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My highest score answer on superuser.com is about USB C https://superuser.com/a/1200112/41259 https://superuser.com/a/1200112/41259 and I had this to say after
by chx 8y ago
My highest score answer on superuser.com is about USB C https://superuser.com/a/1200112/41259 https://superuser.com/a/1200112/41259 and I had this to say after a long list of capabilities:
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They really, really should have provided some way to clarify this mess but they didn't. If colors and icons with the big variety and the space constrains are not viable then provide a standard way for software to give a capability list to the user. Or a diagnostics tool that you can plug into USB-C and it gives you a list of "this port can provide signals A, B, C and accepts inputs D, E, F".
Given the lack of that when plugging together two USB C sockets and the results are not satisfactory any of the following might occur:
1. The signal you want is not provided by the source
2. The cable is not capable of carrying the signal you want
3. The sink can't process the signal
4. It just doesn't work because of firmware bugs or driver bugs
5. There might be interference, there was a Dell problem where lowering wifi signal strength made Thunderbolt better.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 8y agoAfter reading through this thread, I was thinking something similar to what you are proposing is the cleanest way forward (except I was thinking numbers instead of letters). You could even get more clever and use colors, where complementary colors work together. Couple that with some error messages that mirror what you wrote in the last part of your post in software whenever you plugged in a USB-C device to a connector and I think the standard could be salvaged and even a relative pleasure to use given the background.
- chx 8y agoOut of the five points I wrote only 1 and 3 can be tested via a standard USB C tester device if it existed. 2 and most especially 5 is fiercely expensive to test and 4 is well, software bugs (firmware is just software, after all). You know how that goes.