Next-Generation USB Will be Reversible

[floppylobster]

Oh, yeah, what a relief. Taking an extra 5 seconds with my USB drive was the bane of my life. Now this horrible nightmare will be over and I will finally be happy. Truly we are living in the 21st century.

5 seconds x 4 times a day (low average) x 7 days a week x 52 weeks a year x 5-10 years = how many hours of my life saved doing something unnecessary?

Ya know, 95% of USBs already have something on them telling you "This side up" with a little icon that is sometimes even a USB icon. Or in the case of 360 gamepads, it has a little bump on the right side up.

Are you people really that stupid?

You know you can't always see a USB slot when you're reaching around the back of a desktop or working in low light conditions or are long-sighted or the person's computer your trying to help fix is standing on its end behind a desk so you can't be sure which is the 'right side' up. Of course you do, you're no stupid.

 

[laide234]

Ya know, 95% of USBs already have something on them telling you "This side up" with a little icon that is sometimes even a USB icon. Or in the case of 360 gamepads, it has a little bump on the right side up.

Are you people really that stupid?

And what if your USB ports are vertical?
Where's you little bump now?

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Watch. I'll still not be able to plug it in the first try. Its the damn USB curse and it won't die, not even with technology that targets it. It will just perpetuate into infinity.

 

[Something Amyss]

"Gather round kids *snort, spit*, let ol' pops tell you a story. Back way when, thems USB didn't always fit. Oh golly no... didn't have no fancy new fangled double sided USB. We had to make do with one side... and I'll tell yer... seemed like the wrong side was always the first one you tried..."

I was thinking more "you punk kids are spoiled. Why, in my day, we had to walk fifteen miles, through the snow, uphill, barefoot, just to plug in our connectors! And if we plugged them in the wrong way, it was another trip!"

 

[Something Amyss]

You know you can't always see a USB slot when you're reaching around the back of a desktop or working in low light conditions or are long-sighted or the person's computer your trying to help fix is standing on its end behind a desk so you can't be sure which is the 'right side' up. Of course you do, you're no stupid.

And what if your USB ports are vertical?
Where's you little bump now?

You mean you guys can't remember the exact location and orientation of each and every USB port on every device you own? I mean, that doesn't seem all that unreasonable an effort.... >.>

But yeah, this isn't like, the biggest innovation in the history of computers, but it's certainly handy. I don't get why people are complaining like it's a bad thing.

Then again, maybe it'll encourage more of those filthy casuals. We all know that's why they avoid PC gaming!

 

[grrrz]

"Gather round kids *snort, spit*, let ol' pops tell you a story. Back way when, thems USB didn't always fit. Oh golly no... didn't have no fancy new fangled double sided USB. We had to make do with one side... and I'll tell yer... seemed like the wrong side was always the first one you tried..."

I was thinking more "you punk kids are spoiled. Why, in my day, we had to walk fifteen miles, through the snow, uphill, barefoot, just to plug in our connectors! And if we plugged them in the wrong way, it was another trip!"

(we used to live in a shoe, in the middle of the road)
and in those time we had to solder the cables ourselves to the motherboard. and if you wanted to play a game, you had to to type the entire sourcecode yourself, in one go! those were the days

 

[Senare]

I think that it is a good and worthwhile improvement. Arguments against this that boil down to calling other people stupid, unskilled, or that it merely saves a few extra seconds still don't feel good enough to motivate not making such an improvement to the USB connector. Why discourage small improvements like this if it does not make things worse? It makes me think of knee-jerk responses.

The only good counterargument here seems to be that we would need to buy converters for all our USB devices in the future. But maybe the next generation may be backwards compatible, like the other USB generations.

 

[Kinitawowi]

and in those time we had to solder the cables ourselves to the motherboard. and if you wanted to play a game, you had to to type the entire sourcecode yourself, in one go! those were the days

Spoiler: There was a time...

And you really did have to type most of the stuff yourself too...

captcha: double whammy

 

[Worgen]

Pretty sure there are plenty of companies out there who already make this sort of thing, not just Apple.

Well the other big connector is firewire and that is owned by apple. Really until usb 3.0, firewire was faster than usb. The only reason it never took off like usb was because apple sat on it too long and charged too for licensing it.

 

[Bloodstain]

Oh, yeah, what a relief. Taking an extra 5 seconds with my USB drive was the bane of my life. Now this horrible nightmare will be over and I will finally be happy. Truly we are living in the 21st century.

Hey, those five seconds add up.

OT: If things can be easier, make them easier. Yay!

 

[Strazdas]

Its not like that was really necessary. Id rather they stop putting the ports in backwards though. for example to conencyt my MP3 player to PC the mp3 palyer has to be face-down because its connector is upsidedown (and thats not USB).

And i spent more time typing this than i spent on plugging in USBs this whole years.

I'll miss the days of trying to put in my USB, it won't fit, flipping it over, won't fit, flipping back to the original position. Now it fits.

Me too. Everyone knows USB connectors exist in 4-dimensional space [http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2388].

damn, i got ninjad, twice.

 

[grrrz]

Pretty sure there are plenty of companies out there who already make this sort of thing, not just Apple.

Well the other big connector is firewire and that is owned by apple. Really until usb 3.0, firewire was faster than usb. The only reason it never took off like usb was because apple sat on it too long and charged too for licensing it.

...and now it's been killed by apple with a shovel to make room for new thunderbolt (who has about two peripherals compatible)
so there you go.

 

[MorganL4]

"Gather round kids *snort, spit*, let ol' pops tell you a story. Back way when, thems USB didn't always fit. Oh golly no... didn't have no fancy new fangled double sided USB. We had to make do with one side... and I'll tell yer... seemed like the wrong side was always the first one you tried..."

To be fair, that is because you only ever remember the times when it didn't work. If it worked it wasn't worth the time or energy to recall it, so you just moved on with your life.