this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
537 points (97.9% liked)

Technology

74519 readers
3537 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws
L4s@hackingne.ws
537
USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 2 years ago by ooli@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
226 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Siegfried@lemmy.world 191 points 2 years ago (26 children)

TL;DR: its cheaper that way,

And i value that decision

[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 88 points 2 years ago (19 children)

I can bet you it's incompetence. They failed upwards. Sure, protocol is great and universal, but connector is atrocious and it has nothing to do with cost. Few points in favor of this hypothesis:

  1. Plastic inside of the connector was initially black. Why chose hard to see color? Go with something easier to see;
  2. Connector is perfectly rectangular and only distinguishing feature they made hard to see. Don't make ti symmetrical if it's not reversible, basic design principle;
  3. Connector is perfectly rectangular making it difficult to insert. There's a reason why most connectors have rounded corners, they are self-correcting, even TypeC does this;
  4. They made various different connector types but pushed for the only one with these issues. No one ever had doubts how type B or mini B or micro B go in.
[–] everett@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

No one ever had doubts how type B or mini B or micro B go in.

How lucky you were to never have a device that had one of these upside-down.

[–] jarfil@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago

Or a printer with the B connector rotated 90° to one side.

load more comments (17 replies)
load more comments (23 replies)