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USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (www.pcgamer.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 207 points 1 year ago (33 children)

TL;DR: its cheaper that way,

And i value that decision

[–] [email protected] 99 points 1 year ago (26 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:

Plastic inside of the connector was initially black. Why chose hard to see color? Go with something easier to see;
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;
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;
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.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

I agree with most of your post, but micro B is a step too far. That fucking plug was always inserted with the following procedure:

Try to plug it in.
Flip the side and try to plug it in again.
Flip it again because you had the right damn side the first time.

Always, always, always.

[+] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Mini B was rated for something like 10x fewer insertion cycles than micro B, the retaining tabs would give out and the connector would fall off... or worse, twist and break the socket's inner plastic bit.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For some reason I always had fewer problems (meaning none) with mini B breaking than with micro B or C breaking.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

In my experience, Mini B was mostly used for data transfer, along with some other port to do the charging. Micro B got introduced as the "all in one" data+charging port. I've seen both kinds of ports break, but only the Mini B ones that were also used for charging; the data-only ones, were fine.

My conclusion is that charging ports use more insertion cycles and are more likely to break, and I keep magnetic charging adapters in all of them (as a side effect, twisting the cable or pulling at an angle just disconnects it, instead of breaking the port).

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

Well, if nothing else it's easier to than type A.

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