7 ms·

Insanity seems to be the right word for USB-C. Let's imagine you buy a new monitor, which has a usb-c port. Fortunately, your device also has a usb-c port so it

by crote 9y ago

Insanity seems to be the right word for USB-C. Let's imagine you buy a new monitor, which has a usb-c port. Fortunately, your device also has a usb-c port so it will just work, right? Well, that monitor could support at least the following protocols over that cable: - Displayport, obviously. - HDMI, because that might be useful in some cases. - MHL Alternate Mode for USB 3.1, which is not-quite-HDMI. - USB itself, like the external mini video cards created by DisplayLink - PCI-E, as the monitor could contain any regular video card. Unlikely, but technically possible. Is the monitor going to work when plugged into your laptop? What about your phone? Will it charge either of those? I'm not sure how this has managed to gone this horribly wrong, but somehow "supports usb-c" has become completely meaningless. Oh, and it can also support analog audio as well! And if anyone thinks I'm exaggerating, please tell me which devices do and which do not work with this "usb-c to vga" adapter, because to me it is literally impossible to tell: http://www.belkin.com/uk/p/P-F2CU037/ http://www.belkin.com/uk/p/P-F2CU037/

stormbeta 9y ago
Yep - there's no obvious way to tell what accessories will work together anymore. My Switch is another great example. It won't even charge with some of my adapters, and I had to get a C -> HDMI splitter that was designed specifically for the Switch, despite the fact that Nintendo isn't even using any proprietary protocols (just less common ones).
abrowne 9y ago
I could also be Thunderbolt, the like the LG 27-inch that Apple sells.
andrepd 9y ago
In other words, they're still different ports (for all practical purposes), they just all have the same connector shape (which makes it harder, not easier, for the reasons you mention).
- kbenson 9y ago
  Put that way, I'm not entirely sure it's worse. Coming from a world where the connector helped you determine what you could do, it seems worse, but that's because we've all internalized the cost of not having the right cable and having to buy different cables for everything. Having a cable that works for most things (if you were lucky enough to buy a good cable, and I'll freely admit that is a clusterfuck of planning) leaves you with just having to know if your ports will work together. That seems solvable, even if it's not currently solved. I think we're a step closer to the dream of a simplified connector ecosystem, even if we aren't quite there yet.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Yeah, seems like just putting icons near the port, showing the supported technologies, would solve the problem just as well as having different ports, while not requiring different cables or space on the devices.
    - wott 9y ago
      No. As a hardware designer, I can tell you that is a terrible idea. Yes, it looks clever at first sight (all of us went through that phase of thought). But then when you get the physical device and you get to use it, it is only a matter of days or weeks before you encounter many problems with that choice of design (inconvenience at best). Even if the signals of some ports are electrically compatible, I try to use different shapes of connector for them if they are not logically compatible (the functions are fixed, not swappable). Because you can be sure nobody will always look at icons which are faint, small, can only be seen correctly under a certain angle and light, etc. Supposing you even know which icon means what. Supposing you can even have a sight of the icon and port, that it is hidden behind something and you have to try if it fits blindly. You do not want to be called every other day because "it doesn't work anymore" because someone connected the wrong device to the wrong port :-). So for some serial ports with incompatible functions, you do not put all DB-9 ports, you put 1 DB-9, 1 round DIN, 1 rectangular (and hope they do not manage to fit the rectangular connector in the DB-9), 1 DB-25... It looks messy, shambolic? Yes it does. Definitely. But it is efficient because it is idiot-proof. And I mean a very large definition of 'idiot' which encompasses about everyone. I can tell you about the number of times I 'plug' a USB cable into a DisplayPort or the power cable into the telephone plug because they sit in the same area and have sort of compatible shapes... I generally quickly notice because it does not fit well, but just imagine the nightmare if they were truly the same physical connectors...
myrandomcomment 9y ago
Agreed. Trying to find perfect monitor for MacBook has been an adventure.
bsimpson 9y ago
A coworker of mine had a Cinema Display plugged in to the Thunderbolt 2 port on her old laptop. When she upgraded to the Thunderbolt 3 MacBook, she bought a Thunderbolt 2 -> 3 adaptor for the monitor. Turns out that it was a mini-DisplayPort version of the Cinema Display, and that even though it worked fine with the built-in Thunderbolt 2 port, it didn't with the one in the adaptor. She ended up trading her Cinema Display with somebody who had the Thunderbolt version and an old laptop, because at the time that was easier than finding an mDP->USB-C adaptor.
jaggederest 9y ago
It's more like ethernet. Just because the physical layer connects doesn't mean they speak the same protocol, and I'm of the opinion that's just fine.
- Too 9y ago
  I like the analogy but it has two flaws: 1. Missing protocols in the IP layer can be solved by software. If your CPU is missing a thunderbolt chipset, a driver update will not help you. 2. The physical layer is not actually the same, some USB-C cables don't have all the necessary pins for power charge or high speed data.
taesis 9y ago
To quote the page (emphasis is theirs): "COMPATIBILITY MacBook Google Chromebook Pixel MacBook Pro (2016) Dell XPS 13” So those devices work and everything else is a bonus, I guess.
zrm 9y ago
Not only that, it's possible that a USB port on a monitor is only because the monitor contains a USB hub and it doesn't accept video over USB at all.
stewbrew 9y ago
By this argument, wifi or bluetooth are even more insane. An interface that isn't a single-trick pony doesn't sound insane to me.
- leni536 9y ago
  But in the case of wifi or bluetooth you don't have to think about if your transfer medium supports the protocol or not (it's just dumb vacuum). In the case of USB the cable can be the weak link. Also in the case of wifi and bluetooth compatibility issues have a chance to be resolved in software on your end. In the case of USB the list of supported protocols is the property of the hardware interface and the options to resolve these issues are limited. In the end if you buy a device that has an "USB" port the specification that it has "USB-C" is meaningless, you want to know the exact list of hardware protocols that the port supports.
  - a_t48 9y ago
    > But in the case of wifi or bluetooth you don't have to think about if your transfer medium supports the protocol or not Sure you can - it's gotten better in recent years, but it used to be that a lot of devices didn't support WPA2. This was (typically at least) not fixed in software.

by crote 9y ago

stormbeta 9y ago

Yep - there's no obvious way to tell what accessories will work together anymore. My Switch is another great example. It won't even charge with some of my adapters, and I had to get a C -> HDMI splitter that was designed specifically for the Switch, despite the fact that Nintendo isn't even using any proprietary protocols (just less common ones).

abrowne 9y ago

I could also be Thunderbolt, the like the LG 27-inch that Apple sells.

andrepd 9y ago

In other words, they're still different ports (for all practical purposes), they just all have the same connector shape (which makes it harder, not easier, for the reasons you mention).

kbenson 9y ago
Put that way, I'm not entirely sure it's worse. Coming from a world where the connector helped you determine what you could do, it seems worse, but that's because we've all internalized the cost of not having the right cable and having to buy different cables for everything. Having a cable that works for most things (if you were lucky enough to buy a good cable, and I'll freely admit that is a clusterfuck of planning) leaves you with just having to know if your ports will work together. That seems solvable, even if it's not currently solved. I think we're a step closer to the dream of a simplified connector ecosystem, even if we aren't quite there yet.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Yeah, seems like just putting icons near the port, showing the supported technologies, would solve the problem just as well as having different ports, while not requiring different cables or space on the devices.
  - wott 9y ago
    No. As a hardware designer, I can tell you that is a terrible idea. Yes, it looks clever at first sight (all of us went through that phase of thought). But then when you get the physical device and you get to use it, it is only a matter of days or weeks before you encounter many problems with that choice of design (inconvenience at best). Even if the signals of some ports are electrically compatible, I try to use different shapes of connector for them if they are not logically compatible (the functions are fixed, not swappable). Because you can be sure nobody will always look at icons which are faint, small, can only be seen correctly under a certain angle and light, etc. Supposing you even know which icon means what. Supposing you can even have a sight of the icon and port, that it is hidden behind something and you have to try if it fits blindly. You do not want to be called every other day because "it doesn't work anymore" because someone connected the wrong device to the wrong port :-). So for some serial ports with incompatible functions, you do not put all DB-9 ports, you put 1 DB-9, 1 round DIN, 1 rectangular (and hope they do not manage to fit the rectangular connector in the DB-9), 1 DB-25... It looks messy, shambolic? Yes it does. Definitely. But it is efficient because it is idiot-proof. And I mean a very large definition of 'idiot' which encompasses about everyone. I can tell you about the number of times I 'plug' a USB cable into a DisplayPort or the power cable into the telephone plug because they sit in the same area and have sort of compatible shapes... I generally quickly notice because it does not fit well, but just imagine the nightmare if they were truly the same physical connectors...

myrandomcomment 9y ago

Agreed. Trying to find perfect monitor for MacBook has been an adventure.

bsimpson 9y ago

A coworker of mine had a Cinema Display plugged in to the Thunderbolt 2 port on her old laptop. When she upgraded to the Thunderbolt 3 MacBook, she bought a Thunderbolt 2 -> 3 adaptor for the monitor. Turns out that it was a mini-DisplayPort version of the Cinema Display, and that even though it worked fine with the built-in Thunderbolt 2 port, it didn't with the one in the adaptor. She ended up trading her Cinema Display with somebody who had the Thunderbolt version and an old laptop, because at the time that was easier than finding an mDP->USB-C adaptor.

jaggederest 9y ago

It's more like ethernet. Just because the physical layer connects doesn't mean they speak the same protocol, and I'm of the opinion that's just fine.

Too 9y ago
I like the analogy but it has two flaws: 1. Missing protocols in the IP layer can be solved by software. If your CPU is missing a thunderbolt chipset, a driver update will not help you. 2. The physical layer is not actually the same, some USB-C cables don't have all the necessary pins for power charge or high speed data.

taesis 9y ago

To quote the page (emphasis is theirs): "COMPATIBILITY MacBook Google Chromebook Pixel MacBook Pro (2016) Dell XPS 13” So those devices work and everything else is a bonus, I guess.

zrm 9y ago

Not only that, it's possible that a USB port on a monitor is only because the monitor contains a USB hub and it doesn't accept video over USB at all.

stewbrew 9y ago

By this argument, wifi or bluetooth are even more insane. An interface that isn't a single-trick pony doesn't sound insane to me.

leni536 9y ago
But in the case of wifi or bluetooth you don't have to think about if your transfer medium supports the protocol or not (it's just dumb vacuum). In the case of USB the cable can be the weak link. Also in the case of wifi and bluetooth compatibility issues have a chance to be resolved in software on your end. In the case of USB the list of supported protocols is the property of the hardware interface and the options to resolve these issues are limited. In the end if you buy a device that has an "USB" port the specification that it has "USB-C" is meaningless, you want to know the exact list of hardware protocols that the port supports.
- a_t48 9y ago
  > But in the case of wifi or bluetooth you don't have to think about if your transfer medium supports the protocol or not Sure you can - it's gotten better in recent years, but it used to be that a lot of devices didn't support WPA2. This was (typically at least) not fixed in software.