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Death to the Trapezoid... Next USB Connector Will Be Reversible
TheRealHocusLocus writes "Extreme bandwidth is nice, intelligent power management is cool... but folks should be spilling into the streets in thankful praise that the next generation miniature USB connector will fit either way. All told — just how many intricate miracle devices have been scrapped in their prime — because a tiny USB port was mangled? For millennia untold chimpanzees and people have been poking termite mounds with round sticks. I for one am glad to see round stick technology make its way into consumer electronics. Death to the trapezoid, bring back the rectangle! So... since we're on roll here... how many other tiny annoyances that lead to big fails are out there?"
The new connector will be smaller too.
That's immoral
Big fails? How about small connectors? I greatly prefer regular-sized USB to micro-USB, they sit much better in the slot.
USB, developed from the Atari 800's SIO technology (1978/79!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_SIO
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
I'd like to see the back of these. They pull out too easily.
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
Reminds me of the notebook's keyboard position, then the trackpad, then the clean designs etc etc...
Is the fact that the standard USB connection (rectangle) is not really 180 degrees symmetric (despite a shape that indicates it should be), usually takes 3+ attempts to get it in. Damn it, Jim, a spin-1/2 connector!
and just after The EU mandates micro-USB as a common phone charger
Europeans have. Every time they plug something into a power outlet.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Unlike Lightning, this is just a connector for USB 2/3, not a whole new interface. A dumb, cheap adaptor should suffice. (Unlike Lightning to 30-pin adaptors which are basically tiny protocol droids translating between the two.)
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Proof that USB cables are 4 dimensional.
Apologies if this appears twice. It looks like slashdot ate the first attempt.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Not in the UK. Our plugs are very well designed. Even the sockets include covers over the power holes which can only be retracted by inserting the (Slightly longer) earth pin first.
Connectors that are (un)plugged often should either be symmetrical or clearly indexed. The original (big) USB plug was almost right (in the sense that the plug wouldn't go in the wrong way), except that it was difficult to tell which way the index should be facing. Firewire was a decent implementation of an indexed plug.
The current micro USB plugs are ridiculous, though. It can takes three tries to plug it in and every time you get it wrong you stress the socket a little. The difference in feel between a correct and incorrect fit is very mushy with some plugs/sockets.
While we're on the subject, a pure rectangle (a la the USB A plug) is even worse. The USB connector design over the years has been so bad that I wouldn't be too hopeful about what they come up with next.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Very well designed until you step on one in bare feet, anway.
You really think that those are well designed? It looks like russian solution for me. While it's harder to die from an electric shock, one can easily kill somebody else with such plug :-)
Good thing we can have adapters. In the EU, micro-USB is required on devices so they will have to keep using the old connector until the law catches up with th enew one...
This. The crusty AT keyboard needs a redesign. While you are at it, make it so that it will automatically tell the operating system which language's layout it is.
headphone jack. hmmm. inherently shorting!
as you insert or remove, the ground (larger band) shorts to the other contacts and for amps (and worse, psu's!) this is horrible.
I first learned this when I was building a diy bipolar (plus and minus) psu. I need a 3 conductor connector. hey, 1/4" phones jack has 3! so I used it.
took the box into work and it was immediately pointed out to me that for power use, it was really bad! yet I can remember audio alchemy (long gone company but they were well known once for audio gear) used 1/8" trs jacks for power! talk about ZAPPP!! when you insert or remove them. I was just a dumb kid at the time and I realized right away it was wrong; but a full company was doing this for years before they stopped.
for high end audio gear, they often remove protection circuits and if you remove the phones jack while music is playing, you can often blow the final output transistors or chips. this is well known on many diy designs (some people went with locking trs phone jacks to avoid this problem).
xlr (for audio) does not short as you insert or remove. but the banded trs or trrs does and for that reason, its one of the worst connector designs, ever.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
The WORST connectors are the trapezoidal HDMI connectors. Not only are they orientation specific, but they are often used on heavy cables that pull on the connector causing it to lose contact, and even bend the pins in the socket.
Add in the fact that the data rate is like a zillion bytes per second and there is an encryption handshake that must go just right at the start and you have a clusterfuck.
HDMI connectors seriously need an upgrade.
(Protip: write caching is off by default in modern Windows, so you can actually just yank the USB stick when it finishes what it's doing without ill effect.)
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Tip-{ring,ring,...}-Sleeve. Easily handles the 3 or 4 connectors needs for just about any modern digital serial connector. Need power? why not modulate the signal on top of the power carrier? Easy to connect, proven reliable (can't count how many times I've broken a mini/micro USB or worse those umpteen pin pico/nano pin connectors that are only used for power or maybe a simple serial connection)
I'm in my right mind and I have the answer to everything!
Unlike Lightning, this is just a connector for USB 2/3, not a whole new interface. A dumb, cheap adaptor should suffice. (Unlike Lightning to 30-pin adaptors which are basically tiny protocol droids translating between the two.)
The image I get in my head is a miniature C-3P0 inside the connector talking very quickly.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Yes, they are well designed. Compare to them to the standard EU and US designs which are flimsy, often left to be self-supporting (which they fail at), and have a tendency to just fall out of the sockets in my experience. A UK plug is solid when plugged in, makes an earth connection before a live/neutral connection as it is plugged in, disconnects the live/neutral before the earth is disconnected, and as the poster stated has a shuttered outlet so that the socket is only opened *after* an earth connection has been made. If you think that is a "russian solution" then maybe you think good engineering is communist, and flimsy make do is the american way.
8 pole concentric circle connectors exist - do a search for Speakon NL-8 connectors.
I've no use for a protocol droid. What I do need is someone who can understand the binary language of moisture vaporators.
Maybe not as bad as that, but a new USB connector does mean yet another USB cable to carry in your go-bag. I already carry four different kinds.
www.wavefront-av.com
That's certainly one way to keep the janitor from plugging his floor buffer into the UPS outlet at night!
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
There is no silicon between the two devices if you're using USB over the Lightning connector, that's the point - early on in its life, someone tore the cables apart and the data lines are wired straight through, the authentication chip can only communicate with the iPhone and then only at speeds slower than USB 1.1 Low Speed.
Oh right, from Apple.
You mean the Apple who helped pioneer the first USB connector which everyone hates so much. Seriously people have been whining about the USB connector from about day 1 and reversible/rotationally symmetric connectors have existed for even longer.
To claim Apple "invented" the idea of a reversible USB connector is utterly just plain silly. Even if you claim it is invention to do something blindingly obvious, you'll be disappointed to hear that Nokia's DKU2 cable was (a) reversible (b) carried USB and (c) existed on the 2002 eara Nokia 6100, a full 5 years before even the first generation iPhone and a year before the iPod's reversible connector supported USB.
So no, it's not an invention and even if it was Nokia had it before Apple.
Seriously what is it with Apple Fanbois assuming they invented everything? You know it's possible to enjoy their products *without* having to make up random shit about how they did everything first.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The image I get in my head is a miniature C-3P0 inside the connector talking very quickly.
Don't you mean "C-3P0 talking slightly slower than he normally does"?
After all, even USB 3.1 is only 10Gbps.
Is the fact that the standard USB connection (rectangle) is not really 180 degrees symmetric (despite a shape that indicates it should be), usually takes 3+ attempts to get it in. Damn it, Jim, a spin-1/2 connector!
Protip: The USB emblem goes "up". The logo is trademarked, and without it the cables are too frustrating to use. An interesting feat of human engineering indeed.
Now, let us travel through time far enough into the future that we come to appreciate the greatest connector design possible:
First, consider the connector with zero lines of symmetry, such as USB, or a polarized pronged plug. There is a 2D plane that the connector travels orthogonal to and which it must breech in order to complete a connection docking sequence. Consider this plane slicing through your connector and receptacle's contacts. Note that there is one receptacle surface for one connector pin passing through the docking plane.
To the Future! Copy and rotate your receptor 180 degrees in place along the docking plane. Eliminate any conflicting isolation surfaces, and move the pins such that they do not interact with each the other's connection surfaces. Now you have a reversible connector with one line of symmetry in the receptacle. The connector pins can occupy both sets of receptacle contact surfaces, but need only occupy one position to complete the electrical circuits.
Advance! Now we will perform the same step again, but with a 90 degree increment. Behold! A square connector!
60 degrees? Hexagonal connectors! Note that just imagining it we can nearly taste the hex filled future!
Onward, to 45 degrees, and to victory! Octagonal connections even mirror our futurist desire to slice the corners from our square UI windows, and tabs.
Oh integration, you foul beast. Clearly to see furthest into the future we must have infinite lines of symmetry in our docking plane -- BUT HOW?! With all pins occupying all positions across the USB connector, the left side interacts with the right side. Since connector pins need only exist in one position we need only make the connector pins have zero lines of symmetry -- move all the connector pins to one side. Simultaneously we have a perfectly round receptacle -- Ah, but all intersecting isolation surfaces are removed, this leaves us with only a flat ring of contacts and several pins.
So, now we will enter a new Dimension! We can stretch the docking plane in the 3rd dimension along the orthogonal connection axis! BEHOLD! We have discovered the most futuristic connector of all time! The Head Phone Jack!
Now, what's old can finally be new again. Story time is over, now get off my lawn.
Let the British design the next standard. I have yet to see anyone pick up a BS 1363 and not figure out which way to insert it.
Have gnu, will travel.
And yet, during the hysteria few months ago about the iPhone charger that electrocuted a customer in China, Apple kept insisting people needed, oh they badly needed, to buy only Apple's branded cable. The shock risk was entirely in what the cable was plugged into, but they insisted otherwise, and it's doubtless that thousands of compliant Apple customers threw out their third-party charging systems (the evil ones that didn't have the Apple branding information on the packaging) and dashed to the Apple Store waving plastic.
I tell you, Apple marketeers are absolute genius. That first they can say "branded cable" with a straight face, and that consumers actually buy into it... it's an amazing thing.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Aside from the fact that you have that precisely backwards, that's correct.
From the column you linked to written by Florian Mueller (not exactly an Open-Source evangelist):
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
The process goes something like: gently push. Doesn't work. wiggle a bit. Still doesn't work. Flip over and try again. Neither of those work either. Then repeat a little bit harder until eventually it goes in or breaks.
Wait, we're still talking about USB ports here, right?