4 ms·
>But in an effort to keep it as cheap as possible, the decision was made to go with a design that, in theory, would give users a 50/50 chance of plugging it in
by cushpush 3y ago
>But in an effort to keep it as cheap as possible, the decision was made to go with a design that, in theory, would give users a 50/50 chance of plugging it in correctly (you can up the odds by looking at the inside first, or identifying the logo).
I despise this "design decision." Literally bakes in the 50% of the time you plug it in the wrong orientation and lose seconds of your life. Who cares if the sands of time are moving more rapidly than asteroids? We can save money and make more of these badboys to fill the landfills with once they're obsolete. Hard to argue that logic that clearly won via market dynamics. But where are we now?
- TylerE 3y agoIf they were going to do that they at least could have used a D shaped connector or something so the orientation of both the plug and the port are obvious, even in bad lighting / from an awkward angle.
- chrisco255 3y agoAll I can say is that before USB 1.0, the myriad of connections on a PC motherboard were ridiculous. USB was leaps and bounds better beyond PS/2, and VGA and various serial and parallel ports would require you to physically screw in the plug. Just look at: https://www.electronicshub.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Ports.jpg https://www.electronicshub.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Po... It was a nightmare. And virtually none of those ports would self-install drivers when a device was plugged into it. USB 1.0 was magic when it came out.
- dimal 3y agoAgreed. Everyone forgets how awful it was and even though USB wasn't perfect, it was a huge improvement over the status quo. For that, I can forgive the inventors for making a mistake. Nobody's perfect. The travesty is that it took so long to correct the issue.