The cords I've begun to accumulate to work with a USB C computer have varying capabilities, to the point where I can't safely interchange them for fear of blowing past their tolerances accidentally.
I'm not so keen on this change.
The new “spare charger” is a 10kmAh battery pack which will have USB-C and some double as a way to jump start your car (assuming you still drive ICE). It’s also a worthwhile upgrade and much more useful than something that has you hunting for outlets at the airport, or god forbid, under your seat on a plane!
But a C D Reader? What is that? Is that like the radio that truckers used to use to talk to each other in the road?
Yes, like that in terms of: expect decades for complete migration as all benificial use cases for them have not yet been superceeded by technology sucessors.
On the device end (for hard drives and hubs) you'd generally have a type-B connector (don't think I've ever seen one with USB-A, but I haven't had that many external drives). Type-B got got a bulkier version for superspeed, it looks silly but for something that lives at your desk, who cares?
https://www.google.com/search?q=usb+3+type+b&tbm=isch
If you get a new computer with USB-C, you can replace a single cable with USB-C to USB-B to keep using the same hub and the same USB-A devices plugged into it at the same speed as before:
https://www.amazon.com/TNP-USB-C-USB-B-Cable-Black/dp/B011BG...
As I understand it, USB-C-to-USB-C (with USB 3.2) is the only connector combination supporting Gen 2×2, 20Gb/s mode (since it leverages the pins included to support flipping the connector; it's also the only combination to support Gen 1×2, but that's the same speed as Gen 2×1, so it's unclear why you'd do that.)
USB A (w/USB 3.1+) can support Gen 2×1 (SuperSpeed+) at 10Gb/s. USB B (w/USB 3.0+), AFAIK, only supports Gen 1 (SuperSpeed) (5Gb/s).
I have a USB-C drive enclosure, but looking at the specs it's only USB 3.1. Newegg doesn't even have 3.2 as an option when searching by external interface in their hard drive enclosures section. The day when you're actually losing anything by not having USB-C devices seems a ways off still.
USB-A had these problems back in 1998. It's early days for USB-C, but I think a few more hardware iterations and hopefully things will start settling down.
Right now USB-C controllers are too complex and expensive to fit in low-end devices (think $49 TV dongles).
this is not how USB-C works. you might end up with a cable that doesn't support high voltage, but it simply won't upgrade to a higher voltage and your device will charge slower or not at all.
I agree that it's frustrating that all USB-C cables aren't interchangeable, but to imply they're potentially unsafe is wrong. There was a bunch of out-of-spec cables on the market shortly after USB-C came into use with the nexus phones and the macbook pro, but that problem has almost entirely been solved, and is still a much smaller problem than cheap aftermarket USB-A charging bricks sold by the same sketchy vendors.
While driving a long distance, I noticed that I had failed to bring any way to charge my phone in the car, so I bought a USB-A to USB-C cable at a rest stop convenience store.
It served its immediate purpose of not leaving me lost with a dead battery. But it doesn't charge many other devices, and it only works when plugged in with the USB logo facing down.
I don't consider the problem of fake USB-C cables solved.
(I have no idea what brand it is, and the convenience store themselves probably bought whatever the cheapest counterfeit thing on Amazon was)
You do understand that you can have BOTH ports on the laptop right - see for example how Lenovo Thinkpad Carbon engineers manage to stuff usable ports on the same chasis size.
Because they're not just Type C ports, they're TB3 ports, Intel's stinginess with respect to PCIe lanes & TB3 controller integration means it's hard to put many of those in a machine especially on low-end CPUs, and I guess Apple prefers uniformising capabilities to an extent (even if performances can differ see e.g. the 13" MBP) to having multiple ports with the exact same connector but completely divergent capabilities.
AT > PS/2 > usb A > usb C
If I were you, I'd stick all that crap inside the massive schoolbus sized AT keyboard where you can't see it. There is probably plenty of room.
Hell, go ahead an integrate a USB hub too, then you can use the keyboard itself to adapt other legacy devices to usb C.