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Comment by leggomylibro | Hacker News Reader

I really do not understand how people still have trouble with this. We've had years and years to get used to these plugs.

The 'top' of every USB-A plug I've ever seen is smooth, while the 'bottom' has a seam down the middle. And you can tell the receptacle's orientation from a glance just as easily, but you don't have to because the 'top' side of the plug should face the 'top' of the device it is plugging into in almost every consumer device I've used.

Top of plug = top of device. Easy. It seems more like a cheesy running joke that people just go along with at this point.

(Wow, of all the things to become a touchy subject...what am I doing with my life, typing stuff like this out? This isn't helping anyone. Please ignore my pedantic bullshit.)

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> The 'top' of every USB-A plug I've ever seen is smooth, while the 'bottom' has a seam down the middle. And you can tell the receptacle's orientation from a glance just as easily, but you don't have to because the 'top' side of the plug should face the 'top' of the device it is plugging into in almost every consumer device I've used.

I can't tell if you're joking. You've just written three hundred characters about how to plug in a cable. Why is it that complicated? Why didn't they design it to go in in any orientation?

Okay, how about this?

"Plug in the cable face-up."

It's just less accurate for edge cases like tower PCs with slots facing the side. And fair's fair, I hadn't thought about how annoying it is when you have to reach behind a machine to plug something into one of those.

But then again, it's usually hard to plug things together when you can't see them. I dunno, it just really doesn't seem like an issue in practice.

> "Plug in the cable face-up."

What's the face? Which way is up? Can't you see that these descriptions don't work?

> Why didn't they design it to go in in any orientation?

'They' ( Ajay Bhatt and his team at Intel ) considered that to be a good idea, but decided against it for cost reasons at a time they were trying to get USB adopted. A reversible plug would have doubled the wiring complexity in the connector and that was considered financially unviable. USB at the time had to be as cheap as possible to make it 'universal".

Incidentally in the UK we have a non-IT equivalent to the problem, the Standard Lamp Paradox. Since there is a switch on domestic electrical outlets, and another switch on a lamp, it often takes three tries in the dark to turn on a lamp since the initial switch state is unknown.

They didn't even needed to make it reversible just asymmetrical, the HDMI or the displayport connector should've be the USB.

taking a quick look around my desk, and the slew of cables i have on it, i quickly find that less than 50% of my cables (many of which are popular and respected brands) do not conform to your description.

admit it. USB-A plugs are terribly designed.

Huh, maybe it's a regional thing; I've only got my experience to go off of, but I haven't experienced this sort of confusion in years.

They're way better than what came before (like PS/2 plugs, those connectors with the dumb screws (DB9 and such), etc.).

Edit: I can't post a reply to the comment below me because HN thinks I am posting "too fast", so here's an update to more thoughts I had on this:

It's also age because USB-A is like 20 years old or more. Back then you didn't plug and unplug USB stuff as often, but today we use it as a charging port more or less, so it's use-case was different when it was designed. Look at USB-C which is for today's "plug and unplug often" use case, it's fucking awesome for that. USB-A was more of a "this is mechanically better than DB9 or whatever" connector than a "this thing is intended to be transitioned at least 20 times per day" connector.

undeniably true. i'm ashamed to say i've broken my share of pins on those horrid things.

But DB-9 had a strong affordance for which way it fit. Mini-USB too, better than Micro.

That seam is nearly invisible in the dark.

Good point, but so is everything else you would be using it with.

I dunno, this is just one of those things that I can remember being annoying, but I can't remember the last time I actually experienced it.

Mini-USB was easily to feel it's orientation, they were also dramatically more reliable than micro-usb.

> Top of plug = top of device. Easy.

Incorrect on at least two mp3 players and one tablet I own.

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