We are way past it being just a power thing though. USB-C is effectively the standard wired general purpose data bus these days. It’s slowly cannibalizing HDMI and DP as well (via thunderbolt), in addition to power cords.
Comment on USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible
echodot@feddit.uk 8 months agoUSB-C has more connectors for data and power than A/B so it’s not a surprise that it’s more capable.
What’s really changed is demand. No one really expected USB to be used to power everything, it was only ever really expected to be used on computers and maybe digital cameras, smartphones used to arrange matters for themselves. It was only when they two began to adopt USB that calls for smaller ports started to arise.
Socsa@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
cheery_coffee@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Is so dumb that HDMI or DisplayPort over USB-C is called “alt mode”
The USB Consortium are the only group worse at naming things than Microsoft.
averyfalken@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
The worst parr is it used to be good naming scheme. After 3. They went back ended the meaning of 3.0 and 3.1 and made it bad
SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 8 months ago
Yeah, it’s not like the U stands for Universal or something.
nymwit@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Yeah, Universal Spower Bus. Sounds right. I was reading the “power” part emphasized in the comment you replied to. Prior to mass adoption by phone mfrs, USB wasn’t powering all that much. You’d usually have 5v wall wart and cable ending in a barrel connector. Hate those things.
neonred@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I chuckled more than I would like to admit about that spelled out USB name, dunno, it’s funny
pirat@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The Universal Spower Bus
sounds like an awesome transit vehicle!
Let’s take a ride!
cheery_coffee@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
The barrel connector was reversible, and I don’t think I ever had one fail.
They did always use way too much space with their AC adapter things and for whatever reason nargles liked to steal them.
echodot@feddit.uk 8 months ago
I’m not really sure what that means. The original A/B specification did not allow for much variable voltage. It’s only universal in name, not in nature. There was absolutely no way to deal with high voltage devices, the cables were not adaptive.
USB 4.0 specification allows for powering things like electrical drills. No way the original USB A/B specification can handle that.
AdmiralShat@programming.dev 8 months ago
As long as it’s a serial bus
averyfalken@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
You are right to an extent but the context of its original universality is in the rest of the name. Universal serial bus. The idea was a universal port for dealing with data and connections not neccesarily power.
PixxlMan@lemmy.world 8 months ago
And yet it still can’t retingulate droopglers. Pathetic.