USB - The Current status of this essential of Modern Computing

johnlgalt · Nov 2, 2022

And highlights the absolute mess it has been ever since the 3.1 and 3.2 specs were officially made. Sheesh.

Simplicity would be nice at this point.

barman58 · Nov 2, 2022

JG, all we can do is try to explain the history and ease the understandable confusion - The link does this better than I could ever hope to .

The biggest confusion is I believe that the technology consists of two seperate sets of standards - One for the actual transmission protocols and a second set covering the physical construction of the hardware, and that these two standards are often combined in different ways

Current best example is cables with USB-C plugs using USB2 transmission protocols which is in line with both of the standards and so may be certified

Ghot · Nov 2, 2022

I miss the days when a "standard" only involved "one" thing, not a bucketful.

Like... let's take a platinum bar and put two lines on it, exactly one meter apart. And we'll call that... a meter.

hdmi · Nov 2, 2022

Wait. There's still more...

CountMike · Nov 7, 2022

I have some of each one with my PC, USB2 10 ports. USB3 x4, USB3 1st gen x2 and USB3.1 2nd gen (USB 3.2) x1. USB3.1 1st gen and 2nd gen are in form of USB-C and rest are USB-A (female) type connectors which are all downward compatible to USB1/1.1 (Legacy) mode.
I like USB-C best as the are reversible, also fastest in this configuration but adapters are available from any to any.
Cables and adapters, USB-A to USB-B (printer), USB-A to USB-C and USB-C to USB-C (phone and SATA3 to USB3 and 2 adapter for 2.5" HDDs and SSDs.
Others have USB-A cables built in, KB, Mouse, Scanners, Disk station, BT, WiFi, Camera, Microphone and a 5v LED light.

Josey Wales · Nov 7, 2022

Ghot said:
I miss the days when a "standard" only involved "one" thing, not a bucketful.

Like... let's take a platinum bar and put two lines on it, exactly one meter apart. And we'll call that... a meter.

In Electronics there has never been a "Standard" of any type of device. As time goes by, systems become more obsolete in a matter of months.

Ghot · Nov 7, 2022

Josey Wales said:
In Electronics there has never been a "Standard" of any type of device. As time goes by, systems become more obsolete in a matter of months.

Well there are some standards.
The point is, we're losing our way lately.

Like the USB standards.
On the third Tuesday in the 2nd month of even numbered years, the USB standard is so and so.
But IF during the night preceding that day, there is a full moon, then the USB standard is only so and so until 4:27PM.
Etc., etc.

It's getting a bit ridiculous.

johnlgalt · Nov 8, 2022

Just as ridiculous as HDMI 'standards'.

It's beyond ridiculous. By introducing multiple variables and then not forcing adopters to clearly specify which variable values they are using, you get the mess that is "Oh, my cable says XXX but I only get YYY instead" comments.

Same junk happens with HDMI - "My HDMI cable from Amazon says blah 4K blah but I can't get anything over 30 Hz rr when using 4K..." - a problem I'm seeing on a weekly basis at work from our customers.

CountMike · Nov 8, 2022

johnlgalt said:
Just as ridiculous as HDMI 'standards'.

It's beyond ridiculous. By introducing multiple variables and then not forcing adopters to clearly specify which variable values they are using, you get the mess that is "Oh, my cable says XXX but I only get YYY instead" comments.

Same junk happens with HDMI - "My HDMI cable from Amazon says blah 4K blah but I can't get anything over 30 Hz rr when using 4K..." - a problem I'm seeing on a weekly basis at work from our customers.

Those are just cable quality problem, best ones will wirk with all standards..

johnlgalt · Nov 8, 2022

I don't think so. It's not just a quality issue, as the variables available to manufacturers allow them to cut corners and still make claims that simply are not true for every real world usage.

Ghot · Nov 8, 2022

I think they should just make something like a 10 or 15pin SATA connector.
10 or 15pins should be enough for anything. They're also skinny enough for things like smart phones.
They're keyed, and they seem to stay connected.
And the bandwidth or frequency supported by a standard is of the standard, not of the cable.

We need a standardized connector. It's long past time that we had one.

barman58 · Nov 8, 2022

Part of the problem is the construction standards are getting tighter as more connections are being added to the same physical size plugs and to some extent sockets. for example, when additional connectors are added to the top side of connectors and the physical size of the connector is not enlarged then using the standards of connections used for the original lower speed connectors, you can get crosstalk or even short circuit conditions especially as the connection ages.

There is also the fact that to meet the more modern standards there is a need for more cores in the cables to feed the additional connectors - this can result in thinner lower spec cables being used to retain the overall thickness/flexibility of the cables

hdmi · Nov 8, 2022

johnlgalt said:
Just as ridiculous as HDMI 'standards'.

Now you know why my nickname is not written in capital letters.

CountMike · Nov 8, 2022

Ghot said:
If you can't do it with 15 pins max., you aren't doing it right.
You don't have to use all 15 but, I think 15 pins will cover everything.

Even the 24 pin ATX pinout has 14 duplicates. 24-14 = 10

I think we can probably get by with just ONE ground wire... not EIGHT, on the 24 pin ATX connector.
Manufacturers are just lazy. There's at minimum 6 screws that are also ground... holding the motherboard in the case.
There's 5x 5v wires and 4x 3.3v wires... wtf?!? LOL

Even crappy motherboards are 4 layers thick. So you can't even blame it on no room for traces. :/

USB 4.0 has 24 pins also. I can get rid of 6 without even trying. It has 4x ground and 4x Vbus. Pure duplicates, for no reason really.

M<aybe make all connectors like USB 4.0.
12 pins per side for 24 pins total. And you can have two grades... fat and thin.
Same connector, just one for wires carrying greater voltages/amperages whatever.

Use them for everything. Vid cards, power supplies, peripherals, anything.
If you don't need all 24 pins... fine, don't use em.
Hell, you could even use it for the case front panel connector.
No one would be able to get those hookups wrong, ever again.

That's it. Forever more, one connector... fat and thin, same pins.
Make all the cables twisted pair and shielded. Use exterior insulation on all of them.
So ya go to the store and ask for USB fat or thin. Easy.

They'd have to make color coded sets for idiots.
So you don't plug the ATX power supply wire into your speakers, or whatever.

And last but not least.... instead of teaching kids about all this "woke" junk... teach them how to build computers.
Hell, the way the price of wood has gone up... get rid of woodshop and have computer shop instead.

To have less pins on ATX some connections would have to be moved to motherboard, some OEM manufacturers have 20 12, 10 or even 8 contacts. Problem could be with traces in the PCB, it's easier to put more and/or thicker wires from PSU. Same thing goes for GPUs which increasingly use more power. Last edition Nvidia GTX 4090 have "special" connectors for which few PSU are made and adapters for them are melting from all that power required. It could have been avoided if they just stuck with old 2x8pin. setup as most PSUs already have them

Ghot · Nov 8, 2022

CountMike said:
To have less pins on ATX some connections would have to be moved to motherboard, some OEM manufacturers have 20 12, 10 or even 8 contacts. Problem could be with traces in the PCB, it's easier to put more and/or thicker wires from PSU. Same thing goes for GPUs which increasingly use more power. Last edition Nvidia GTX 4090 have "special" connectors for which few PSU are made and adapters for them are melting from all that power required. It could have been avoided if they just stuck with old 2x8pin. setup as most PSUs already have them

Oh I realize it's easier to change the connector than the motherboard. But I think there's a point where you have to just say, this is getting ridiculous and change the motherboard traces.

My first station in the service was at an Electronics Engineering Center.
One of the departments, was circuit board design. They actually made circuit boards from scratch.
Designed the traces and everything. It was pretty cool. And I kind of learned what can and can't be done.

And it wasn't one of those bread board arrangements. They would draw out the circuits (large), shrink them down, then photo-etch the drawings on to circuit boards that had a solid solder coating. After the acid bath, all that was left were the traces on the circuit boards. At the time I was there... they were trying to make a computer that was base 8, rather than HEX. [1976-ish]

They were also trying to make transmitter amplifiers (like 2KW and larger), that weren't the size of steamer trunks.

CountMike · Nov 8, 2022

Ghot said:
Oh I realize it's easier to change the connector than the motherboard. But I think there's a point where you have to just say, this is getting ridiculous and change the motherboard traces.

My first station in the service was at an Electronics Engineering Center.
One of the departments, was circuit board design. They actually made circuit boards from scratch.
Designed the traces and everything. It was pretty cool. And I kind of learned what can and can't be done.

And it wasn't one of those bread board arrangements. They would draw out the circuits (large), shrink them down, then photo-etch the drawings on to circuit boards that had a solid solder coating. After the acid bath, all that was left were the traces on the circuit boards. At the time I was there... they were trying to make a computer that was base 8, rather than HEX. [1976-ish]

They were also trying to make transmitter amplifiers (like 2KW and larger), that weren't the size of steamer trunks.

Sure they can, HP, Dell and some others do it all the time but than also make PSUs to fit same configuration and sell them for inflated prices as only certified replacement.
Radio Shack used to sell blank PCBs end chemicals for photo etching so I made some simple circuit boards like for alarms, and model ship, railway, car and plane.which i was doing for a long while. Those were low voltage and power so thin PCB traces were enough. There was even a program, I think for my Atari 1040ST, to make, optimize for space and print blanks for etching.

tinmar49 · Nov 10, 2022

I would like to see two sizes of the C type only used. The C type is too small and delicate for general computer use, but one double the size which plugs in to a good depth would be nice. I do like the simplicity of not needing to orient the plug to fit, that is something that would have been addressed back in 1997 if I had any say in the design. Shame the humble jack plug cannot support enough channels, I think I have seen them with 5, but still not enough.

CountMike · Nov 11, 2022

Best part of USB-C is it's two sided, I deliberately placed all USB-A ports so they are all turned one way but still miss every now and then.
EU is moving toward requesting all cell phones to have USB-C for uniformity.

jimbo45 · Nov 17, 2022

It's just not possible -- you have demands on space, power consumption, cost, component availability, processor instruction capabilities etc. I'm amazed that things work as well as they do these days -- .

Even electric power transmission which presumably would be capable of having a single world wide standard has 2 major parts that aren't interchangeable e.g USA 110 V 60 Hz, most of the rest of the planet -- 220V 50 HZ

The 220V means that you need less power for things like electric kettles (P = I * V from Ohms Law) which is perhaps why you can never got a boiling hot cup of tea in the USA - a 3KW kettle would need over 30 Amps of current. Transmission is cheaper too (at least when Putin isn't bombing the infrastructure) since at 384KV transmission lines you need less thick copper wire (or aluminium as is used in some places). The downside is there is some loss over long distances in KVA loss.

What you can try and do is make the experience for the end user as seamless as possible irrespective of "The bits in the middle". Even USB-C is likely to be replaced soon enough.

@tinmar49 - the old optical SPIF system could have been developed further or even an optical type standard jack but seems that idea wasn't popular enough. Could have had all the channel capacity you need.

Cheers
jimbo