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| Evolution of usb connector? |
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| dmills:
Part of it is probably that nobody at the time would have taken a micro USB connector seriously... I mean printers were usually on 25 pin centronics (about the size of a GPIB connector), usually cabled to a D25 on the PC end, keyboards were 5 pin DIN or mini DIN, mice were D9 serial. The real mystery with USB, is did nobody actually try plugging in a USB-A before standardising the thing? The number of the stupid things I have tried to stuff in upside down over the years (It always seems to take three tries!). Bear in mind that USB was really seen as a sort of more standard (and slightly faster, but filling the same niche) version of the Apple Desktop Bus that used to be the way you plugged keyboards, mice and laserwriters into mackintoshes, portable devices as we now understand them were not even a consideration, and the phones of the time all used gratuitously different connectors anyway. Regards, Dan. |
| Bassman59:
--- Quote from: coppercone2 on December 18, 2018, 02:04:57 am ---its kind of weird because you would think something like an audio jack is bomb proof because its a giant cylinder --- End quote --- You don't spend any time around professional audio set-ups, do you? 1/4" TRS plugs get broken all the time. Sometimes you gotta pull the parts out of the jack with thin needle-nose pliers. Never mind the fact that the "hot" contact on the plug is briefly shorted to ground on insertion and removal. |
| dmills:
Ah, you are talking about the infinitely inferior "A Gauge" audio jack (Fit only for headphones), a proper "B gauge" part in a proper long frame socket is surprisingly reliable (needs occasional cleaning of the normalling contacts, but at least you CAN clean the normalling contacts). Regards, Dan. |
| james_s:
--- Quote from: dmills on December 18, 2018, 07:15:00 pm ---Part of it is probably that nobody at the time would have taken a micro USB connector seriously... I mean printers were usually on 25 pin centronics (about the size of a GPIB connector), usually cabled to a D25 on the PC end, keyboards were 5 pin DIN or mini DIN, mice were D9 serial. The real mystery with USB, is did nobody actually try plugging in a USB-A before standardising the thing? The number of the stupid things I have tried to stuff in upside down over the years (It always seems to take three tries!). Bear in mind that USB was really seen as a sort of more standard (and slightly faster, but filling the same niche) version of the Apple Desktop Bus that used to be the way you plugged keyboards, mice and laserwriters into mackintoshes, portable devices as we now understand them were not even a consideration, and the phones of the time all used gratuitously different connectors anyway. Regards, Dan. --- End quote --- It is slightly less than ideal, if I were designing it from the start I would have given it angled edges like HDMI or some other standardized and distinctive marking or indentation. |
| westfw:
--- Quote ---did nobody actually try plugging in a USB-A before standardising the thing? --- End quote --- There is a substantial chance that there is plastic molding and/or other indicators, and/or a different vision of type-A ports, than exists in the current realm of non-official cables and "many" USB ports on a computer... --- Quote ---how come the reliability of the mini was bad? --- End quote --- --- Quote ---[micro-usb is] more robust than any USB connector version previously made. More mating cycles and mechanically stronger. --- End quote --- So the vendors claim; I actually talked to one of the big connector vendors at a trade show about this - they claim that one of the big changes is that the spring-loaded part of the connector is now in the (easily replaceable) cable, rather than the PCB-side connector. --- Quote ---Micro USB connectors just don't break. --- End quote --- That statement does not match my personal experience. They may resist breakage in exactly the ways that they were intended to resist breakage, but other "system-level" issues seem to come up that have been the death of several (otherwise undamaged) products I've owned. Including some expensive cell phones. The cables break even more frequently, too (apparently usually due to shoddy strain relief, fine wires, and poor soldering/assembly technique.) --- Quote ---Only variants with no through-hole mounting pins are subject for breaking off from PCB --- End quote --- Unfortunately, the "no through-hole" versions are by far the most common, and in between the lack of TH, the smaller overall area of the pads, and the thinner PCBs, the "break off of PCB" failure mode is very common :-( |
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