technically
| possible because to pass video they need the data lines but
| maybe I'm mistaken?
|
| Counterexample: The Meta Quest link cables use a USB-C style
| connector but internally are very different from a regular
| cable.
| slikrick wrote:
| and that can happen with literally every cable, people have
| abused USB-A and RJ45 for many decades...
| usrusr wrote:
| Not every cable. Not if you make the connector a closed
| standard that can't be used without ruinous licencing
| fees and keep a squad of patent attorneys on retainer.
| Thankfully USB is not one of those.
| lloeki wrote:
| > make the connector a closed standard that can't be used
| without ruinous licencing fees and keep a squad of patent
| attorneys on retainer
|
| Time has shown that doesn't seem to prevent cheap - and
| potentially dangerous - knockoffs from areas outside
| possible litigation.
| lloeki wrote:
| So, not actually USB compliant? (save for the connector)
|
| One can't blame non-compliant cables on USB-C as it could
| happen with any other connector.
| MikusR wrote:
| They are regular (fiber optic) USB-C cables.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| I can certainly see (1) happening, especially with cables that
| come with the device they are expected to plug into. It already
| widely happens with fallback to slower bit rate or lower power
| charging.
|
| But (2) seems very unlikely. Most consumers just won't even
| consider that it has an orientation, and after it fails a few
| times chuck it in the bin or send it back. If it comes with a
| device (i.e. printer or monitor comes with a non-reversible
| cable) they're likely to send the whole device back. That would
| be a ridiculous false economy for the manufacturer.
| usrusr wrote:
| (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
| efficiencies of scale. PD cables that are no/low bandwidth?
| Sure, those will be with us forever. But "display only" will
| be a rarity.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| I didn't take it that literally.
| usrusr wrote:
| 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.
| gpderetta wrote:
| I had a USB-C Xiaomi phone that at some point only allowed
| being plugged in in one orientation. I guess one side failed,
| but then again, that wasn't the only failing of that phone,
| nor even close to the most annoying.
| lesuorac wrote:
| That might not have been a symmetry problem per-say.
|
| It could be that the phone correct determined the
| orientation but a pin was dirty/broken so it couldn't be
| used. When flipping the cable around the pin in use changes
| to one that isn't dirty/broken and so it works fine. USB-C
| may have a ton of pins but that doesn't mean all of them
| are needed to charge so flipping it can move a broken pin
| into the unused pins.
| gpderetta wrote:
| oh, yes, very likely it was a broken or dirty pin (that's
| what I mean with "failed"). I wouldn't be surprised if it
| was somehow a software problem as well (apparently for
| simplicity) some cheap USB-C port setups are wired as two
| ports.
| tzs wrote:
| 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.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Except for power, that is all determinable from the cable
| itself. USB-C cable supports power and USB2 data. Resistor
| determines the power, either legacy USB, 1.5A or 3A. Every
| USB-C cables support that. If there are USB3 pins connected,
| then it supports USB3 data and alternate mode. I think USB3
| has negotiation protocol to figure out the data rate. There
| is also negotiation about power delivery on USB-C specific
| pins.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| If you have two USB-C ports on one computer which both
| support "everything", could you write a cable tester in
| software?
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| That exists. It's called an e-marker and you can buy testers
| for about $60 that will read it for you. If a cable doesn't
| have one of those markers then odds are it can't handle over
| 5 amps or USB 2.0 speeds.
|
| It is kind of annoying that that functionality isn't built
| into phones and PCs though. There was some talk about
| building support into the Linux kernel[1] but it doesn't seem
| like that went anywhere.
|
| [1]: https://people.kernel.org/bleung/now-how-many-usb-c-to-
| usb-c...
| lxgr wrote:
| > There's going to be video-only cables
|
| There is no such thing for USB-C.
|
| > low-voltage only cables
|
| As far as I know, only the amperage is negotiated; every
| compliant cable needs to support at least 20 V.
|
| And even then, the minimum is also 3 A, which allows for 60 W
| to be carried on even the cheapest cables - enough for many use
| cases. I actually like having lighter and more flexible cables
| for most of my devices.
|
| > The connector is symmetrical but the pins aren't. You can see
| a wiring scheme of how symmetry is handled [1]; literally
| manufactures are going to cheap out and not do that and you
| have 1-way USB-C cables without any kind of orientation
| markers.
|
| With all the many USB-C headaches I've heard of (and only very
| rarely encountered myself), I've never seen that happen.
|
| The most common problem must be using a USB 2 only cable for a
| use case that requires USB 3 speeds and/or video.
| yreg wrote:
| HDMI flashbacks...
|
| The solution is - I guess - to buy plenty of 'good'
| multipurpose cables and throw anything that doesn't work as
| expected away.
| omnibrain wrote:
| This could have been as well been a prediction 8 years ago,
| because in the mean time all of this happened.
|
| regarding 1) look at this post from 2019:
| https://people.kernel.org/bleung/now-how-many-usb-c-to-usb-c...
| I imagine it only got worse in the mean time.
|
| regarding 2) I have seen various posts in the past of devices
| that only work if the cables are connected in a specific
| orientation. Technical background is discussed here:
| https://acroname.com/blog/why-usb-c-connections-sometimes-do...
| umanwizard wrote:
| Yes and even worse, now EU bureaucrats have mandated that Apple
| give up their resistance and support this inferior connector.
| ZekeSulastin wrote:
| Apple is one of the companies that helped design USB-C and
| have been using it for everything except iPhones and AirPods
| for years now.
| addicted wrote:
| Maybe it's news to iPhone people (and I say this as someone
| whose only used iPhones since he got a smartphone over a decade
| ago other than for 6 months where I used a Windows phone and 3
| months of an Android phone), USB-C wasn't invented with the
| iPhone 15.
|
| It's been around a long time and most people have managed just
| fine, and absolutely loved the common cable. And everyone hated
| the iPhone user because you had to pull out a new cable to
| charge it.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Grab a random USB C cable. Now answer a few questions.
|
| 1. What speed does the cable support?
|
| 2. How much data does the cable support?
|
| 3. Can it support video over USB-C?
| hedora wrote:
| 4. Is it capable of charging this device?
|
| 5. Is it capable of charging devices when plugged into this
| charger?
|
| 6. If it can charge this combination of things, what
| wattage can it charge at?
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Whether or not this happens, it will have nothing to do with
| USB-C's merits as a connector. You could (theoretically) have
| the same mess happen with USB-A connectors as well.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| 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.
| ianferrel wrote:
| I have USB-C cables that look the same, but some of them
| carry video and some don't.
|
| I have USB-C charging devices that will charge off of some
| cables, but not off the one that will charge my laptop. I now
| have a box of weird crappy cheap USB-C cables with taped-on
| notes that say which toys they'll charge.
|
| I never had this problem with previous USBs. If the cable fit
| in the port, it would charge and transfer data. Sometimes you
| needed a different cable or port or something to go _faster_
| , but they all basically worked.
| smolder wrote:
| I don't own any Apple devices myself and don't even have a
| MBP through work anymore, but I do have a couple of Apple
| USB-C cables and a spare laptop charger, still. They
| conveniently seem to work with every kind of device for any
| use. Data, video, fast charging.
|
| However, I do have one other cable that won't do data. I
| think it came with a cheap charger I bought while
| travelling. I would certainly like it if there was a label
| saying _charge only_ or something to that effect, on the
| incomplete cable.
| alanbernstein wrote:
| I own a usb-c male to usb-c female extension cable that I
| connect to a yubikey. The yubikey only works in one
| orientation. I don't have any other bits to test hypotheses
| with, but I believe the cable was made with the symmetry
| problem described above.
| mlyle wrote:
| Usb-c to usb-c extensions are currently explicitly
| prohibited by standard, both because of issues like this
| and ways that they defeat safety mechanisms with charging.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| AFAIK there's no such thing as a standards compliant USB-C
| male to USB-C female extension cable. The very concept goes
| against the spec[1].
|
| You have a point though; I'm sure there are abominations
| out there that abuse the USB spec in all sorts of
| interesting ways, they just haven't been something I've
| encountered in my years of using USB-C for everything.
|
| [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/10xj74r
| /why_d...
| kccqzy wrote:
| You can make a USB-C hub that has only a USB-C port.
| alanbernstein wrote:
| Ah, good to know. I'm tempted to respond that this means
| the spec has failed to address an important use case. But
| I'm certainly not going to learn enough of the spec to
| back up that claim.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| You're not wrong; it's an unfortunate limitation, even
| though there are solid technical reasons for it. As a
| sibling commenter pointed out, a standards-compliant
| alternative would basically just be a USB hub with a
| single USB-C port.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Then throw it away, it is broken. There is no way to
| prevent junk from not implementing the standard. The
| solution is not buying junk.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Wait, there already are PD-specific cables, video-specific
| cables, and the like. If your cable is short enough, it's not
| an issue, but if you want one longer than 1 meter, you will
| likely have problems with 4k video on a cable that isn't
| specifically designed for high data rates.
| Cannabat wrote:
| 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 cable fits, it works. Except for usb c.
| lxgr wrote:
| 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.
| aenvoker wrote:
| I have a USB-C cable that only charges when oriented one way.
| IshKebab wrote:
| 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.
| julienb_sea wrote:
| 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.
| br0wnr1c3 wrote:
| The new iPhone ships with a USB 2.0 cable, it does data
| transfer, just not at USB 3 speeds
| sokoloff wrote:
| I have many USB-C cables that don't behave like other USB-C
| cables. Just this past week, I had to buy another cable for
| my son's desk setup because of the many USB-C cables I had, I
| was out of the ones that would carry 4K video and USB-C 80+W
| PD to his laptop at the same time. (I had a couple that
| worked, but they were in use for my wife and I, and the
| couple handfuls of others I had were capable of zero or one
| of those two functions.)
| pixl97 wrote:
| I'm not sure if that's the best example...
|
| Kinda like saying that I have a bunch of very light indoor
| extension cords and you are wanting to run an outdoor high
| amperage device (both 110v in this example). Yea, the
| interface for both is the same, but one is going to be used
| far less often and require a much more expensive cable for
| a reason.
| terr-dav wrote:
| The girth of a power cable roughly scales with capacity
| though, and there are 3 common pin configurations
|
| - 2 equal size blades
|
| - 2 unequal size blades
|
| - 3 unequal + ground pin
|
| plus a fourth for 20A
|
| - 1 vertical blade, 1 horizontal blade, 1 ground pin
|
| USB-C cables have one form factor, which is what GP is
| talking about.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEMA_connector
| sillywalk wrote:
| Not to mention the entire USB naming scheme.
|
| USB 3 ? or 3x3 or 2x or ...with Thunderbolt or not...
| tuyiown wrote:
| Not ideal for sure but I don't see the cable disaster you
| claim, specifically what clear improvement you would have with
| multiplication of connectors.
|
| Connectors, cheap and reliable are hard to design, and there's
| that much solution that works, and economics of scale works
| wonderfully by this kind of mass production (the good enough
| converges to reliable cheap). Also, the backward compatibility
| is real, and not to be dismissed too lightly. Say, for an USB-A
| connector, would really go one way where a USB 3 cable and
| device should NOT work with your older computer ?
|
| There will be waste, there will be disgruntlement, but at real
| diagnostic will be possible (instead of the vague indications
| like <<use provided cable>> we have for HDMI and DisplayPort).
| For power, you can already find cable with a mini LED display
| on the plug to show max wattage once plugged.
|
| Limited cables will quickly have label to show their specific
| capability (4K/8K, for PD only, 100W 60W), for cables you buy.
| General case for cables provided by manufacturer is, you keep
| you cable with the device, no real confusion here.
|
| I know many have the cable drawer full of just-in-case that
| never comes that would dream to have it blissfully replaced by
| unlabeled USB-C cables, but this is just not how general people
| handle the problem. They keep the cable with the device, and
| learn what they need before or after buying a replacement, or
| better, asking someone in a shop, those still exists for all I
| know.
| npunt wrote:
| 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 the can down to
| 'let consumers figure it out' but there's hardly a realistic
| alternative, you just can't police ~10 billion cables sold a
| year across ~10 million retailers. I haven't heard of your
| first example anywhere actually happening, it sounds
| theoretical more than widespread in practice in 2023, 8 years
| into this USB-C thing.
|
| As far as cables with different capabilities, what is the
| alternative here?
|
| 1. Physics of signaling demand certain capabilities require
| higher quality / more expensive cables. Zero chance you get
| people or manufacturers lined up around the idea of highest
| common denominator (e.g. 40gbps capable $30 cable when consumer
| wants a $3 charging cable), and that's sorta moot anyway
| because...
|
| 2. Standards evolve, and we're all tired of playing the game
| we've played for 50 years in tech of new physical connectors
| every few years.
|
| It's either a) you have the same physical connector and
| different cables, or b) different physical connectors that
| briefly use the same cables before they become differentiated
| when standards evolve.
|
| The reality is 'it works but not as good' (speed or charge-
| wise) is a superior tradeoff to 'I have to buy a totally
| different cable' in the high % of use cases where 'not as good'
| is possible, which is stuff like 'charge my phone' or 'plug my
| printer/audio device/whatever in'.
|
| Honestly the only unforced errors I see with USB-C are consumer
| education related. USB versioning should be simple (3, 4, 5)
| not intentionally obtuse ("3.2 gen 2x2"), and something like
| iconography should be added to indicate premium cable
| capability (specific higher voltage & bandwidth capabilities)
| to avoid to play the plug in and try it game.
| sokoloff wrote:
| "I have to buy a totally different cable" is something that
| most of us with over 20 devices with USB-C ports on them have
| probably experienced, only it's worse than that as it's more
| like "I have to buy _several different_ totally different
| cables and try to remember to return the ones that _also_ don
| 't work".
|
| For a time at work, our desks had different docking stations
| for employees with Mac laptops or HP laptops. USB-C
| "standard" notwithstanding.
| p1mrx wrote:
| 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.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The standard is also just terrible even if followed to the
| letter. The connectors are just too fragile for a day-to-day
| interconnect, and a fire risk when higher currents are
| involved.
|
| I've now had to replace 2 USB-C host ports (on expensive Apple
| devices, where an "official" repair would cost ~50% of the
| value of the device) despite taking reasonable care of my
| devices (under which care no other connectors ever failed).
|
| Examining them under a magnifying glass showed that the metal
| pin delaminated from the plastic middle part of the host
| connector and was ever so slightly skewed towards the adjacent
| pin, presumably making enough contact/interference to make the
| whole thing fail.
|
| In a sane design, a misalignment/skew of <1mm would be well
| within tolerance and would be a non-issue. Worse, despite the
| machine being from the same brand that ushered all this crap
| onto the world, there is no software support or notification to
| say that something is wrong - the machine just silently stopped
| charging after a random delay. Very annoying when you plug your
| machine in to charge and only realize (at the most inconvenient
| time) that it silently stopped charging and you've now drained
| whatever battery was remaining.
|
| Even with the new ports, I can make it lose
| Thunderbolt/DisplayPort connection by bumping the connector.
| It's probably a mismatch of tolerances between connector and
| port (maybe my cables are out of spec), but it's never been a
| problem with any other connector.
| petee wrote:
| Are you using Apple, or major-vendor cables? Im curious
| because delamination of a pin on 2 separate ports implies
| something catching/dragging on it, maybe there is something
| either poorly designed, or simply mangled in the end of one
| of your cables.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Major vendor cables, and the delamination was one
| connector's "finger" so not really cable-specific. The
| second connector looked fine at casual glance but there was
| something wrong with it as it wouldn't even hold connection
| with a USB2 device - too much slack.
|
| I don't recall having this issue with any of the connectors
| it replaced. I have devices that are close to a decade old
| and all their USB/Ethernet/HDMI ports are still working
| just fine.
|
| It's a terrible design that prioritizes form over
| function/reliability.
| LoganDark wrote:
| My USB hub will allow me to plug in a USB-A connector the wrong
| way. When I do, it has some sort of fault and resets all the
| ports. I don't know how this is physically possible, but it's
| somehow worse then requiring 3 attempts.
| mmac_ wrote:
| One of my earliest experiences with USB was back in the day where
| I had a PC without any USB front ports that were free. So I
| grabbed my USB thumb drive and reached around the back of the PC
| tower and plugged it in without looking.
|
| USB didn't show up in the O/S. Thought maybe it wasn't formatted
| correctly and went through some diagnostics. Eventually went for
| the remove it / plug it back in technique. Had a look at the back
| of the PC and noticed I'd managed to plug it into an empty
| Ethernet port.... yeah they're about the same width give or take
| some tolerance. Also usually placed right next to each other.
|
| Back on topic, I do find those bare/exposed usb keys (like a
| yubikey) to be quite annoying.
| stavros wrote:
| > Back on topic, I do find those bare/exposed usb keys (like a
| yubikey) to be quite annoying.
|
| I guess you trade one annoyance (how to plug them in) for
| another annoyance (too thick for a wallet/keychain).
| gs17 wrote:
| Done exactly the same thing. No idea why they sized it that
| way, at least it usually doesn't break anything.
| stavros wrote:
| TL;DR: Cost.
| Neil44 wrote:
| 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.
| usrusr wrote:
| 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.
| Neil44 wrote:
| Yeah just a little 1mm hump on one side of the plastic
| tongue, but yeah the 1mm would have to come from somewhere.
| donatj wrote:
| It didn't really need to go in either way. It just needed to _not
| be_ rotationally symmetrical while only going in one way.
|
| Firewire only went in one way but it was never an issue because
| it's shape conveyed a clear orientation.
| jawns wrote:
| I agree that there was more that could have been done to signal
| correct orientation.
|
| But an additional wrinkle is that the orientation of the port
| itself was not static. On laptops and desktops, it was
| horizontal. On certain other devices, it was vertical. Often
| these ports were in hard-to-reach or hard-to-see places, and
| having to reconcile the orientation in each case probably added
| to the frustration.
| josefx wrote:
| > or hard-to-see places
|
| Which brings up the idea of not making it size compatible
| with the network port.
| lxgr wrote:
| As somebody who keeps inserting the USB-C charger cable
| into the SD card slot of the new MBP, I couldn't agree
| more.
| stavros wrote:
| Not really, HDMI ports are in weird orientation and mounted
| in hard-to-reach places as well, but the shape makes it very
| obvious (even by feel) which way it should (or can't) go.
| This is much harder with the rectangular USB plug.
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| The "by feel" part is critical. Lots of ports on various
| devices are deliberately in the back of the device, or
| otherwise hidden, so that the wiring can be kept neatly out
| of the way.
| putlake wrote:
| HDMI is better than USB but it's still hard to do plug it
| in in dark, hard to reach places.
| c22 wrote:
| I have definitely been frustrated by an hdmi port I
| couldn't see. I almost always have to gain visibility on
| the port to get the cable inserted correctly. If I happen
| to already know the orientation of the port on a device I
| can do it by feel, but I could also do this with the
| microusb-b to my old cell phone.
| pnpnp wrote:
| It's still better than nothing at all! If you can
| physically see the connector, that's a huge help. For
| USB-A, you often had to look _into_ the cable to figure
| out which way it went.
|
| I agree that HDMI can be heads or tails based on if it's
| tucked behind a TV, but sometimes I can feel enough to
| get it right. That was never so with the original USB.
| loeg wrote:
| HDMI can be a real pain to plug in blind / by feel.
| qup wrote:
| I think it's worse than USB. It's so damn narrow and has
| a requirement for precision. It's hard to know if you've
| got it upside-down or you're just not well-aligned.
| airstrike wrote:
| The fact that the inventor doesn't see this obvious fact
| honestly boggles the mind.
| lxgr wrote:
| Low-level (electrical/logical) protocol design and connector
| design seem like pretty different skills!
| RajT88 wrote:
| It's amazing that it can take you 3 tries to plug in a USB
| cable which only has 2 correct ways it can be oriented.
| agumonkey wrote:
| The funniest part is that it still takes 3 tries even when
| you know what you just said.
| pdpi wrote:
| Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect,
| even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.
| dpratt71 wrote:
| It sounds like we'd be better off not knowing about this
| law. Thanks.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I had a variant of that for covid. The contagion curve
| plotted daily rates even taking into account people
| knowing about the contagion curve.
| jowea wrote:
| http://www.extremetech.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2015/01/lLcxrw...
| agumonkey wrote:
| hehe, right on
| bravetraveler wrote:
| I've found a trick but have trouble explaining it to people -
| especially if they haven't build a computer before.
|
| The plastic bit inside of the plug usually goes on the side
| facing whatever board it's interfacing with.
|
| For example, looking straight on from the back of an ATX
| case, it's usually on the left side - where the motherboard
| mounts
|
| Front panel connectors are anarchy... but at least they're
| usually visible
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| Another trick is that the USB standard says the USB logo
| should be facing up, so you should always try it first with
| the logo facing up. Not every device follows that standard
| and not every device has a clear top/bottom, but this
| really cuts down on the proportion of failed attempts.
| cloudwalk9 wrote:
| The pattern on the aluminum of the plug is also helpful
| in cases of predictable slot orientation (like a laptop,
| except a Dell Latitude from back in the day that had
| upright connectors on the back unless I'm
| misremembering). The side without the seam down the
| middle and instead a tiny rectangular cutout center but
| slightly lower than the other two cutouts, should face
| up. In the dark, the seam can be felt by lightly scraping
| with a fingernail.
| globuous wrote:
| No way! I didn't know that was part of the standard! Very
| useful "trick" indeed, unless of course, the USB port is
| placed vertically...
| bobbylarrybobby wrote:
| This gets you down from 3 tries to 2
| bravetraveler wrote:
| lol ty, this got me
| dghughes wrote:
| One trick used to be the UBB trident logo (embossed into
| the cable) always faced upward when plugged into a USB port
| on a computer.
|
| Sideways ports may be a crap shoot I'm not sure if their
| orientation is standardized. And I'm not sure about modern
| USB version if that's still the case of logo faces up.
| guntherhermann wrote:
| Even after 25 years of using USB devices this _still_ happens
| to me, today, in fact!
| evanb wrote:
| USB is the only macroscopic fermion I know. Try to plug it in
| and fail, rotate it 180@ and fail, rotate 180@ and it plugs
| in. Must be the minus sign.
| OnlineGladiator wrote:
| https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-10-04
| raisedbyninjas wrote:
| If the standard included specs on the enclosure, then maybe
| we wouldn't need three tries. Especially when plugging these
| in blind, like the back of a monitor, I wish the case had a
| funnel shaped shroud so you know the male end was aligned
| correctly even though it might be reversed.
| lloeki wrote:
| USB-A too: fat part bottom, connectors up, logo up.
|
| This also doesn't explain why three-state and five-state also
| apply to resp. mini+micro USB-A and USB-B.
|
| Oh wait, people don't look at the port front and center and
| fail to memorize the port direction, irrespective of shape,
| that's why.
| gsich wrote:
| Logo up is no help when you try to do it in the dark.
| northwest65 wrote:
| You can feel it with the pad of your thumb.
| lxgr wrote:
| I just looked at my nearest USB-A plug: There's no logo
| on either side.
|
| I'm also almost certain I had connectors with a different
| logo on either side.
| MayeulC wrote:
| Female (host) USB-A orientation is not always consistent,
| thought, which adds to the confusion. Thought the orientation
| you de scribe is the most common zone, I can recall at l'East
| two devices (laptop and desktop) where it was reversed.
| slikrick wrote:
| That doesn't help vertical orientation of USB-As
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Hey, they could have made it not rotationally symmetrical but
| mandated an orientation opposite of the one that makes the
| socket look like a cute little surprised face, thus ensuring a
| long, drawn out, losing battle between the correct orientation
| and the looks-like-a-little-face orientation.
| jonah wrote:
| But is "that way" actually "Correct" or not...?
|
| Technology Connections dig in to this in "Power outlets are
| topsy turvy - but does it matter?"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNj75gJVxcE
| lolinder wrote:
| The tl;dw is that there is no standard and never has been,
| so the idea that there's a "correct" orientation for these
| outlets that's been warring for dominance with the cute one
| is a myth.
|
| The rest of the video digs into the claimed benefits of
| turning them upside down, and finds that they're quite
| small and probably outweighed by the inconvenience of the
| sheer number of devices that assume that you're using the
| cute orientation.
| [deleted]
| gsich wrote:
| Firewire ports can be inserted the wrong way, if the material
| cheapens out you are in bad luck. Wrong polarity will most
| likely kill the other device.
| yborg wrote:
| I can just imagine what the polarized wall sockets in your
| house must look like.
| lxgr wrote:
| > Firewire ports can be inserted the wrong way
|
| Hopefully only with a hammer!?
| [deleted]
| hellotheretoday wrote:
| Counterpoint: I knew a few people awhile back that wrecked
| FireWire audio gear because they forced the connecter in
| backward and powered it on
|
| Even now i do a small repair shop as a side business. Broken
| hdmi connectors because someone forced the connector in upside
| down isn't exactly common but it's not exactly rare either.
| Some people think stuff really needs to be forced together,
| apparently
| notyourwork wrote:
| > isn't exactly common but it's not exactly rare either.
|
| Using electronics needs a drivers license like equivalent.
| Some people shouldn't have access to them if getting an HDMI
| connector wrong is an issue.
| LoganDark wrote:
| > Using electronics needs a drivers license like
| equivalent.
|
| I bet everyone seriously wishes there were a "seriously
| honestly just not a fucking idiot" license. The fact that
| we know which way a connector goes puts us in a whole
| different league from the rest of the population; most
| people are so braindead stupid that they can't even fathom
| being smarter. Sometimes I wonder if being neurodivergent
| is even worth it. Do I even want the privilege of knowing
| enough of the bare minimum to outclass half the Earth, if
| it means that I'm constantly depressed by how stupid
| everyone else is?
|
| BTW I wouldn't pass a graduation exam if my life depended
| on it, because my brain is not a textbook database of
| things that I don't care about. But that just means my ADHD
| has gotten the better of me.
| lxgr wrote:
| I have yet to see people die (and/or kill bystanders) by
| not being able to plug in an HDMI cable to their home
| entertainment system correctly.
| notyourwork wrote:
| I suppose the joke went over your head, sorry about that.
| I found it comical given the HDMI connector shape and how
| it would be nearly impossible to get wrong without being
| oblivious.
| lxgr wrote:
| I mean, there already is an integrated element of
| punishment - if you don't manage to plug in the HDMI
| connector correctly, you don't get to watch any TV :)
| bsimpson wrote:
| When I was a teenager, I had a Windows machine I used for 3D
| animation and an iPod. I needed to charge the iPod and my mom
| was calling "dinner!" so I plugged it in quickly and ran off to
| eat.
|
| When I came back, I realized the Windows machine had a cheap
| Firewire socket that didn't enforce the orientation. I had
| plugged in my iPod upsidedown.
|
| I don't remember what it fried. I don't remember the iPod
| dying, so I'm guessing that socket never worked again.
| sytelus wrote:
| More interesting question for me is what exactly made USB
| possible? I understand that parallel communication wasn't
| possible because even for small differences in wire length, data
| on each wire will arrive at different times and that limits
| speed. So, people went with serial communication. But what
| exactly enabled high speed bit transfer? Why wasn't it possible
| before? Similarly, why USB2 speeds weren't possible before? What
| technical advances made it possible?
| labcomputer wrote:
| Well, high speed serial coms existed before USB, so the premise
| of the question is a bit wrong. RS-422 officially supports 10
| Mbps over short distances, for example, and various serial WAN
| protocols supported >100Mbps over copper before USB launched.
|
| I would argue that what USB (1.1-2.0) does differently from
| previous serial peripheral ports is mostly software and
| standardization, and really relate to making it cheap and
| simple for "normal people" to use:
|
| 1. USB 1.1 supports only two bit rates (1.5 and 12 Mbps), which
| is autoconfigured before device enumeration. 12 = 8 * 1.5, so
| the clock divider is cheap and easy.
|
| 2. USB limits cables to fairly short lengths (<=5m) compared to
| earlier serial ports (RS-422 supports 10 Mbps at 15m)
|
| 3. USB (pre-OTG extensions) rigorously enforced the idea of a
| "host" (upstream) and "device" (downstream), at both the
| protocol and physical connector level (which greatly simplifies
| things--for example, you can't create a loop, and don't need
| STP to detect it). A child can easily see that a B (device)
| socket doesn't fit an A (host) plug.
|
| 4. USB device enumeration and configuration are extensively
| software based, and USB defines a number of standard device
| classes so that many common types of devices (e.g., keyboards,
| mice) don't need specific drivers.
|
| 5. One thing that USB does that's less common among serial
| peripheral interfaces is to use a single differential pair for
| data going in both directions (it's time-shared: so the host
| polls the device then the device responds). The pin-count is
| less than a "regular" RS-422 port, but you still get the
| advantages of differential signaling.
|
| 6. USB carries power with only one more pin than needed to
| create a minimal bidirectional serial data connection, so
| "lite" devices don't need a separate power connector (ignoring
| very slow protocols like "1-wire").
|
| 7. USB does some funny things with packet framing (like NRZI
| encoding and bit-stuffing) and some things to help reduce
| device cost (like the JKJKJK packet preamble to sync the device
| baud-rate generator and using SE1/SE0 states for device
| disconnect and bus reset signaling), but none of that is really
| fundamental to making a 10Mbps-class serial interface.
| quitit wrote:
| I think there is value in remembering that this was an era where
| peripherals were plugged in with a view of semi-permanence, most
| plugs even had screws. I also remember thinking at the time how
| much easier USB was to use than trying to align a PS/2 connector.
|
| Despite the obvious design drawback, I can't blame intel
| entirely, a big contributor to the problem was that the ports
| were still being positioned in hard to access areas by computer
| makers. The first iMac design was a bit more forward thinking in
| this regard, whereby USB ports were prominently positioned on
| either side of the keyboard, this made it very easy to plug in
| the USB mouse and use the other for something like a USB stick.
| The problem with the type A design isn't just the orientation
| issue, the rectangular port design provides very little tolerance
| for off-angle insertion, having the port in full view helped a
| lot with insertion.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| > 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.
| tuyiown wrote:
| No firewire for the G3, and ethernet, audio jack and rj11
| doesn't count for external devices.
| _moof wrote:
| The first iMac was USB only.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_G3#Specifications
| runlevel1 wrote:
| The Original Bondi Blue 233 MHz iMac Rev A (tray-loading CD-
| ROM) had:
|
| - 2x USB
|
| - 1x 10/100 Ethernet
|
| - 1x phone jack
|
| - Infrared port
|
| - 1x audio input
|
| - 1x audio output+
|
| - 2x headphone ports
|
| +I thought it had two front headphone ports so that two
| students could share a computer in school labs, but googling
| for that suggests it was probably a later revision feature.
|
| EDIT: It did indeed have 2 headphone ports on the front: http
| s://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_G3#/media/File:IMac_G3_Bo...
| moffkalast wrote:
| 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.
| kube-system wrote:
| Every proprietary connector I can think of that Apple has
| introduced was done to solve a problem that other
| connectors at the time did not solve.
| MBCook wrote:
| Are you referring to the 30 pin connector, which did stuff
| no other connector did?
|
| Or lightning, which was smaller and easier than anything
| else available since USB-C didn't exist?
|
| You already mentioned USB. Perhaps FireWire? SCSI? Those
| were all standard.
|
| Oh. Laptop power connections? There was no standard until
| USB-C, which they use.
|
| People repeat this, but it hasn't really been true since
| they gave up all the custom stuff with the iMac.
| dmonitor wrote:
| you're completely forgetting Apple being the first company
| to go all-in on USB C with their laptops.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2015/3/9/8174219/apple-macbook-
| usb-...
|
| It was really only the iPhone that lagged behind, and
| that's because they switched to lightning not but a couple
| years before USB C was finalized, pissing off everyone who
| invested in the 20-pin connector ecosystem.
| MBCook wrote:
| That always annoyed me. I get that people had to change
| cables for the first time since they got their first
| iPod, but lightning was such a MASSIVE improvement over
| the 30 pin dock connector... I can't imagine anyone would
| want to go back.
|
| I was really expecting something similar with the USB-C
| switch but it doesn't seem to have happened.
| detourdog wrote:
| The Firewire started with the iMac DV in grey.
| cushpush wrote:
| >But in an effort to keep it as cheap as possible, the decision
| was made to go with a design that, in theory, would give users a
| 50/50 chance of plugging it in correctly (you can up the odds by
| looking at the inside first, or identifying the logo).
|
| I despise this "design decision." Literally bakes in the 50% of
| the time you plug it in the wrong orientation and lose seconds of
| your life. Who cares if the sands of time are moving more rapidly
| than asteroids? We can save money and make more of these badboys
| to fill the landfills with once they're obsolete. Hard to argue
| that logic that clearly won via market dynamics. But where are we
| now?
| chrisco255 wrote:
| All I can say is that before USB 1.0, the myriad of connections
| on a PC motherboard were ridiculous. USB was leaps and bounds
| better beyond PS/2, and VGA and various serial and parallel
| ports would require you to physically screw in the plug. Just
| look at: https://www.electronicshub.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2016/01/Po...
|
| It was a nightmare. And virtually none of those ports would
| self-install drivers when a device was plugged into it. USB 1.0
| was magic when it came out.
| dimal wrote:
| Agreed. Everyone forgets how awful it was and even though USB
| wasn't perfect, it was a huge improvement over the status
| quo. For that, I can forgive the inventors for making a
| mistake. Nobody's perfect. The travesty is that it took so
| long to correct the issue.
| TylerE wrote:
| If they were going to do that they at least could have used a D
| shaped connector or something so the orientation of both the
| plug and the port are obvious, even in bad lighting / from an
| awkward angle.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| Fun fact: the Nokia 2780 Flip, despite using USB-C, only accepts
| the cable in one orientation. Put a cable in upside down, and
| nothing happens. Confirmed with the charger it comes with and one
| C-C cable that I already possessed.
|
| (Additional fun fact: the box says it uses Micro-USB.)
| dboreham wrote:
| "Ajay Bhatt, widely considered the inventor of USB..."
|
| Interesting. I had been told long ago that my fellow-Inmosian
| Dave Wooten was instrumental. And sure enough:
|
| "David was principal architect for USB 1.0, USB 1.1, and USB
| 2.0."
|
| from https://ece.ncsu.edu/honor/david-wooten/
| pmontra wrote:
| Looking at the logo on the plug is enough to get it right at the
| first attempt, but only for horizontal ports on a laptop or
| desktop. For vertical ports or ports on the top (chargers have
| both types) it's not so easy.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| > Someday we'll look back and laugh (or cry) at our early USB
| struggles.
|
| Hah, sounds like the editor is someone too young to have used
| serial/parallel/vga ports. Early business PCs, for what ever
| reason[1] were built like _tanks_. They weighed dozens of kgs
| /pounds. And the connectors were often screwed in with a
| screwdriver for good measure.
|
| Yes, you could wing it when being sloppy, but they weren't always
| very tight and cables heavy so you'd want them screwed in for a
| long-term installation to avoid issues.
|
| When USB came out it was a revelation that you just needed to pop
| it in and were done. Yes, you'd have to look at it first, but
| that was the same with every other port of before that. I
| remember PS/2 being perhaps hardest to line up correctly.
|
| So USB 1.0 fixed one problem, but not every problem. Not exactly
| a reason to cry.
|
| [1] Probably inertia from main/minicomputers which were serious
| installations and needed to keep running through wartime. :-/
| jtaft wrote:
| Bending a pin stunk. I remeber jamming a flat head screwdriver
| into the port to try and straighten
| hknmtt wrote:
| They didn't have to double the wiring, just add wiring to the
| other side of the connector. That is barely 2 cm of wiring, at
| most. Also, manufacturers could have made the connectors in a way
| that would clearly show which side is the top and which is the
| bottom. So none of the issues had to happen but lazy
| manufacturers and gullible inventors caused all of this on their
| own.
| netsharc wrote:
| I bought a JBL headset which USB power cable is reversible,
| instead of a big plastic piece for half the plug, it has a thin
| strip of plastic, so the block of plastic of the port side can
| go in either side of the plug:
| https://images.nexusapp.co/assets/4a/75/a0/5733575.jpg
|
| But I guess it might just have two wires (+5V and ground) and
| no data wires (I can't check it now because I'm at work).
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| I had a USB cable with a reversible A plug, but after a few
| months/years it would stop charging (because the pins either
| wouldn't make contact with the A socket, or the wires snapped
| off the pins).
| Someone wrote:
| > Also, manufacturers could have made the connectors in a way
| that would clearly show which side is the top and which is the
| bottom
|
| The spec almost requires manufacturers to do that.
| https://fabiensanglard.net/usbcheat/usb1.1.pdf, page 81:
|
| "The usb icon is embossed, in a recessed area, on the topside
| of the USB plug"
|
| "Receptacles should be oriented to allow the Icon on the plug
| to be visible during the mating process"
|
| So, there _must_ be a tactile and visual indicator (the
| recessed usb icon) and it _should_ be visible.
|
| They didn't say " _clearly_ visible", though.
| cheaprentalyeti wrote:
| If they made the connector reversible, you'd have to try to
| plug it in five times to get the right orientation instead of
| just three...
| hknmtt wrote:
| :D
| OJFord wrote:
| I, genuinely, have a USB-C cable which will only charge my
| phone in one orientation.
|
| That's worse than Type-A, since I can't even look at the end
| to see which side has the plastic bar, I just have to try it
| and obviously it fits, but see if it charges. Which means it
| takes about 94 attempts because I only realise the other
| end's not plugged in, or it's turned off at the wall, on the
| 92nd.
| baq wrote:
| I have an A-C cable which has a _reversible_ type-A plug
| (basically, it looks like a huge ugly lighting plug) and
| charges both ways but data only works one way. The first
| time I wanted to use it for carplay I lost some hair.
| netsharc wrote:
| I guess you need to mark the correct sides of the cable
| (and maybe the port) with a dot from a marker, so you know
| which way is "up"...
| OJFord wrote:
| Honestly I think I just need to get rid of it!
| MBCook wrote:
| I've noticed that in devices that aren't _truly_ USB-C but
| seem to be USB-B with a C connector.
|
| They work fine with an A-C cable, even when using that with
| a C-A dongle. But often only one way up.
|
| They're clearly noncompliant. Not that that stops anyone.
| robin2120 wrote:
| [dead]
| Animats wrote:
| If the plug actually complies with the spec, and has the metal
| shroud as it is supposed to, it works fine, and will not go in
| backwards. It's making USB connectors which are just a piece of
| PC board that's the problem. Looking at you, Yubikey.
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| USB was a scam from Intel (and Microsoft) to put the PC at center
| of "your digital life". They both feared that Firewire would be
| able to send digital streams around and no PC would be necessary.
|
| This man was ideal for the job of USB inventor.
| jdblair wrote:
| I used to "bedazzle" my USB cables. Bedazzling is when you
| decorate something with little plastic reflective jewel stickers.
| I always put the jewel in the same side (the "top") so I could
| feel which way the cable should be oriented. Then I could be
| confident I had the orientation correct without looking.
|
| I called this USBedazzling. The other folks in the office didn't
| think it was a funny as I did.
| dylan604 wrote:
| what if the port was in the opposite orientation, or worse,
| vertically oriented?
| havefunbesafe wrote:
| Then you'd have to close your laptop and walk into the woods
| forever, I suppose...
| dylan604 wrote:
| great, so a tuesday, then?
| nubinetwork wrote:
| 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
| tzs wrote:
| 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
| worksonmine wrote:
| I just touch the connector to find the void. It always goes
| down and this trick never failed me. I have no problem plugging
| in USB on the first try even in the dark.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| You can also insert the USB-a connector upside down, if you use
| enough force. It won't really break anything but it will bend
| the plastic part so it becomes hard to insert the right way.
| stavros wrote:
| This is easily solved by also adding copper tracks on the
| backside of the connector!
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I've seen reversible USB connectors that just have flexible
| pins that bend up or down depending on how the port is
| oriented.
| Cockbrand wrote:
| USB A to Micro USB cables with reversible connectors on both ends
| have been available for a few years - much too late, but still
| useful. I bought some on AliExpress, and while probably violating
| some specs, they have been working nicely for me so far.
| omgJustTest wrote:
| I think people underestimate how cheaply products are made.
|
| > Making USB reversible to begin with would have necessitated
| twice as many wires and twice as many circuits, and would have
| doubled the cost.
|
| Adding more wires, even if it is a few is not the cheapest one
| and therefore not the one that wins. The relative convenience of
| a feature is always trumped in early days by cost-to-produce.
|
| USB-C recently introducing the symmetry of the connector does not
| imply that manufacturers will use it... ie you have a symmetric
| connector that performs differently based on how it was plugged.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Also, coming from serial/parallel ports, people are not going
| to moan that the USB is not reversible.
| elondaits wrote:
| > But in an effort to keep it as cheap as possible, the decision
| was made to go with a design that, in theory, would give users a
| 50/50 chance of plugging it in correctly
|
| They overlooked the statistically significant case where it takes
| more than two tries to plug it in correctly. Knowing you might
| have been wrong makes you prematurely abandon an attempt where
| you had it set the right way.
| aranchelk wrote:
| 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
| experience tells me no amount of vigorous jiggling or extreme
| self-confidence will ever allow for consistent average 1.5
| attempt plugins.
|
| All the standards before USB were in my memory even less user-
| friendly -- trying in vain to reach behind a heavy computer and
| unscrew the two jammed retaining bolts holding in a serial,
| parallel, scsi, vga, or DVI plug with slippery bent plastic
| jacketed heads. Almost zero clearance from the plug case, that
| really did suck. Screw it in slightly loser next time, now you've
| got a flickering monitor, dummy.
|
| And ps2/mini-din connectors sucked too - having the connector
| off-center or at the wrong rotation also felt quite
| indistinguishable.
| lxgr wrote:
| > trying in vain to reach behind a heavy computer and unscrew
| the two jammed retaining bolts holding in a serial, parallel,
| scsi, vga, or DVI plug with slippery bent plastic jacketed
| heads
|
| Oh yes, that brings back very bad memories.
|
| Only gradually did it dawn on me that nothing really bad
| actually happens if I didn't screw the connectors tight on
| DVI/VGA etc. :)
|
| (Yes, these are technically not plug-and-play, but the
| occasional disconnect sure beat all the banging my head on the
| desk and swearing profusely every time I changed something with
| my personal setup.)
| fireflash38 wrote:
| It's like VGA cables came with loctite pregooped on with how
| hard they were to unscrew.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| This is what I do with these (terrible) screw-in connectors.
|
| - Loosely plug in the connector
|
| - Screw in the right side, relatively tight
|
| - Use the right screw as a pivot point, by pushing the plug
| to the left, this will properly seat in the connector
|
| - Screw in the left side until it touches, do not tighten
|
| To unscrew, use the left side as a pivot point by pushing the
| plug to the right, this should loosen the right screw,
| unscrew it, then, unscrew the left side, which shouldn't be
| tight if you did it correctly.
|
| Note: you can switch left for right and right for left.
|
| The general idea is to wiggle left and right by using the
| screws as pivots. Do this to unscrew if it is too tight. If
| only one side is screwed in (don't do that) and it is too
| tight, screw in the other side and use the pivot trick.
|
| I don't like not screwing these in as they have a tendency to
| come loose, especially since they also have poor feedback and
| chances are that they aren't properly inserted to begin with.
|
| And side note: another thing I hate with this plugs is that
| when you pull out the cable, the plug tends to grab ever
| other cable that's on their way. In fact, some of these plugs
| look suspiciously like boat anchors and seem to be just as
| effective at grabbing stuff.
| reilly3000 wrote:
| 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.
| xorcist wrote:
| Ah, the token ring connectors. Not reversible, but genderless.
| layer8 wrote:
| The D-sub connectors were pretty intuitive, as far as I can
| remember. The 9-pin joystick ports never caused much trouble.
|
| Making the USB connectors symmetric in their outer shape but
| not symmetrically pluggable was really inexcusable. When it
| came out I remember thinking that it was worse than any of the
| existing connectors. And this is supposed to be the new
| "universal" connector?
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > The D-sub connectors were pretty intuitive, as far as I can
| remember.
|
| I never personally had a problem with them, but I can attest
| that people did. At my first job (a small computer shop), we
| had multiple customers who tried to jam their D-sub connector
| on wrong, and broke one or more pins off. Since this was back
| in the day when the cable was hard wired into the monitor,
| that generally meant they had to buy a new monitor.
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| That is malicious, you cut off the d-sub connector and put
| another one on. I have never heard of someone replacing a
| monitor because the pins on the connector were damaged.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| I've never heard of anyone replacing their hard wired
| monitor cable. And in any case I certainly wouldn't have
| had the skills, so I think "malicious" is an uncalled-for
| term here. Maybe my boss (the owner) knew better and
| chose to charge people for new monitors, but I definitely
| didn't.
| hedora wrote:
| The best feature of those little thumb screws was that the
| computer-side mount could become unscrewed and fall off when
| you were trying to remove the cable. On some machines, it was
| held in with a tiny little nut on the inside of the case. The
| nut was just the right size to fall onto a motherboard and
| bridge PCB traces or exposed I/O pins.
|
| Of course, there was no way to detect this by feel.
| postmodest wrote:
| At least PS/2 cables were mostly made with "keyed" rubber
| jackets where one side was flat and the other rounded, so in
| the dark you could tell which way was up.
|
| (Though, that keyboard and mouse were different ports was
| stupid, so it loses points there)
| userbinator wrote:
| Keyboard was always the one closest to the mobo, since it was
| there first (and was originally a larger, more robust DIN
| connector); the mouse piggybacked on top of that later.
| lxgr wrote:
| _Never_ have I been able to successfully plug a PS /2 port in
| by haptics alone.
|
| I can totally see how they were designed to theoretically
| allow for it; practically, the tactile feedback for the
| correct orientation is just way too subtle.
|
| And regarding the two different ports: I can't remember (or
| rather, I was never motivated to revisit the plugs once
| connected to experiment, since it was such a pain) - was
| there a technical reason for that, or could modern
| mainboards/BIOSes/OSes detect and correct for that?
| a1369209993 wrote:
| > was there a technical reason for that, or could modern
| mainboards/BIOSes/OSes detect and correct for that?
|
| IIRC, there was a technical reason in that original
| mainboards lacked the circuitry to detect and correct for
| it (I _think_ different mouse vs keyboard interrupts were
| involved?), and it would have been a extra xC/ on the BOM.
| But modern mainboards just use two of the same circuit and
| in fact do work fine if you swap them (tested just now,
| sample size of 1).
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| 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 tongue and the device is a more robust socket that
| wraps around that fragile piece. I know everyone's happy about
| the iPhone moving to USB-C but the tongue on the cable side
| that it had was much better. Anyone who's tripped on a cable
| and broken a USB socket can attest to this.
| mtoner23 wrote:
| 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
| Findecanor wrote:
| 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.
| ghusbands wrote:
| Given the number of bent pins I've seen on mini-DIN
| connectors, I think people don't find it as easy as you do.
| sbjs wrote:
| > Sometime later, I also learned that "three" is usually the
| magic number for correctly plugging in a USB Type-A device. It's
| a maddening dance and it begs the question, why wasn't the
| Universal Serial Bus designed with a reversible connector from
| the outset?
|
| Honestly when this is the biggest problem you face on a daily
| basis, your life must be relatively easy.
| tommiegannert wrote:
| If we're not going back to circular slip-ring connectors that
| allow rotation (like TRS or DC plugs,) then the step after the
| +-90 _-reversible USB-C is a triangular one. So you only need to
| rotate it +-30_ if you got it wrong. Now I really want a
| triangular connector. Like in alien-tech movies.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| Let's go further and get a hexagonal one.
| jpeanuts wrote:
| This is not so crazy - this was exactly the progression in
| screw drives. First came slotted screws (2-fold rotational
| symmetry), then Phillips/posidrive/Robertson (4-fold), and
| now Torx (6-fold). Going back to slotted now is actually
| irritating.
|
| Of course the constraints and trade-offs are very
| different... still it would be a piece of cake to plug them
| in on the backside of a box with your eyes closed.
| k3vinw wrote:
| From the article: "Bhatt's idea for the USB was inspired by his
| own experience as a user dealing with tech frustrations far
| beyond the scope of a get-it-wrong-the-first-time cable."
|
| Exactly what made USB so awesome when it first came out. I guess
| you had to be there.
| Ekaros wrote:
| D-sub and likes were lot worse. USB is robust and don't need
| things like screws. Din and mini-din also have similar issues.
| Compared to either family USB is clearly a more usable design.
| pseudosavant wrote:
| I think people really need to think about USB Type A in the
| context of the connectors it was 'competing' with: DSUB9 (VGA),
| RS-232 (serial), DB-25 (parallel), PS/2 (keyboard/mouse). These
| were, by modern standards, complete garbage connectors. Huge.
| Didn't stay plugged in securely unless the connector had screws.
| Only went one way.
|
| USB 1 stayed plugged in, required no screws, had higher bandwidth
| than any data port you'd find on a typical PC, the wires were
| much thinner, and it could even power low power devices! Yes, a
| design that doesn't take three tries (my average) to get right
| would be nice, but it exceeded every existing port by miles.
| Audio jacks were the only ports that didn't have a direction back
| then.
| NegativeK wrote:
| The idea of trying to plug a serial, parallel, or VGA cable
| into a computer blindly seems hilariously unlikely.
|
| And I distinctly remember getting excited about upgrading to a
| motherboard that supported USB for the hot-pluggability. I was
| overexcited, but still.
| Findecanor wrote:
| Also, those older plugs were more or less not hot-pluggable.
| The computer had to be off ( _really_ off, not _standby_ )
| before you plugged/unplugged a cable, or you'd risk damaging
| the port and/or the device.
|
| The only exception I know of is that Apple Desktop Bus (mini-
| DIN) had been designed (by Woz !) to be _supposed_ to be hot-
| pluggable but Apple cheaped out on overcurrent protection so it
| never was.
|
| Edit: I forgot: in a MIDI connection there is an opto-coupler
| behind the receiving end, to electrically separate devices.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| > 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 Apple did with lightning.
|
| Then you implement auto crossover detection, (edit: Gah! you
| don't even have to do that just flip the flipping wires) which
| had been around for years and is dirt cheap, in the hub. It would
| have been like, six, more transistors in the hub IC.
|
| edit: I completely forgot that reversible USB 2.0 plugs already
| exist and use a simpler (and cheaper) method. They just tend not
| to be so reliable because of the thinner materials and the fact
| that they're not spec-compliant so they tend to be grey market
| jobs made for the lowest price possible.
|
| Here is one: https://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-Universal-
| Reversible-UR050...
|
| No doubling of wires or circuits required, just a thin double-
| sided PCB.
|
| Was the connector form-factor inherited from an earlier project
| and the players didn't want to design a new one?
| whoooooo123 wrote:
| 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 design change.
| davidgay wrote:
| That only works when you can see the place you're connecting
| to, or have used it many times.
|
| I've definitely cursed many times failing to plug in non-
| rectangular VGA, serial and parallel cables ;)
|
| [edit: it is still better, but not a panacea]
| stevage wrote:
| Even having a bump on the rubber moulding as part of the
| standard would have solved the problem.
| rzzzt wrote:
| The USB symbol goes on top, IIRC.
|
| Edit: ninja'd by an enormous amount of people elsewhere in
| the thread, gah.
| qup wrote:
| This is not always true, and not all ports are horizontal
| anyway.
| Smoosh wrote:
| Heck, just making the plastic insert white instead of black
| (now sometimes blue, occasionally orange) would have
| helped.
| themerone wrote:
| They did that from the beginning with USB-B, but they never
| standardized an orientation.
| m_0x wrote:
| > 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 design change.
|
| I disagree. When connecting an HDMI cable I sometimes have
| issues, especially if in a weird angle.
|
| However I do concede is faster to connect an HDMI than a USB
| dylan604 wrote:
| Yeah, I want the connector that can be attached by only
| moving the TV a few inches, just enough to get my hand to
| fit and feel around, not something I have to rearrange the
| furniture for and break out some headlight to see which
| direction the cable is oriented. With BNC cables, I could
| do it with my eyes closed.
| rainbowzootsuit wrote:
| I find that a USB-A fits reasonably by feel into an
| Ethernet port for extra points.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| For an example of an asymmetrical "rectangle", look at HDMI:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#/media/File:HDMI_connecto.
| ..
| gzalo wrote:
| > Then you implement auto crossover detection, dwhich had been
| around for years
|
| Mdi-x/auto crossover for ethernet was introduced in 1999, that
| is after USB (1996) was designed, not sure of the technique was
| known at that time
| dboreham wrote:
| There were auto-crossover RS-232 boxes going back deep into
| the 1980s.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| with baud rate detection to boot (down the line)
| userbinator wrote:
| There are also reversible USB plugs that are a single "tongue",
| inheriting that design from USB drives that don't have any plug
| to speak of but look more like a card-edge connector:
|
| https://www.pcgamer.com/youre-telling-me-we-could-have-had-r...
|
| https://2b.com.eg/en/2b-cv177-cable-usb-type-a-reversible-pl...
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I got these by accident, spent a month thinking I had
| incredible USB skills, then discovered and became fascinated
| by the tongue.
| kybernetikos wrote:
| Couldn't original USB have used TRRS? That's better than
| reversible - an infinite number of orientations are allowed.
| userbinator wrote:
| That shorts together a lot of the contacts as you're plugging
| it in.
|
| There are of course various devices which somehow ended up
| using TRRS for USB, but unplugging/plugging those while
| powered is definitely not recommended:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/rt083u/a.
| ..
|
| http://www.totekinternational.com/35mm-trrs-to-usb-a-male-
| ca...
|
| https://pinoutguide.com/PortableDevices/ipod_shuffle_pinout..
| ..
| dylan604 wrote:
| >edit: Gah! you don't even have to do that just flip the
| flipping wires)
|
| Isn't that essentially what all ethernet cables do? it's not
| like this something never done before.
| londons_explore wrote:
| 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.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| I once used a crossover cable with an old 3Com card and a
| Linksys switch - whatever it sent down the wires, the
| Ethernet port on that switch was fried and has never done
| Tx or Rx since. I bandaged it with electric tape so I don't
| connect something else, and also in hope it will someday
| heal.
|
| The 3Com card was unscathed. In fact, it is probably
| feeling stronger after that exertion.
| Sakos wrote:
| 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.
| hedora wrote:
| Hah! I recently had to put ends on a Cat 6 cable for weird
| reasons, and spent a few minutes deciding if it needed to
| be crossover or not.
| JoblessWonder wrote:
| When was Auto MDI-X introduced? A quick google failed to get
| me an answer but I remember USB being available while I still
| needed a crossover cable to hook up 2 switches.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| oh god, I was made to be an idiot when I once told someone
| they would need a crossover cable to do what they wanted to
| do a few years ago...
| JoblessWonder wrote:
| If it makes you feel any better... for some reason there
| are some currently in production business jets that still
| require crossover cables for maintenance... so they ARE
| still required sometimes.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| I think he DID explain why: he didn't and doesn't know how
| ozymandias12 wrote:
| [flagged]
| laydn wrote:
| It just had to be non-symmetrical on the Z-axis, that's all. Like
| an HDMI connector.
| simonjgreen wrote:
| Or displayport. Personally I find hdmi almost as annoying as
| usb, though I can't explain why that happens!
| jve wrote:
| Because when you have to plug hdmi on a wall mounted tv or
| monitor that is close to wall and hard to rotate - you end up
| not only guessing orientation but having a hard time to find
| that port... :)
| simonjgreen wrote:
| I feel like it's the aspect ratio of the plug too. Being
| long and thin you have to get it perfectly straight AND the
| right way round
| opan wrote:
| 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.
| stavros wrote:
| That has not been my experience with HDMI, I've never had a
| cable anywhere close to popping out because of gravity, no
| matter the orientation.
| NegativeK wrote:
| 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.
| ruined wrote:
| the correct solution there is to manage your cables.
| yanking your monitor off the desk would not be an
| improvement
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I still am more annoyed by it being the same width as an RJ-45
| connector. Worse than not being able to plug it in is having it
| plug in and not work.
| nxobject wrote:
| In the same vein, USB-A has a plugin-nable space barely the
| same diameter as a headphone jack - there have been a few times
| that I've plugged a headphone without looking into an adjacent
| USB receptacle. It happened surprisingly often when MacBooks
| had USB-A.
| whoopdedo wrote:
| As annoying as this has been when it happened to me, I also
| have wondered if they did it on purpose to make it easier for
| assemblers. If the tooling needed for USB, Ethernet, and eSATA
| are all the same size you can save cost through reuse.
| standardUser wrote:
| The entire situation could have been avoided with a notch like a
| thousand other plugs and connectors have.
| blamazon wrote:
| This page was difficult to read on my mobile due to ads. Here is
| a link to the source of the interview mentioned in the headline:
|
| https://text.npr.org/2019/06/21/734451600/ever-plugged-a-usb...
| coldpie wrote:
| Install an ad blocker, friend! Firefox + uBlock Origin on
| Android, or 1Blocker on iOS.
| OGWhales wrote:
| You can also use Orion on iOS, it has built in ad-blocking or
| you can install Ublock Origin extension.
| bsimpson wrote:
| @dang can we update the src?
| devit wrote:
| If you have a reversible connector, then you might be entangled
| in a dilemma of which way is the "better" or "optimal" or
| "canonical" way, while with a non-reversible one there is only
| one way and thus no dilemma.
|
| And in fact USB-C is not really physically reversible, because
| the hardware detects which way it's plugged in and permutes the
| signals, as opposed to mirroring all the wires, so there is
| indeed a "right" way of inserting an USB-C plug, except it's
| impossible to tell which it is without a dedicated hardware
| tester.
| mtmail wrote:
| > permutes the signals
|
| Does that cause a noticable difference, for example lower
| speeds?
| duskwuff wrote:
| > the hardware detects which way it's plugged in and permutes
| the signals
|
| For USB3/4 signals, yes. But the hardware needed to interact
| with those signals is complex enough that making it also
| support swapping pins is a minor detail.
|
| The USB2 and power lines, on the other hand, are all present on
| both sides. This means that simple devices don't need to detect
| orientation; they can connect the duplicated pins together and
| everything works.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| A USB 2.0 device is usually supposed[1] to just short the two
| possible positions of each data pin in its USB-C port (the four
| power pins are always shorted, of course, as are the four
| ground ones). Orientation sensing only comes into play when you
| start using the SuperSpeed lanes (for signal interference
| reasons).
|
| [1] https://www.microchip.com/en-us/application-notes/an1953,
| 1.3.1
| lisper wrote:
| And indeed there are usb-c hubs that only work in one
| orientation so we now have the worst of all possible worlds.
| Clamchop wrote:
| I'm reluctant to consider shoddy or noncompliant
| implementations as counting against a technology. If I did,
| then it'd follow that there's no such thing as a good idea,
| and I could only agree with that if I were having a bad
| episode of ennui.
| palata wrote:
| > I'm reluctant to consider shoddy or noncompliant
| implementations as counting against a technology.
|
| I find it interesting that it is typically done with
| programming languages. "This programming languages allows
| people to write complicated, unreadable code, hence the
| language is bad".
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| In fairness there are plenty of people who think one
| should not consider it a language flaw if you can shoot
| yourself in the foot. See: basically every C programmer.
| ezfe wrote:
| I would argue those hubs do not work
| hiatus wrote:
| It's the same with usb-c extension cords. Our extension
| cords now need microcontrollers in them, what a time to be
| alive.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| Given those microcontrollers are 0.05 USD at worst, meh,
| though I acknowledge it sounds a bit crazy if you don't
| recognize how cheap micros can be nowadays. Laptop
| chargers have used similar schemes (perhaps with bare
| serial EEPROMs instead of MCUs) since forever, FWIW.
| tester756 wrote:
| I can swear I've felt that when I incorrectly plugged my USB-C
| to dock station, then I had some crazy issues e.g related to
| bluetooth. I tried restarts, adapter unplugs, etc, etc.
|
| But when I unplugged the cable and reversed it then the issue
| disappeared
| palata wrote:
| I don't really get why people hate USB-A so much. I almost always
| plug my USB-A in the first try, because most of my devices have a
| clear up/down (e.g. a laptop or a docking station), and the
| plastic part always goes down.
|
| Of course the vertical ports behind a machine are a bit harder to
| access, but... well anyway they are. And usually those are not
| the ones I unplug/replug often.
| snarfy wrote:
| I was always hoping for a 3.5mm jack for a connector.
|
| Radially symmetric, it can go in any direction. I've heard
| arguments this could cause connection issues since it could
| rotate while connected, causing small contact misses, but I think
| that could be designed around.
| [deleted]
| ghaff wrote:
| I used to know one of the people involved in the spec at Intel
| and he long claimed to regret they couldn't find a (presumably
| politically acceptable) way to make it reversible.
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