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Comment by izacus | Hacker News Reader

Hmm, I don't understand the description fully - does that mean that it can happen that I can get a device with USB-C plug, plug it into computer and it won't work because the device uses Thunderbolt 3 and the computer isn't an Apple?

Or will all Thunderbolt 3 devices be able to scale back and communicate with devices over USB if the controller is not available? How will that work with displays over USB-C connectors? Is there a possibility that now instead of just checking for a USB port, we'll have to read the list of controllers/protocols available in devices connecting over USB-C ports?

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For the record,

1) Apple was the first to use USB even though it wasn't an Apple tech

2) Apple was the first to use Thunderbolt even though it wasn't an Apple tech

3) Apple is now the first to use USB 3 Type C (aka "USB-C") even though it wasn't an Apple tech (although rumor has it that Apple engineers had a lot of input on it)

The technology you're probably confusing it with is FireWire, which WAS Apple tech.

* 1) Apple was the first to use USB even though it wasn't an Apple tech

Not actually true. USB was shipping on PC motherboards for about a year before Apple went whole hog on USB. At the time, however, almost no one actually used USB (I think the first primary use of USB was keyboards and mice, and the first generation of USB keyboards and mice were notably inferior to their PS2 equivalents). Once Apple backed USB, other companies started to do the same.

More information here: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/2785/did-apple-j...

> 3) Apple is now the first to use USB 3 Type C

Didn't the Chromebook Pixel 2 come out slightly before the MacBook?

Yes, the MacBook was released April 10, but the Chromebook Pixel was already shipping USB type-C in March. Someone in the other Thunderbolt type-C thread also mistakenly claimed that Apple was the first company to use type-C.

I believe the MacBook was technically the first USB-C device announced (and rumors about it go all the way back to last year), but the Pixel shipped earlier.

Actually, the Nokia N1 tablet was announced late 2014, shipped in China earlier this year, and featured a Type C port.

Color me corrected.

It's not a big deal. No doubt both products were being developed long before they were announced, so Apple and Google were both ready to be the early adopter.

Now I'm just waiting for something to connect to the Pixel via a Type C <-> Type C connector, other than another Pixel ;)

How about a 2TB SSD with a performance rating of 850 MBps?

http://betanews.com/2015/06/01/sandisk-announces-2tb-ssd-in-...

This reminds me that Apple didn't work on it alone. I have a friend whose dad was an engineer at IBM. Back in high school (or maybe early college—late '90s at any rate), I was at his house one time and he unrolled a huge schematic… it was some kind of controller chip for Firewire. He's actually on a bunch of the patents for it.

The first USB-C device was the Nokia N1 released only in China and unveiled on 18 November 2014

Hmm, I think you misunderstood my post - I did not mean to imply Thunderbolt is Apple tech, neither did I do so for USB-C. I'm not sure how FireWire is relevant here.

Thunderbolt uses the Mini DisplayPort connector which was and is Apple tech, although DisplayPort itself is not.

Not sure why, but calling the mDP connector 'technology' vs. 'engineering' seems wrong to me. They are electrically identical as far as I can tell. The only innovation was in scaling the connector size down.

Thunderbolt isn't an Apple interface, it is an Intel interface. They were the first to use it, because they picked the best and fastest interface to combine video with network, USB, firewire, etc into one cable. However, several other brands have caught on, including the Dell m3800 I bought recently.

I didn't mean to imply it's an Apple interface - but I haven't seen TB 2 in the wild anywhere else then MacBooks/iMacs and most Thunderbolt devices refused to work with Windows (at least as I tested on my rMBP) due to lack of drivers. I did not mean to cause confusion, I apologise.

I have been seeing Thunderbolt as an option on motherboards when I do builds for at least the last three years. But I am generally looking at motherboards in the $200 price range, as the lower end ones are usually lacking connectors and features in ways that are much more important to me than Thunderbolt.

Manufacturers I believe don't usually include it because most PC buyers would not use that feature as a purchasing criteria.

USB Type C provides a standardized protocol for protocol negotiation. I assume that Thunderbolt uses that.

It's already used in Type C to enable plugging in USB, chargers (PD spec), HDMI or DP adapters (https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/dingdong) and I think even to route PCIe over Type C. Adding Thunderbolt to the mix shouldn't be too hard.

I think the issue is, that if you have a thunderbolt over USB-C display, and plug it into a normal USB-C port on your laptop (say the latest macbook), it won't work, since the laptop doesn't support the thunderbolt signaling. So it's a new point of confusion - USB devices which are physically compatible but not electrically.

It's something that could possibly be solved through the markings on the devices etc and I still think doing thunderbolt over the USB-C port is great. Perhaps the display example could fall back to supporting a display-over-usb standard, it won't work as well but could help.

I don't think we have enough detail about Thunderbolt 3 yet to know whether devices will be able to detect that they are connected to a USB port and not a Thunderbolt port. If they can detect that, they may well be able to choose to degrade.

It seems like an ideal way for Apple to be able to ship a display which can be connected to both thunderbolt and USB-C hosts, without the user having to care.

Obviously some Thunderbolt devices (e.g. PCI-E chassis) wouldn't reasonably be able to degrade to USB, but a good proportion of them, would.

I very much hope this is what is going to happen!

The Type C spec also mentions a PCIe alternate mode. The main complication is to support both wrapper protocols given that thunderbolt pushes twice the bits per second over the same wire (if using active cabling)

Wrapper protocol?

The alt-mode stuff is a physical signal multiplexing, not a protocol encapsulation.

I don't think you're allowed to sell a device with a USB jack that won't work with USB, because the consortium has a trademark on it. Or perhaps you just can't advertise it as USB?

I'd hope they gave up on their own DP signalling and just use the type C one.

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