I agree that there was more that could have been done to signal correct orientation.

But an additional wrinkle is that the orientation of the port itself was not static. On laptops and desktops, it was horizontal. On certain other devices, it was vertical. Often these ports were in hard-to-reach or hard-to-see places, and having to reconcile the orientation in each case probably added to the frustration.

Not really, HDMI ports are in weird orientation and mounted in hard-to-reach places as well, but the shape makes it very obvious (even by feel) which way it should (or can't) go. This is much harder with the rectangular USB plug.

The "by feel" part is critical. Lots of ports on various devices are deliberately in the back of the device, or otherwise hidden, so that the wiring can be kept neatly out of the way.

HDMI is better than USB but it's still hard to do plug it in in dark, hard to reach places.

I have definitely been frustrated by an hdmi port I couldn't see. I almost always have to gain visibility on the port to get the cable inserted correctly. If I happen to already know the orientation of the port on a device I can do it by feel, but I could also do this with the microusb-b to my old cell phone.

It’s still better than nothing at all! If you can physically see the connector, that’s a huge help. For USB-A, you often had to look into the cable to figure out which way it went.

I agree that HDMI can be heads or tails based on if it’s tucked behind a TV, but sometimes I can feel enough to get it right. That was never so with the original USB.

HDMI can be a real pain to plug in blind / by feel.

I think it's worse than USB. It's so damn narrow and has a requirement for precision. It's hard to know if you've got it upside-down or you're just not well-aligned.

I'll often use my phone and get a picture of the plugs on the device before I dive in with the cable. This is especially useful when working with gear I'd rather not have t0 move.

> or hard-to-see places

Which brings up the idea of not making it size compatible with the network port.

As somebody who keeps inserting the USB-C charger cable into the SD card slot of the new MBP, I couldn't agree more.

USB-A too: fat part bottom, connectors up, logo up.

This also doesn't explain why three-state and five-state also apply to resp. mini+micro USB-A and USB-B.

Oh wait, people don't look at the port front and center and fail to memorize the port direction, irrespective of shape, that's why.

That doesn't help vertical orientation of USB-As

Logo up is no help when you try to do it in the dark.

You can feel it with the pad of your thumb.

I just looked at my nearest USB-A plug: There's no logo on either side.

I'm also almost certain I had connectors with a different logo on either side.

No, you can't. I have a Microsoft USB mouse right here, and there's no logo anywhere on the USB plug.

On some. But that doesn't help always as you don't know the orientation on the target device, especially when it'a sideways.

Female (host) USB-A orientation is not always consistent, thought, which adds to the confusion. Thought the orientation you de scribe is the most common zone, I can recall at l'East two devices (laptop and desktop) where it was reversed.

Hey, they could have made it not rotationally symmetrical but mandated an orientation opposite of the one that makes the socket look like a cute little surprised face, thus ensuring a long, drawn out, losing battle between the correct orientation and the looks-like-a-little-face orientation.

But is "that way" actually "Correct" or not...?

Technology Connections dig in to this in "Power outlets are topsy turvy - but does it matter?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNj75gJVxcE

The tl;dw is that there is no standard and never has been, so the idea that there's a "correct" orientation for these outlets that's been warring for dominance with the cute one is a myth.

The rest of the video digs into the claimed benefits of turning them upside down, and finds that they're quite small and probably outweighed by the inconvenience of the sheer number of devices that assume that you're using the cute orientation.

Firewire ports can be inserted the wrong way, if the material cheapens out you are in bad luck. Wrong polarity will most likely kill the other device.

I can just imagine what the polarized wall sockets in your house must look like.

There are none. (besides 400V sockets)

> Firewire ports can be inserted the wrong way

Hopefully only with a hammer!?

Normal usage will suffice.

It's amazing that it can take you 3 tries to plug in a USB cable which only has 2 correct ways it can be oriented.

USB is the only macroscopic fermion I know. Try to plug it in and fail, rotate it 180˚ and fail, rotate 180˚ and it plugs in. Must be the minus sign.

The funniest part is that it still takes 3 tries even when you know what you just said.

hehe, right on

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

It sounds like we'd be better off not knowing about this law. Thanks.

I had a variant of that for covid. The contagion curve plotted daily rates even taking into account people knowing about the contagion curve.

I've found a trick but have trouble explaining it to people - especially if they haven't build a computer before.

The plastic bit inside of the plug usually goes on the side facing whatever board it's interfacing with.

For example, looking straight on from the back of an ATX case, it's usually on the left side - where the motherboard mounts

Front panel connectors are anarchy... but at least they're usually visible

Another trick is that the USB standard says the USB logo should be facing up, so you should always try it first with the logo facing up. Not every device follows that standard and not every device has a clear top/bottom, but this really cuts down on the proportion of failed attempts.

No way! I didn't know that was part of the standard! Very useful "trick" indeed, unless of course, the USB port is placed vertically...

The pattern on the aluminum of the plug is also helpful in cases of predictable slot orientation (like a laptop, except a Dell Latitude from back in the day that had upright connectors on the back unless I'm misremembering). The side without the seam down the middle and instead a tiny rectangular cutout center but slightly lower than the other two cutouts, should face up. In the dark, the seam can be felt by lightly scraping with a fingernail.

The holes face up, like the eyes of a sole or flatfish.

One trick used to be the UBB trident logo (embossed into the cable) always faced upward when plugged into a USB port on a computer.

Sideways ports may be a crap shoot I'm not sure if their orientation is standardized. And I'm not sure about modern USB version if that's still the case of logo faces up.

This gets you down from 3 tries to 2

lol ty, this got me

If the standard included specs on the enclosure, then maybe we wouldn't need three tries. Especially when plugging these in blind, like the back of a monitor, I wish the case had a funnel shaped shroud so you know the male end was aligned correctly even though it might be reversed.

Even after 25 years of using USB devices this still happens to me, today, in fact!

It violates the Law of Connectors:

    A plug fits into a socket iff they're compatible.

The fact that the inventor doesn't see this obvious fact honestly boggles the mind.

Low-level (electrical/logical) protocol design and connector design seem like pretty different skills!

Did they not get a mechanical engineer to design the thing? And if not, why not? I wouldn't expect a mechanical engineer to know anything about electrical protocol design, so I wouldn't expect an electrical engineer or software engineer to know anything about designing a mechanical assembly (like a connector housing).

Some part of the design process here was managed very badly.

Making the initial mistake is one thing, but failing to see why it is bad after decades of complaints is on a whole different level.

Counterpoint: I knew a few people awhile back that wrecked FireWire audio gear because they forced the connecter in backward and powered it on

Even now i do a small repair shop as a side business. Broken hdmi connectors because someone forced the connector in upside down isn’t exactly common but it’s not exactly rare either. Some people think stuff really needs to be forced together, apparently

> isn’t exactly common but it’s not exactly rare either.

Using electronics needs a drivers license like equivalent. Some people shouldn't have access to them if getting an HDMI connector wrong is an issue.

> Using electronics needs a drivers license like equivalent.

I bet everyone seriously wishes there were a "seriously honestly just not a fucking idiot" license. The fact that we know which way a connector goes puts us in a whole different league from the rest of the population; most people are so braindead stupid that they can't even fathom being smarter. Sometimes I wonder if being neurodivergent is even worth it. Do I even want the privilege of knowing enough of the bare minimum to outclass half the Earth, if it means that I'm constantly depressed by how stupid everyone else is?

BTW I wouldn't pass a graduation exam if my life depended on it, because my brain is not a textbook database of things that I don't care about. But that just means my ADHD has gotten the better of me.

The issue isn't knowing which way a connector goes; the problem is that some people act like gorillas and try to use brute force to force connectors into place, and then don't understand why it's broken.

Normal people will try to push a plug in with a normal amount of force, find it doesn't fit, then realize they're doing it wrong and try something different. (Or in the case of USB-A, turn it over and try again, find that's wrong too, then turn it over yet again and find it fits perfectly.) But there's some sector of the populace that just doesn't seem to understand how much force is appropriate for things like delicate electronic connectors. I'll bet that if you took a tour of their homes, you'd find many other broken and beat-up things too.

I have many broken and beat-up things, but at least those resulted from rage and not lack of motor control.

I have yet to see people die (and/or kill bystanders) by not being able to plug in an HDMI cable to their home entertainment system correctly.

I suppose the joke went over your head, sorry about that. I found it comical given the HDMI connector shape and how it would be nearly impossible to get wrong without being oblivious.

I mean, there already is an integrated element of punishment – if you don't manage to plug in the HDMI connector correctly, you don't get to watch any TV :)

My Mac Mini that I use as a server is positioned where I can't tell which port I am plugging into with any accuracy without unplugging it which I don't want to do

When I was a teenager, I had a Windows machine I used for 3D animation and an iPod. I needed to charge the iPod and my mom was calling "dinner!" so I plugged it in quickly and ran off to eat.

When I came back, I realized the Windows machine had a cheap Firewire socket that didn't enforce the orientation. I had plugged in my iPod upsidedown.

I don't remember what it fried. I don't remember the iPod dying, so I'm guessing that socket never worked again.