USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’s a total mess

Re:USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’... by leetcrew on Thursday October 01, 2020 @10:59AM (#24651617)

> Physical connectors previous encoded information about data/power transfer mode support. When USB C unified the physical connector, that information was lost.

this is not strictly true, at least for USB. you can use a USB 1.x to connect USB2/3 endpoints, but you will only get 1.x speeds. there were power-only cables that didn't transfer data at all. they are all physically compatible. unless you're familiar with the pin layout, there's no way to distinguish the different flavors of A ports.

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Re:USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’... by frosted-flakes on Thursday October 01, 2020 @11:17AM (#24651864)

USB 3 connectors and ports were pretty much always blue.

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Re:USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’... by chrisseaton on Thursday October 01, 2020 @11:42AM (#24652198)

> USB 3 connectors and ports were pretty much always blue.

I’ve never seen a blue connector and ports in most laptops are just body coloured like in MacBooks.

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Re:USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’... by curryst on Thursday October 01, 2020 @12:13PM (#24652637)

It's rather ubiquitous, I'm surprised you haven't seen them. The plastic bits in the USB 3 ports in my motherboard, case, keyboard, _and_ the USB ports built into my monitor arms are all blue. Lower USBs are black. It's not universal, but it is very common.

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Re:USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’... by chrisseaton on Thursday October 01, 2020 @12:21PM (#24652776)

Aren't those the ports? The ports are blue. I haven't seen a blue connector.

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Re:USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’... by chipsa on Thursday October 01, 2020 @03:36PM (#24655304)

The metal bits aren't, but the plastic inside is.

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Re:USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’... by yoz-y on Thursday October 01, 2020 @04:17PM (#24655737)

Ubiquitous outside of Apple ecosystem only though.

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Re:USB-C was supposed to simplify our lives, but instead it’... by ethbr0 on Thursday October 01, 2020 @11:06AM (#24651727)

And barrel jacks in power land.

But suffice it to say, the situation was simpler / more user-friendly.

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