cross-posted from: https://lemmy.cringecollective.io/post/75583
why isn’t it ok? why???
Meme “the number of people who think this is an abomination” over a photo of a USB-A to USB-A cable, “but think this is perfectly acceptable” over a photo of a USB-C to USB-C cable, “makes me sick.”
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The joke is that USB-A shouldn’t be paired with another USB-A. It should be using a USB-B on the other end. USB-A to USB-A could potentially be damaging, as both devices will expect to be providing power. USB-B denotes that a device is “receiving” USB, not “sending” it.
It is a fact that USB-C is superior.
The floating tang in the center of the USB-C receiver is a classic “planned obsolescence” design feature. Its built to fail and force you to buy a new device.
Source on this?
I’d love to see a source, I have literally never had the internal flap break and I must have had at least 30-40 devices pass through my hands with USB C by now
Everything from a cheap Chinese brand wireless mouse up to my main phones (which are constantly plugged in and out) to all the random laptops, tablets, Xbox controllers and other peripherals in between.
It’s never happened, though crud does build up in my phone port after a year or 2 to the point that I have to clean it out, but that’s nothing but a small paper clip and 5 minutes
Yeah, usb-c is pretty much the awesomeness they set out to become with USB a
Yeah just guessing if the cable supports the right usb-c protocol. The port is great. The protocol is horrible you have like 10 different versions of the same protocol. And you have to pray that your cable supports the right one you need.
USB-C is an absolute shit-show. Half a dozen types of identical looking cables all with different performance and compatability. They can be power only, USB-2 only, USB 3, 3.1, 5gb, 10gb. Some can carry 5A, others only 3A. Some may support thunderbolt. Cable sellers and manufacturers can/will claim anything.
For people selling USB-C devices it’s a massive support problem. It looks like the device is defective, but someone may just have swapped out the cable for their phone charger cable and there’s no way of telling.
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The joke is that A to A doesn’t make sense.
I actually found an A to A cable in my Big Box of Cables I Might Need One Day™ when trying to flash my Gotek floppy emulator with FlashFloppy firmware.
It’s about the winding and not about the USB version, right?
If I remember correctly you can’t do data copy with A to A. I maybe wrong but I’m to lazy to look up.
I’m not sure what the point is here. C is symmetrical and has absolutely no downsides, so yes, it’s objectively better.
I am a stupid end user. But I’ve never found an instance where I needed male to male cords.
Chargers are now female. So you need m2m to charge your phone
In general? Off the top of my head I remember these male to male cables.
- Ethernet cables
- telephone cables when they were a thing
- audio cables of different varieties
- optical cables
- coaxial cables when they were a thing
You’ve never used HDMI?
My usb-b monitor stands alone
The USB spec requires one master and one slave device, which is usually decided by which type of connector each side has. USB OTG can bypass that restriction, but I’ve only ever seen it done with micro USB or type C.
I actually have one of the USB A cables above from an old android tablet that had 2 full USB A ports on the side.
One was always a slave/device port while the other actually had a physical switch to change from Host to Device.
That used to be my mobile media tablet. I could cast wirelessly or steam directly from the mini HDMI port. Such an awesome device for how cheap it was.
Huh, I’m not sure they are comparable.
Didn’t USB A and USB B use a master-slave relationship in which the male would (generally) always be the slave, whereas USB C uses agreement and discussion to decide the master and slave roles regardless of connector gender.
Please do correct me if I’m wrong. Also, do we say “agent” now instead of “slave”, or what is the new term?
Mechanics are still trying to figure that out with the “master cylinder” and “slave cylinder”
Type C sounds like a healthy relationship.
I have a healthy relationship with my Master uwu
Both ends of a USB cable are generally male (unless you’re talking about an extender). Generally the type B end (in mini, micro, or full configuration) would be the client though I have seen a couple of clients use Mini or Micro A.
I think reusing server/client naming for USB connectivity instead of master/slave would fit it
master/slave could be primary/secondary, primary/subordinate or principle/agent, so you’re correct on that replacement.
I personally am a big fan of “Mantrap” becoming an “Access Control Vestibule” mostly because it’s fun to say.
I like controller/peripheral, which is the most descriptive in my opinion. That’s what’s commonly used for SPI.
I’ve been using parent/child, I guess that’s not always correct?
Yeah we’ve been going by primary-secondary where I am for the just 6 to 7 years now but I don’t think a universally agreed replacement for the terms exists yet.
In the usb world its “host” and “device”, not “master” and “slave”.
But yes you are rightI believe the common terms now are “domme” and “sub”
I’m going to refer to myself as USB-B from now on
I can’t tell if this is real life or sarcasm…
Did I really miss the memo on this one?
No that’s the lingo the professionals use these days
I can confirm, I’m called sub at work
Ah yeah, I’ve heard that offices are rolling out a new role of office cumdump. Glad to hear from someone already in the role
journalctl --cumdump
I think the biggest problem I see with A to A is: who’s delivering power, and who’s receiving it? Maybe if you use it only with the device it came with then it’ll be fine, but if anyone tries to just hook up that cable to two random computers, it might actually cause a short circuit and fry something.
Whereas Type-C was explicitly made to handle such situations.
Or a shorter reason: Type-C cable is allowed by the spec while Type-A is not.
Hrm. I have a keyboard that requires an A to A cable and I think it works with the cable any way around…
Might be wrong.
It makes sense, if I remember correctly the older USB cable (i.e. everything before Type-C) are passive, so as long as the pins are wired symmetrically it wouldn’t matter which side is which. But whoever made your keyboard really blundered, there is no reason in the world why anyone would do this. There’s so many options: the B connector, mini USB, micro USB. All would make sense to put in the keyboard. A just doesn’t.
Let me guess: you got it from an ultra cheap online store? AliExpress/Wish/Temu?
You guessed wrong.
It’s a ridiculously expensive and “home made” looking, but it saved my hands from OCD.
Ooh, I did guess wrong! That is an interesting specimen.
My suspicion is that they are experts in ergonomics, not in electrical engineering, so they probably aren’t aware of how silly and possibly dangerous what they did is. Or perhaps they simply don’t care because “it gets the job done”, standards and specifications be damned.
Anyway, in this case I’m happy to be proven wrong. Thanks.
I known they outsourced the firmware development, so who knows, maybe the electronics hardware too.
I’ve actually used this to my advantage. I bought some cheap speaker/light combos which basically made the lights dance to the music. The only power connector was a wire that comes straight out of the device and into an outlet. But it did have a USB port for loading music from a USB stick. So naturally I plugged one side of a USB A into the port and the other side into a power bank and it just straight up worked.
What if I put a C-to-A Adapter on both ends? Is that okay?
C to A adapters are sick and illegal
I still have some
Why would that be illegal? Shouldn’t there be some way to plug an older flash drive or console cable into a laptop that doesn’t have a type A port? (Ahem, Mac)
This is what I mean. This won’t help in your case.
They might have been referring to an adapter with a female USB type C port and male type a port.
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Yea but it’s inefficient. USB-A has a significantly lower transfer rate than USB-C so it’ll bottleneck
I read the Wikipedia a little and apparently A to A cables can damage your devices, and the ones that do exist are for specific purposes and should only be used in those specific scenarios, and often they are more than just cables and have some computational stuff inside them
We peaked at USB mini B.
As it being disgusting or great?
Objectively disgusting. How can one connector be so chunky while still being asymmetric?
USB 3 micro B
I actually have a double sided male A cable. I was shocked when I got it but I have this laptop cooler that has two A ports on it, presumably to allow a pass through but I’m always nervous that I’ll plug it in and fry something.
Cut it in half and avoid the spec violating abomination.
You’d probably be able to remove the cooler’s non-compliant a-port and just solder the cable directly.
Then at least it’ll be less of an abomination.
I’ve never seen a USB-A to A cable in the wild, except recently, where I finally unpacked my SATA/IDE USB adapter from Ugreen.
I’ve had old Ugreen devices with a similar setup. Notably a KVM that fried my keyboard bc they failed to follow USB spec.
A-to-A cables are, in general, a hardware design smell. It’s best to avoid devices that don’t care enough to follow the spec.
My USB KVM switch uses them
They used to be moderately common in the before times, like 2.5 inch IDE HDD times.
For added horror those often where Y cables, too.
Most cheap usb switchers will use them on the computer-switch side. I have a few models that I was testing out so I have a small pile of these. They’re great for cutting in half and using as a small usb power supply cable to breadboard projects, along with the horde of 5w Apple chargers I have in a bin.
They are commonly used with USB keystone connectors. For some reason most of them have A connectors on both sides.
“they are the same picture” -my wife
I actually thought this was about rolling up cables: circling on the top and over-under at the bottom
