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lostlogin

> whats wrong with usb-a?

Which way up it should go.

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Simple. The third way you try, always.

Macro-scale quantum hardware: USB-A is a spin-1.5 connector.

The side with the holes. That's true for 95% of devices, with one of the few major exceptions being cheap chinese powerbanks

Which requires being able to see the plug.

As with most plugs that came before it.

They were not externally symmetric

Also the side that has the logo on.

Or if you’re plugging into a desktop where the ports are vertical

There is usually still a concept of front. Most desktops if laid down would be laying on their right side (so the motherboard & cpu aren't upside down). From there you can still pretty easily tell how the port is oriented without looking.

USB-C is better than A in that it works in two orientations instead of one, but the correct answer for connectors should be any orientation — the best connectors are cylindrical connectors: barrel plugs, RCA, BNC, banana, phono, TRS, TRRS, etc. Just make them round.

Man, there’s nothing more satisfying than the feel of a quarter-inch TRS plug slotting in to a high quality jack. Truly one of the great plug designs.

And one of the oldest. It dates back to the 1870s. Older even than the Edison Screw.

LEMO push-pull connectors and their ilk are mighty satisfying.

Well, more like 1.5 orientations because we STILL have devices that only work with the cable in one of two valid orientations.

Would it be practical to have a round port as a universal connector? USB C uses a lot of pins, how would that work? Like an audio plug with a lot of rings?

I think it would be practical with glass fibre. Two wires/rings for power, and fibre for data. Something like a Mini-TOSLINK, but even smaller. Ideally the plug would be barely thicker than the cable.

Glass fibre is pretty fragile though, it would probably break in the first hour for most people if used like a normal USB Cable.

Just use polymer fibre for consumer gear. Cheaper and more robust.

Can that still transfer data at full speed with reasonable cable length while bent?

The other way

No, the other other way.

It's almost impressive that they designed a port that feels so wrong when you actually get it right

I worked in an IT department at one time and encountered USB-A plugs forced into Ethernet ports.

It seems so unlikely that I’ve just searched it to see if it’s possible, but am getting no hits.

no, they definitely fit. They're just awkwardly exactly the right size that while you're trying to plug things in punched over under the desk and crawling around and feeling around the backside; it just yeah.

My laptop has one of these ethernet ports that half close when not in use. It doesn't work anymore because someone mistook it for the USB port that's right next to it when distractingly plugging their keyboard in.

This reminds me so much of the old story about how a user called support to tell them their floppy drive wasn't working. When the tech got there, the computer had no floppy drives, and the user had been forcing the disks in the gap between the drive blank plates.

PS/2, which USB all but replaced, solved this by visually keying one side of the connector as flat.

And I have more than once bent the tiny pins by trying to orient the plug by feel, and it was a nightmare to fix it afterwards.

And USB solved it by having the logo on the upper side.

When I'm trying to plug my PS/2 keyboard into the port in back of my computer which I cannot see, instead of needing to try two orientations, I need to try every orientation.

You've never ruined a PS/2 port by rotating the plug to find the right orientation?

Where the logo is.

And when the port is vertical and you can’t see it?

I’m surprised how tolerable people seemed to find Apples rear ports.

It's very weird that USB-C solved the problem of "we can't tell which way to insert the plug" by mandating that both orientations should work, as opposed to just making the exterior of the plug as asymmetrical as the interior.

Less weird as they get smaller. Call it an accessibility thing if you like, but I think it's better for everyone and congrats to them. Isn't this what technology is supposed to do, make things easier?

I don't find it weird. Not even having to work out a correct orientation is a great convenience. The micro-USB connection (or is it "min"?), which I need to fiddle with to charge some older gadgets, is a testament to how annoying an "asymetric exterior" plug can still be.

With micro USB you end up with damaged plugs and ports in my experience.

Yes, micro USB is far too flimsy for a lot of things it’s used for from what I’ve observed. The connector seems to have a lot of leverage for ripping its tracks off, but often not a great mechanical connection to the board.

You mean something like HDMI? If you’ve ever tried to plug one of those into the back of a TV, you’ll know it’s still pretty difficult to get it the right way up.

> If you’ve ever tried to plug one of those into the back of a TV, you’ll know it’s still pretty difficult to get it the right way up.

That's true, but the difficulty in that case comes from being unable to see the hole or fit into the space between the television and the wall.

For example, plugging an HDMI cable into the back of a monitor involves none of the difficulty of plugging an HDMI cable into the back of a TV, even though the connector and the port are the same in both cases.

I bought a cheap USB hub so I don't have to reach behind the TV to plug things in

At least HDMI is a 'low frequency' connector, often only ever plugged in once, as opposed to USB (or refueling a car)

sometimes you're plugging in things at the back of something nearly flush against a wall and you can't really see, its quite useful for the connector to be reversible.

Have you ever tried to use a D-sub connector?

Very asymmetric, impossible to plug in backwards, only one possible orientation.

Still absolutely fucking awful. Same for HDMI, displayport.

The RJ series are the only asymmetric connectors I've use that you can easily get in blind.

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