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Comment on USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible

barsoap@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

Round is not round, that is, there’s a difference between the likes of cinch and DIN (-style) connectors. Cinch can be rotated once inserted which indeed isn’t ideal, but DIN are perfectly adequate signal-wise and you can rotate them into place, just like finding the begging of a thread when inserting a screw.

Keyboards used five-pole DIN for the longest time and mice D-Sub (because serial), both changed to Mini-DIN 6, aka “PS/2 connectors”. And never, ever, did anyone complain about getting the orientation wrong with DIN connectors.

D-Sub are a bit iffy but at least you really do have a 50/50 chance as they don’t jam like USB-A does. They also aren’t actually rectangular and you can feel the matching angles on both female and male ends.

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doubletwist@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

And never, ever, did anyone complain about getting the orientation wrong with DIN connectors.

Hah! Hardly. I have plenty of memories of endlessly rotating mouse and keyboard connectors as I reached behind a computer trying to insert it blindly, and somehow having to try half a dozen times before it finally found just the right orientation.

There’s also the issue on the older, large DIN connectors of pins getting bent or broken.

We moved on from those things for darn good reason, and I for one have no interest in going back.

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- barsoap@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I never bent a pin and as said, you can just turn them and at some point they’ll align.
  
  The main downfall of DIN was foreign hifi companies standardising on cinch and SCART and German hifi manufacturers then switching over. You’ll still see them in niche applications, though, probably the most common is MIDI.
  
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  - jarfil@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Turning them while looking for the right orientation is how you bend the pins…
    
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    barsoap@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    You’re not supposed to simultaneously press with the force of five titans on steroids.
    
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  - locuester@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Yeah, mic cables are still standardized on this
    
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    barsoap@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Nah that’s XLR. More sturdy, they lock, and usually carry balanced signals. It’s a pro audio thing and I’ve never seen it used for digital signals, DIN back in the day was in used for consumer stuff just as cinch is now. You probably also couldn’t send as much phantom power over DIN.
    
    Both 3-pin XLR and 3-pin DIN are mono, but in DIN’s case that’s input/output, not balanced audio. From a consumer perspective that’s very nice: Connecting a cassette player/recorder to the amp only uses a single 5-pin DIN cable.
    
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