6 ms·

Ok I knew the situation was confusing but after reading this I am dumbfounded. It seems so much strictly worse than the old world of having different cables wit

Ok I knew the situation was confusing but after reading this I am dumbfounded. It seems so much strictly worse than the old world of having different cables with different connectors - yes you had to have a lot of different cables but you couldn’t get it wrong. Now we have all the same complexity and you can’t tell what’s what by just looking at the connector.

cube2222 4y ago
In contrast, I prefer the current world. Usually, when I unexpectedly need some cable for some device (and i.e. have to borrow it) it's for charging. And so far every time the cable + charger worked for what I needed to charge. Data- and protocol-related stuff is more complex indeed, but those I can usually research and check the specs of before ordering, so it's really a non-issue. As this article describes, you can also just look for everything Thunderbolt 4 compatible, as it's a standard on top of the USB 4 standard that's just an aggregated specification of "this stuff works" for most of the important extensions.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
alexvoda 4y ago
Add to this complexity the fact that AMD 6000+ supports USB4. And USB4 is sorta compatible with Thunderbolt 3 and 4, though it is mandatory compatible with DP but no longer compatible with HDMI. Also add USB4 v2 to the mix. It gets really complex.
- paulmd 4y ago
  > it is mandatory compatible with DP but no longer compatible with HDMI. Just FYI, not sure if you’re intending to imply this but a lot of people get it wrong regardless and it’s worth saying: usb-c/thunderbolt was NEVER compatible with HDMI. DP++ (the hdmi mode for DisplayPort connectors) is and has always been an optional extension, it’s just so widely supported on full-size DP ports that people don’t even realize it. And it’s NOT included in most embedded implementations of DP - like the usb-c alt mode. DP++ involves using a different voltage, and it would be super complex to do the voltage change in situations like that across a USB link... you'd probably have to have a voltage converter for the DP pairs to run at HDMI voltages. Anyway, all usb-c to hdmi cables are active cables. The adapters for hdmi 1.4 are dirt cheap and they’re so small they fit inside the plug, but, they’re active converters and they can have all kinds of weird behavior. Same for docks, the hdmi coming off your thunderbolt dock is an active converter chip and I’ve personally experienced hdmi-specific glitches on a Dell thunderbolt dock that I think were attributable to this.
  - kitsunesoba 4y ago
    This lines up with my experience of DisplayPort over TB and USB being considerably less of a pain than HDMI over TB and USB, and compounds with my experience of HDMI generally being more of a pain than DisplayPort. Sometimes I wish HDMI would just go away, or for HDMI-only devices (mainly TVs) to add a DisplayPort just so I wouldn’t have to deal with HDMI.
izacus 4y ago
And now if you "get it wrong" you still mostly get a functional experience at slower speed or resolution. Which is still a massive massive improvement over finding out that you can't plug in a device because you lack the exact same cable or needs. Nowadays this only happens at the edge of capabilities, not for basic functionality. Good riddance. I don't want to lug 10 cables with me instead of a single high end USB-C.
- quest88 4y ago
  I disagree. It's harder to debug why the peripheral is not 100% functional. Moreso for those non-technical folks.
  - vladvasiliu 4y ago
    This. And I think there's also the software that's involved in all this. At work, I have an HP laptop with Thunderbolt 4, DP alt-mode, etc. I use an external screen and kb/mouse, so I have an HP USB-C G5 dock. It has a USB-C connector, only supports up to USB 3, but that's fine. It supports DP 1.4 and HDMI 2.0. Its cable is fixed, so I'd expect it to be "up to standard". Also, HP Dock, HP laptop, Windows 11 as recommended by HP, you'd expect all this to just work, right? Wrong! If I want 4k@60Hz on the monitor, I have to do a stupid dance of plugging the monitor on HDMI in addition to DP (doesn't work if DP isn't plugged in), unplug de DP, replug the DP, unplug the HDMI. It then works as expected. Colors are weird on HDMI (doesn't do 4:4:4 coding for some reason) so I insist on a DP connection. Once this setup gets going, it will usually survive a sleep / wake cycle (if the PC wakes up, but that's a different story). However, there's a pretty good chance the image will be partially messed up: most often crazy colors and moving lines, sometimes the image will be OK, only somewhat misaligned (think old LCDs with VGA connectors before "auto-adjusting" them) and the monitor will complain of frequency mismatch or something. If I switch inputs on the monitor, it will come back OK. It will not survive a reboot (have to do the dance again). The BIOS has a special "use high definition" entry, that warns against reducing the USB bandwidth. Didn't make a difference. At home, I have an HP desktop with Thunderbolt 3, DP out, etc. I have a USB-C monitor which works fine up until the Windows login screen when it goes blank (no signal). Windows install worked fine. It works if I force the resolution to less than 4k@60Hz. I only got to see the Windows desktop once with this. Didn't survive a reboot and never worked again. None of this happens with Linux/X11, everything works as expected on the same hardware. I fancy myself fairly technical, but I have to admit I have no idea what's going on. Not even where to start looking for issues. I've tried updating the BIOS/firmware across all devices, no luck.
Latty 4y ago
I disagree. I remember the hell of every phone having a different charging cable and having to ask around hoping someone had the same brand as you. Sure, it might be a bit of a pain that you can find a cable/charger that won't support the full charging speed of your device, but at least you can still charge it slower. If they'd changed the connector, you'd throw away your old cables and buy new ones, so just do that every time for the new spec if you really want.
selfmodruntime 4y ago
I disagree. USB-C is common for what, 3 years now? Issues like these are growing pains.
- jbverschoor 4y ago
  Or just pains that will grow in the coming years
- paulmd 4y ago
  Usb-c was specified a decade ago and thunderbolt has been around for a long ass time too. I could have bought "growing pains" in 2016-2017, it’s just a flaky standard at this point.
  - selfmodruntime 4y ago
    I agree that the standard is too loose.
makeitdouble 4y ago
That’s an oversimplification of the old world. We had different connectors that would or would not work depending on your specific application. Some connectors would only have a smaller set of pins for restricted use cases (charging only, sound only etc.) than the full standard, you still had the quality and ratings issue (think ethernet cables), some companies would still recycle connectors used in other contexts for their specific purpose (a sheer round connector is one of those: there must be hundreds or proprietary cables with a round connector). And of course you’d have adaptors to make a connector work in an equivalent setup. Sure more shapes would make any of these issues limited to a specific shape, but there was still plenty of room to get it wrong. All in all I think USB C is still a step forward.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  > We had different connectors that would or would not work depending on your specific application. Some connectors would only have a smaller set of pins for restricted use cases (charging only, sound only etc.) than the full standard, you still had the quality and ratings issue (think ethernet cables), some companies would still recycle connectors used in other contexts for their specific purpose (a sheer round connector is one of those: there must be hundreds or proprietary cables with a round connector). Er, but isn't that exactly the problem with USB now? Not all USB ports and all USB cables are interchangeable, some devices use certain pins for restricted use cases (charging only, sound only), cables and devices have painfully varying quality (https://www.pcmag.com/news/poorly-designed-usb-c-cable-kills-google-engineers-laptop https://www.pcmag.com/news/poorly-designed-usb-c-cable-kills... , https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/11/google-engineer-leaves-scathing-reviews-of-dodgy-usb-type-c-cables-on-amazon/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/11/google-engineer-leav...), and companies reuse the one connector without actually being fully compatible (Nintendo, I'm looking at you).
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    It totally is. I even have a Xiamo robot toy that uses the USB-C shape connector over a completely proprietary connection (non of the voltage or protocol match) The difference is it's one less issue to deal with: we don't have to fret about the connector shape anymore. There's also a fighting chance to have "all around" cables that match 90% of what you expect to be using it for.
philistine 4y ago
Intel and Apple to the rescue. If you focus on Thunderbolt ports, cables and docks, everything is simple to understand.
altairprime 4y ago
On Zyxel 16.8 rackmount modem enclosures, the barrel power plug that went into each modem blade was hot on the outside barrel rather than on the inside like every other sensible power connector using barrel plugs. So you would destroy a blade every couple weeks when an unused or unplugged power connector barrel would touch the modem blade and destroy the modem through its circuitry’s apparently-unprotected ground. We‘ve been having connector issues for as long as we’ve had connectors.
Gigachad 4y ago
For the average person, none of it matters. Every single one of the cables does charging, most users charge their phone overnight so everything works well enough. Some users will have a thunderbolt cable that came with their monitor that they will leave plugged in and is identifiable by being thick and stiff.

cube2222 4y ago

In contrast, I prefer the current world. Usually, when I unexpectedly need some cable for some device (and i.e. have to borrow it) it's for charging. And so far every time the cable + charger worked for what I needed to charge. Data- and protocol-related stuff is more complex indeed, but those I can usually research and check the specs of before ordering, so it's really a non-issue. As this article describes, you can also just look for everything Thunderbolt 4 compatible, as it's a standard on top of the USB 4 standard that's just an aggregated specification of "this stuff works" for most of the important extensions.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

alexvoda 4y ago

Add to this complexity the fact that AMD 6000+ supports USB4. And USB4 is sorta compatible with Thunderbolt 3 and 4, though it is mandatory compatible with DP but no longer compatible with HDMI. Also add USB4 v2 to the mix. It gets really complex.

paulmd 4y ago
> it is mandatory compatible with DP but no longer compatible with HDMI. Just FYI, not sure if you’re intending to imply this but a lot of people get it wrong regardless and it’s worth saying: usb-c/thunderbolt was NEVER compatible with HDMI. DP++ (the hdmi mode for DisplayPort connectors) is and has always been an optional extension, it’s just so widely supported on full-size DP ports that people don’t even realize it. And it’s NOT included in most embedded implementations of DP - like the usb-c alt mode. DP++ involves using a different voltage, and it would be super complex to do the voltage change in situations like that across a USB link... you'd probably have to have a voltage converter for the DP pairs to run at HDMI voltages. Anyway, all usb-c to hdmi cables are active cables. The adapters for hdmi 1.4 are dirt cheap and they’re so small they fit inside the plug, but, they’re active converters and they can have all kinds of weird behavior. Same for docks, the hdmi coming off your thunderbolt dock is an active converter chip and I’ve personally experienced hdmi-specific glitches on a Dell thunderbolt dock that I think were attributable to this.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  This lines up with my experience of DisplayPort over TB and USB being considerably less of a pain than HDMI over TB and USB, and compounds with my experience of HDMI generally being more of a pain than DisplayPort. Sometimes I wish HDMI would just go away, or for HDMI-only devices (mainly TVs) to add a DisplayPort just so I wouldn’t have to deal with HDMI.

izacus 4y ago

And now if you "get it wrong" you still mostly get a functional experience at slower speed or resolution. Which is still a massive massive improvement over finding out that you can't plug in a device because you lack the exact same cable or needs. Nowadays this only happens at the edge of capabilities, not for basic functionality. Good riddance. I don't want to lug 10 cables with me instead of a single high end USB-C.

quest88 4y ago
I disagree. It's harder to debug why the peripheral is not 100% functional. Moreso for those non-technical folks.
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  This. And I think there's also the software that's involved in all this. At work, I have an HP laptop with Thunderbolt 4, DP alt-mode, etc. I use an external screen and kb/mouse, so I have an HP USB-C G5 dock. It has a USB-C connector, only supports up to USB 3, but that's fine. It supports DP 1.4 and HDMI 2.0. Its cable is fixed, so I'd expect it to be "up to standard". Also, HP Dock, HP laptop, Windows 11 as recommended by HP, you'd expect all this to just work, right? Wrong! If I want 4k@60Hz on the monitor, I have to do a stupid dance of plugging the monitor on HDMI in addition to DP (doesn't work if DP isn't plugged in), unplug de DP, replug the DP, unplug the HDMI. It then works as expected. Colors are weird on HDMI (doesn't do 4:4:4 coding for some reason) so I insist on a DP connection. Once this setup gets going, it will usually survive a sleep / wake cycle (if the PC wakes up, but that's a different story). However, there's a pretty good chance the image will be partially messed up: most often crazy colors and moving lines, sometimes the image will be OK, only somewhat misaligned (think old LCDs with VGA connectors before "auto-adjusting" them) and the monitor will complain of frequency mismatch or something. If I switch inputs on the monitor, it will come back OK. It will not survive a reboot (have to do the dance again). The BIOS has a special "use high definition" entry, that warns against reducing the USB bandwidth. Didn't make a difference. At home, I have an HP desktop with Thunderbolt 3, DP out, etc. I have a USB-C monitor which works fine up until the Windows login screen when it goes blank (no signal). Windows install worked fine. It works if I force the resolution to less than 4k@60Hz. I only got to see the Windows desktop once with this. Didn't survive a reboot and never worked again. None of this happens with Linux/X11, everything works as expected on the same hardware. I fancy myself fairly technical, but I have to admit I have no idea what's going on. Not even where to start looking for issues. I've tried updating the BIOS/firmware across all devices, no luck.

Latty 4y ago

I disagree. I remember the hell of every phone having a different charging cable and having to ask around hoping someone had the same brand as you. Sure, it might be a bit of a pain that you can find a cable/charger that won't support the full charging speed of your device, but at least you can still charge it slower. If they'd changed the connector, you'd throw away your old cables and buy new ones, so just do that every time for the new spec if you really want.

selfmodruntime 4y ago

I disagree. USB-C is common for what, 3 years now? Issues like these are growing pains.

jbverschoor 4y ago
Or just pains that will grow in the coming years
paulmd 4y ago
Usb-c was specified a decade ago and thunderbolt has been around for a long ass time too. I could have bought "growing pains" in 2016-2017, it’s just a flaky standard at this point.
- selfmodruntime 4y ago
  I agree that the standard is too loose.

makeitdouble 4y ago

That’s an oversimplification of the old world. We had different connectors that would or would not work depending on your specific application. Some connectors would only have a smaller set of pins for restricted use cases (charging only, sound only etc.) than the full standard, you still had the quality and ratings issue (think ethernet cables), some companies would still recycle connectors used in other contexts for their specific purpose (a sheer round connector is one of those: there must be hundreds or proprietary cables with a round connector). And of course you’d have adaptors to make a connector work in an equivalent setup. Sure more shapes would make any of these issues limited to a specific shape, but there was still plenty of room to get it wrong. All in all I think USB C is still a step forward.

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
> We had different connectors that would or would not work depending on your specific application. Some connectors would only have a smaller set of pins for restricted use cases (charging only, sound only etc.) than the full standard, you still had the quality and ratings issue (think ethernet cables), some companies would still recycle connectors used in other contexts for their specific purpose (a sheer round connector is one of those: there must be hundreds or proprietary cables with a round connector). Er, but isn't that exactly the problem with USB now? Not all USB ports and all USB cables are interchangeable, some devices use certain pins for restricted use cases (charging only, sound only), cables and devices have painfully varying quality (https://www.pcmag.com/news/poorly-designed-usb-c-cable-kills-google-engineers-laptop https://www.pcmag.com/news/poorly-designed-usb-c-cable-kills... , https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/11/google-engineer-leaves-scathing-reviews-of-dodgy-usb-type-c-cables-on-amazon/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/11/google-engineer-leav...), and companies reuse the one connector without actually being fully compatible (Nintendo, I'm looking at you).
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  It totally is. I even have a Xiamo robot toy that uses the USB-C shape connector over a completely proprietary connection (non of the voltage or protocol match) The difference is it's one less issue to deal with: we don't have to fret about the connector shape anymore. There's also a fighting chance to have "all around" cables that match 90% of what you expect to be using it for.

philistine 4y ago

Intel and Apple to the rescue. If you focus on Thunderbolt ports, cables and docks, everything is simple to understand.

altairprime 4y ago

On Zyxel 16.8 rackmount modem enclosures, the barrel power plug that went into each modem blade was hot on the outside barrel rather than on the inside like every other sensible power connector using barrel plugs. So you would destroy a blade every couple weeks when an unused or unplugged power connector barrel would touch the modem blade and destroy the modem through its circuitry’s apparently-unprotected ground. We‘ve been having connector issues for as long as we’ve had connectors.

Gigachad 4y ago

For the average person, none of it matters. Every single one of the cables does charging, most users charge their phone overnight so everything works well enough. Some users will have a thunderbolt cable that came with their monitor that they will leave plugged in and is identifiable by being thick and stiff.