After Years of USB Word Salad, New Labels Strip Everything But the Speed (pcworld.com) 85
The USB Implementers Forum has simplified its labeling system for USB docking stations and cables, dropping technical terms like "USB4v2" in favor of straightforward speed ratings such as "USB 80Gbps" or "USB 40Gbps."
The move follows criticism of previous complex naming conventions like "USB 3.2 Gen 2." The new logos will also display power transmission capabilities for cables, addressing consumer confusion over USB standards.
The move follows criticism of previous complex naming conventions like "USB 3.2 Gen 2." The new logos will also display power transmission capabilities for cables, addressing consumer confusion over USB standards.
Cables already doing that (Score:3)
Re: Cables already doing that (Score:2)
And they all kind of suck for one reason or another. Yet MIDI DIN and RS232 managed to hang around for four decades with little change. It helps when you only have to engineer a solution to a small problem space instead of trying to create a panacea.
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And they all kind of suck for one reason or another. Yet MIDI DIN and RS232 managed to hang around for four decades with little change. It helps when you only have to engineer a solution to a small problem space instead of trying to create a panacea.
Obligatory XKCD [xkcd.com]
Re: Cables already doing that (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet MIDI DIN and RS232 managed to hang around for four decades with little change.
Little changes? I could write a book about how RS232 changed over the decades and a followup book about extensions like RS485 and RS422. Have you heard of RS232-TTL? Back when RS232 was king, you'd hope a device had a manual with how it implemented RS232 and that the manual was accurate, but mostly you had to install a breakout box and look at blinky lights and jumper things until you divinated the handshaking system. I've never had anywhere near that trouble with USB. Then again, putting a connector like MINI DIN in with a protocol like RS232 is telling.
And it's DB-25 and DE-9, not DB-9. (Score:4, Informative)
Well RS485 and RS422 are different standards and different interfaces, with different intended uses, despite the similarity to RS232.
RS232 has been pretty stable on the RXD-TXD portion. Of course with non-standard TTL variants that have long been defacto standard because you can easily hook them up to a MAX232 and get them working. And work it does, because my Hayes 1200 immediately started talking to my Gumstix, despite the whole level shfiting dance that was required.
Other signals like RTS/CTS are mostly implemented correctly in the industry. DTR, DCD, RI, etc are almost never done right when I compare old hardware versus a 1990's era PC. And in this era of USB serial adapters, I suspect the compatibility is even worse.
And speaking of 1990's PCs. It was not uncommon to find ones that signaled using the wrong voltages. It mostly worked, but it wasn't really to the spec.
Certainly lots of history, and it's an argument for a strong industry group that holds trademarks that they enforce. In the old days you could have had an organization and simply went after people for false advertising if they violated the spec egregiously. But in the 1980's most of the teeth were removed when it came to false advertising in the US (and I think the CA and UK). But the bigger issue was that in an era of globalization it was pretty much impossible for a consumer to go after sketchy vendors that incorrectly implemented a weakly enforced spec like EIA/TIA-232.
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And in this era of USB serial adapters, I suspect the compatibility is even worse.
I've had very good experiences with USB serial adapters. I've had troubles with USB serial adapters some time ago but I consider those cases being me buying a cheap adapter or somehow damaging an expensive adapter. I found some USB adapter cables, as opposed to dongles, that make things quite a bit easier for me. The USB serial cables I've been using have RJ-45 serial on one end and either USB-C or USB-A on the other. If the device I'm using doesn't have RJ-45 serial then I can easily snap on an appropr
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I've had very good experiences with USB serial adapters.
We did as-well, until Windows 11. We have a project that uses USB serial adapters extensively. We had two different brands that had both been serving us well for decades. We were particular because sometimes we would use these with an embedded system that we couldn't install additional drivers on, so we need to make sure we had some of those at every site. Neither works with Windows 11! So now we have a third one that mostly does. I say "mostly" because while it functions, it doesn't show up as a seri
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The serial behaviour will totally change with the next mandatory win11 update. No, it won't be documented anywhere. You'll just get calls from customers blaming you because your box "doesn't work." Fuck windows.
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Check out https://www.lantronix.com// [lantronix.com]
we used these devices to talk to serial devices via network connections. Then you don't have to worry about the O/S.
Not affiliated with the company, just a happy customer.
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I forgot to mention my recent experience with MIDI low-voltage (3.3 volt signaling).
Some people made devices that badly interpreted the original MIDI 1.0 spec and assumed that because 5V/TTL was used in some examples of a transmitter, that they could ignore the original intent of an opto-isolated current loop. So most modern devices send 3.3V, which isn't a big deal. But some receivers assume there is 5V and either did a messy unacceptable connection to their microcontroller or are doing some dirty tricks t
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And they all kind of suck for one reason or another. Yet MIDI DIN and RS232 managed to hang around for four decades with little change.
Yeah nothing wrong with those at all, I'm using them right now. I hope no one chimes in and claims otherwise in the meantime. I'm going to hit Preview now, when I come home from work the page should have loaded enough that I can hit the submit button.
Re:Cables already doing that (Score:4, Insightful)
of course we still have a dozen connectors to choose from...
But how many of them do you actually see "in the wild"?
Sure, there's full size, mini, and micro variants of USB. There's A, B, and C. Oh, I almost forgot AB. Then there's some of those connectors that come in standard (USB 1.1/2.0) and wide (USB 3.x) variants. So, indeed, that adds up to at least a dozen variations.
I look around my electronics though and I see maybe five types of USB connectors. There's certainly USB-C and USB-A on all kinds of devices. Printers and a few other devices have USB-B. External hard drives might use the wide micro-B, and all kinds of peripherals use the standard micro-B. Has anyone seen anything other than those five recently?
Anything I have with mini USB ports on them yet have some alternative means of connecting, such as serial or Ethernet, or are so old that I should just have it recycled. Maybe I have an old hard drive or something with a wide (or rather tall) USB-B port, but that might also have to go to recycling.
I don't like having to keep adapters and cables for so many USB ports but it's at least a step up from what came before USB. Cell phones had all kinds of crazy connectors for power and data. Serial ports came in DB-25, DE-9, whatever Apple used for their LocalTalk and GeoPort variants on serial, an oddball DIN connector or three, RJ-45, and I'm likely forgetting some. For most of these serial ports there were "straight" or "crossover" cables to connect things, which is one thing Apple got right is that they specified just one cable type for LocalTalk/GeoPort. Then is the various cable types for parallel, SCSI, and mouse/keyboards. There was AT, PS/2, ADB, and DE-9 that might be serial or might not, for keyboards and mice. Were there 15 pin ports for mice or was that just a joystick thing? There were 15 pin ports for Ethernet, and some other oddball types, but that was a relatively short period of time before most everything went to RJ-45.
I could go on about how USB is a huge improvement. Having over a dozen ports defined in the USB spec is a bit nuts, but in actual use there's really only five. Not great but not bad.
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External hard drives might use the wide micro-B, and all kinds of peripherals use the standard micro-B. Has anyone seen anything other than those five recently?
I'd argue I haven't seen these recently either. I got a stack of external HDDs here, they are USB-C. My camera USB-C. My game controller USB-C. My mouse USB-C. It's getting rare to find devices produced in the past couple of years with micro-B on it. These days it is really A B and C, with B increasingly phased out in favour of C as well (my 2024 model monitor has USB-B input, but it's next to the USB-C input and in the settings you can choose which to mux into the internal hub so even its use is completely
Re:Cables already doing that (Score:4, Insightful)
Versions were a way to screw the customer. What happened is that they allowed to rebrand old cables as new version cables with no changes, and then the actual new cabled were "gen x" with higher x than the older cables. Sometimes.
Reality is, there are exactly three things you need to know. What kind of signalling standard they support (2, 3, 4), at what kind of speed, and what kind of USB charging standard they support. But that would make it hard to sell shit cables for high prices.
So USB Implementers Forum being a manufacturer forum allowed manufacturers to make it so confusing, that no one knows what cables are for. So retailers who actually need to sell cables to consumers mostly dropped their recommendations and started to label them by standard, speed and charge rate supported because otherwise people just didn't know what to buy. One look at any large seller site and you will see this.
This action is about USB Implementers Forum seeing that they lost basically all credibility on retail-consumer side where almost no one follows their recommendations on labeling any more, and are now trying to copy what retailers have done to bypass their shenanigans to win some credibility back.
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The USB version number was okay in early years. It is the rebranding old versions into confusing new version names that screw up themselves.
Come on, who the hell daydream this can drive sales?
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Without looking it up, what's the difference between Low Speed, High Speed, Super Speed and Full Speed, and what USB signalling standard it is?
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No one gives a shit about the version, just tell me the speed.
Wrong. People want to know the version when they are trying to determine compatibility.
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Don't forget, they've also used the names to flat out lie to consumers. Back when USB 2 came out (with its 480mbit speed, much faster than the previous 12mbit), motherboard manufacturers "lobbied" (bribed) them to rename USB 1.1 to USB 2.0 (and USB 2.0 to "USB 2.0 High Speed") to give motherboard manufacturers a chance to unload (fraud) their 12mbit motherboards from their warehouses because nobody was going to buy a 12mbit board when 480's were available.
So a whole bunch of people got scammed buying mothe
Thank you! (Score:5, Insightful)
Somebody went hard on this, guaranteed, and won.
Obfuscation /was/ part of the marketing strategy. IMO it worked back in the USB2 full-speed/high-speed days but really hurt the USB-C ramp-up with BS cables etc.
I am liking this "tired of the BS" timeline.
Kudos to the dude or dudette who planted a flag and took arrows to make this happen.
You are appreciated.
I guess we need amperage as the next hill to climb.
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Re: Thank you! (Score:1)
Theyâ(TM)re probably hoping that it will help sell more stuff. When people see that one end is labelled 80Gbs, they might go out and buy a new USB-C cable to replace their 40Gbs one, even though theyâ(TM)re only connecting one device and it canâ(TM)t go that fast anyway.
Re:Thank you! (Score:4)
Obfuscation /was/ part of the marketing strategy.
If it was the case what was the motivation? I don't think it helped sell more USB devices, win over its competitors, etc...
I don't remember USB 1, 2, 3 being a problem from the consumer point of view. The low-speed/full-speed distinction never really made a difference to consumers, some devices were faster than other, but what protocol they used was just internal stuff. USB2 meant high-speed, I don't remember ever seeing a reputable USB2 products that didn't support it. Again, some USB2 product are faster than others, but the "USB" part was well understood. Same thing for USB3 / SuperSpeed. The actual numbers didn't matter much in practice, bigger number = faster was essentially true.
It became a mess after that, but speed usually isn't the problem, few people really need speeds above USB3 (5 Gbps). The concerns typically are: "will my external dock work?" and "how fast can I charge my device, if at all?", and a number of GBps and Watts won't tell you that. The number of Watts could tell you about charging, in theory, but it is not clear at all in practice.
As for BS cables, it is hard to stop knockoff manufacturers from using the thinnest wires available and claim they can do 100W, as well as other crap. All standards are affected: MicroUSB, USB-C, HDMI, lightning, etc... Yes, even Apple with their captive market fell to it.
But to be fair, it isn't that bad. If you buy reputable brands from reputable suppliers, it tends to work quite well, and USB-C adoption went remarkably well for how complex this "do everything" standard is.
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That full speed/high speed stuff wasn't obfuscation. That was pretty clearly a case of the standard evolving to do things they never intended it to do.
USB 1.x had low speed and high speed. Low speed was for things like keyboards and mice that needed very little bandwidth, and high speed was relatively fast. But once people realized how useful USB could be, they wanted much faster speeds. The full speed name was just a tech thing, and never publicly marketed. You didn't know the terms "full speed" and "high
Not quite good enough (Score:3)
For USB, some ports charge, some carry video, etc. Ends differ. Speed is fine for general info, but those other factors can be important sometimes.
Re:Not quite good enough (Score:5, Insightful)
AND POWER. Trying to charge a 85w device with a cable only capable of 5w is a bad joke in poor taste. Sometimes engineers need a little help from Human Factor engineers or Marketing people. None of the various flavors of USB have had consumer-usable naming, and this continues to be a problem and makes a mockery of the EU mandate.
Re: Not quite good enough (Score:5, Informative)
"with a cable only capable of 5w"
All compliant USB-C cables support 60W minimum (3A @ 20V). That is the minimum baseline for all USB-C cables.
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AND POWER. Trying to charge a 85w device with a cable only capable of 5w is a bad joke in poor taste
That's something I wasn't clear on by reading TFA. Even though I'm a computer guy, I admit I'm baffled by USB interoperability. I pity non-tech people.
So, my question: the thread and article talk about power ratings for cables. Wouldn't we need to have similar ratings for wall warts and device ports? Don't I need to know how much power my laptop can source and sink? My laptop constantly complains one of my chargers is too slow and I have no idea what it thinks is an adequate amount of power.
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That's a problem that needs a firmware and software solution on the device side. It should be able to report what the negotiated wattage and the max somewhere when you plug in. Dell laptops do this if you press F2 to enter Setup or whatever, but I don't think it's accessible from Windows.
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That's a problem that needs a firmware and software solution on the device side. It should be able to report what the negotiated wattage and the max somewhere when you plug in. Dell laptops do this if you press F2 to enter Setup or whatever, but I don't think it's accessible from Windows.
I'm definitely not rebooting my laptop to find out what the power supply and laptop negotiated. One of my pet peeves about my Dell laptop is if I reboot while plugged in, it halts in the BIOS telling me (with the screen at full brightness) that the power supply is smaller than it likes.
Anyway, my point is I would have thought you'd want to mention which USB ports can be used for recharging and what the min and max power they can use is. Perhaps "minimum" is too strong a term, it's the minimum the device pre
Re: Not quite good enough (Score:2)
That's why I said it is a firmware/software issue. The information is already being handed upstream. There just needs to be a good way to hand it over to the OS.
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USB-C chargers list their rating in tiny-ass text (also note thats the maximum charge rate of 1 device connected to it). The charge rate is negotiated by standard power delivery standard. Best to just get an Anker 100w GaN charger and call it a day, it should satisfy most normal productivity laptops or simply figure out what your laptop is looking for through its spec sheet.
No doubt that's a good charger. I'm a cheapskate so I bought a slightly undersized charger. Apparently it's fine for my wife's laptop but mine always complains.
TFA was all about clearly labelling USB ports so customers would have a better idea what to expect when I put tab A into slot B. Specifying how much power a port can supply is a great start but only half the answer. In addition to being cheap, I'm also greedy so I want the other half.
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Chargers should say on then what power they support, but many exaggerate if they have more than one port. E.g. they say 200W, but it's actually 60W per each of the USB C ports and 10W per each of the USB A ports.
Devices should make it clear what their requirements are.
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None of the various flavors of USB have had consumer-usable naming, and this continues to be a problem and makes a mockery of the EU mandate.
There's no mockery. The situation for USB charging is fucking amazing. Any device is now universally chargeable with any cable from any adapter. The mandate said nothing about all combinations of all products on the market delivering the fastest charge possible, and the situation before the EU mandate was orders of magnitude worse where you could end up with a fast charging adapter, a suitable cable and a phone that can charge quickly all not working because they didn't agree on the same charging protocol -
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Other than charging speed all the other things you list are not something that can be limited by the cable. e.g. you get a USB 80gbps cable and you can guarantee it will support video if the devices need it to. Device capability, especially given support is optional on the connector is a whole different problem that can't be solved by writing the entire product manual on the side of the device.
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For USB, some ports charge, some carry video, etc.
If a port carries video then that is outside the realm of USB labeling. If there is a USB-C port that outputs video then the labeling would fall under Thunderbolt, DisplayPort, HDMI, or whatever labeling standards. For Thunderbolt there would be their spark icon, with maybe a small 2, 3, or 4 to indicate the version supported. I'd prefer Thunderbolt also labeled by speed too but at least they didn't make things as complicated as USB. DisplayPort has their stylized DP and DP++ icons. If there's any DP l
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For USB, some ports charge, some carry video, etc. Ends differ. Speed is fine for general info, but those other factors can be important sometimes.
You're a bit out of date. As of the launch of the USB4 specification all certified cables and devices carry logos which clearly indicate the charging capability of the cables and devices and whether a port provides a charge. As for carrying video you won't ever get that because it is a completely optional part of the USB Spec and it doesn't make sense to write the entire user manual on the side of your case. For devices which support something like dp-alt mode you will typically find *all* USB ports support
why no physical security and robustness? (Score:3)
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Give me a twist-lock on a TRS connector. Leave audio with a circular cross-section and use different keyhole types for different types of cable.
You insert, twist until it sinks, then twist the collar to lock. Easy peasy.
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There are two schools of thought regarding how to handle someone tripping over a connected cable -- you either want the connectors tightly fastened so that they don't come out (DB25-style), or you want the connectors to detach easily, rather than causing the attached device to fly off the table and break on the floor (MagSafe style).
In between, of course, is the no-man's-land of cables that pull the device off the table, and then come loose anyway. I don't think that behavior helps anyone.
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The USB3_Vision standard allows USB cables with screws https://www.automate.org/produ... [automate.org] ( also a little bit of info on WIkipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ) Of course you'll need a device that accepts screws, and that's unfortunately limited to industrial cameras.
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Because it's generally better to go the other way. If the cable is loose, it detaches easily if you trip on it. Then the cable falls to the floor. If you make it secure, the device falls to the floor.
I'd much rather have my charging cable come out and fall to the floor than have my laptop drop onto the floor.
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You have a thought logic problem there. The early connectors didn't have security to prevent people pulling them out, they had security to prevent coming loose under their own weight. A parallel port was almost guaranteed to slip out unless you screwed it in. The screws weren't there to prevent someone from easily disconnecting it.
USB as a standard is designed for two use cases:
a) your device is fixed in place, in which case you should position your cables so they can't be accidentally janked out. The conne
Is it 0Gbps or 0bps (Score:2)
Re:Is it 0Gbps or 0bps (Score:4, Informative)
"I would love it if those really annoying charge cables with power only, no data, were labeled 0bps."
No such thing in USB-C world. As the connectors are the same on both sides of the cable you don't know which one is the source and which is the sink; USB-C isn't even permitted to supply you the 5V until that's decided (never mind higher voltages). The negotiation goes over the USB2 pairs so you'll get at least that, even for the most basic charging cable.
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You didn't read the GP carefully.
USB-C supports devices that can change their mind about whether they source or sink power. You have to negotiate which direction the power is going before you can supply any, and that has nothing to do with PD. Once you've done that, THEN you can negotiate how much.
Every compliant USB-C cable is required to support at least USB 2 (480 MB/s) data. It's in the standard, you can look it up.
Also, USB PD works just fine on cables that are USB A on one end and C on the other.
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With a product I am involved with the development of we are going to include a USB-A to USB-C charging cable. It was suggested we use a charging only cable, no data, as we could get a nicer thinner cable with a better esthetic and feel. I argued against that idea and were going with a proper USB 2 cable which I guess under this new system would be labeled 480Mbps.
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Yes, I like USB-C but the reality is most hubs and many PCs are still USB-A.
That isn't a reality in the slightest. It's been a long time since I've seen or used a PC or a hub without USB-C. People
With a product I am involved with the development of we are going to include a USB-A to USB-C charging cable.
Then you're an idiot. Provide an appropriate USB-C cable and if you insist on throwing grandma a bone put an adapter in the case. You're contributing to ever more e-waste delivering yet another cable that is obsolete before it's even unpacked.
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I like USB-C, it has a lot going for it and is my preferred device connector. However it has one fatal flaw, it physically ignores the role of something it connects to and USB is not symmetrical. A USB-A to USB-B cable never has that problem, if you can plug it in it works. With USB-C it can be connected to a device or a host. It can be connected to a power source or a power sink. There in lies the
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As you say I could provide a USB-C to USB-C cable and a USB-C charger, but that would add to e-waste and may run into legal issues in Europe.
False. In fact an all USB-C setup is specifically what most EU rules around e-waste demand.
Since it may end up as e-waste I like to make such cables to be as short as is reasonable.
Okay I partially retract my idiot statement. You at least put some thought into it. But your move still continues to promote the very situation you are complaining against. So ... dumb? Seems better than idiotic. Also this isn't an argument I'm making, this is just my opinion of what you are doing.
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There's no such thing as a no data USB cable, at least for some definitions of "USB".
Apple sells "charge only" USB-C cables but in fact they are fully functional USB 2.0 cables. Why not call them USB 2.0 cables then? My guess is to avoid too many support calls. They work for connecting USB-C external drives and such if there's nothing better about and there's no hurry, there will be data transferred in spite of being "charge only".
I've seen USB-C cables for VOOC, PowerIQ, or whatever cheap BS charging so
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They may not be included in the USB standard
So you're suggesting the standard which isn't being used and expressly does not permit the product to exist should have specific conditions mandating how those products should be designed?
Are you okay?
Better idea: Stop buying non-compliant shit just to save a buck. No reputable company is shipping products with USB cables that don't comply with the spec. Stop shopping on TEMU, or Wish, or Aliexpress. Your life will be better.
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Yeah, because they don't want you to be able to use your files outside of their own ecosystem, let alone transfer your own files between devices. It's sad.
I don't follow, I thought I was clear that even though the cables were labeled "charge only" they were still able to carry USB 2.0 data. Did you miss the "scare quotes" I used?
Apple also sells data and charge cables which are rated for 20Gbps.
https://www.apple.com/shop/pro... [apple.com]
And cables for charging and data rated for 40Gbps.
https://www.apple.com/shop/pro... [apple.com]
Don't let the facts hurt your feelings, okay?
Finally (Score:5, Funny)
BTW (Score:2)
Some motherboard manufacturers have been doing this for quite some time now: they label ports with their speed, i.e. 5/10/20/40Gbps.
I hope it becomes universal now.
Caveats (Score:2, Insightful)
dropping technical terms like "USB4v2" in favor of straightforward speed ratings such as "USB 80Gbps" or "USB 40Gbps."
That's the good news. But the bad news is, this is USB, after all.
That means that due to obscure technicalities, "USB 80Gbps" has an actual throughput of 13.2Gib/s, whereas "USB 40Gbps" has an actual throughput of 275.4Gbps, unless it is delivering more than 17.4W of power, in which case it becomes 743kbps.
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Do you have a reference for any of this? USB 80Gbps uses PAM3 to get to actual 80 Gbps and even with signaling overhead and other throughput constraints 70 Gbps should be attainable. Your units are all over the place but 13.2 gibibit/second is 14.17 gigabit/second and that's just way off. And 275.4Gbps cited for USB 40Gbps is somehow much higher than your number for USB 80Gbps and higher than 40Gbps? There is nothing I can find for the 17.4W number cited and it seems like a weird number because charging pho
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Whoosh.
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Whoosh.
In order for anything to be a "woosh" statement it needs to make an obvious joke. Your post comes across as just plainly incorrect which puts you among the majority of stupid people on Slashdot.
Next time leave the jokes to people who know what they are doing.
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Back in the day, when you made a post on this site with utterly ridiculous errors about a technology known to have faults, it was understood by most users of this site to be a joke. Now the people who know about things like that are gone, and this site is mostly a handful of regular characters arguing culture wars. I probably should move on as well.
At any rate, it might not have been much of a joke, but I would never be able to top USB's prank of making users figure out the meanings of "full speed" vs "high
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734kbps ought to be enough for anybody.
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Did you remember to pull down the "Don't Pull This Signal Down" signal?
I feel the need (Score:2)
The need for (USB) speed!
Dropping technical terms like "USB4v2" (Score:2)
Version number aren't technical, they are marketing.
Technical version numbers are the last component, usually not displayed, that identifies the specific build of something.
True speed, or claimed speed? (Score:2)
Just about all speeds these days are theoretical, like the speed your ISP says you get with your internet connection, or that your telco claims for its customers. In real life, few actually achieve the claimed speeds.
I suppose we'll have to settle for the claimed speed, as we do with all other products.
Good Move, BUT... (Score:2)
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Sigh. (Score:2)
Everyone else remember when, for a brief period, all Intel processors were numbered by their speed?
Yeah, it didn't last. And this won't.
And ironically, the only thing I care about in a processor was the speed and number of cores. The rest just complicates quite what you can predict without actually benchmarking anyway.
A USB cable is slightly different - a number could describe almost everything I need to know. Until they introduce a wattage on it too because you need to know the wattage and now that 80Gb
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Halfway there (Score:2)
GBps Gbps (Score:2)
Now all you have to do is educate all the ad and web page writers about the difference between Gbps and GBps. Like, do the Chinese even have capital letters?
USB shape (Score:2)
Sure, speed is important to know, but more important is getting the correct USB end that fits into your port. To my way of thinking, if you don't have the correct fitting, then regardless what the speed is, you're getting zero.
It's all the same (Score:2)
I've been seeing more and more non-technical people refer to USB-C as just "USB" so I think the obfuscation battle is won (or lost). It's all just "USB" now. They might as well call these more expensive cables "USB Faster" or "USB Fastest"