Meme “the number of people who think this is an abomination” over a photo of a USB-A to USB-A cable, “but think this is perfectly acceptable” over a photo of a USB-C to USB-C cable, “makes me sick.”
I have an external 3.5“ HDD enclosure that has a USB-A port to connect the usb cable to. I have no idea who thought that was a good idea. The difference in price to a B connector can’t be that significant…
I have a similar PATA enclosure. I thought it was cursed until I got to reuse the A-A cable to upload FlashFloppy custom firmware to Gotek floppy emulators without wiring up a USB-serial adaptor.
My WH1080 weather station has a USB-A connector on the device side, I assume for the convenience of the slimmer profile.
That’s the only natural occurrence of that cable I’ve ever seen.
The other one was a custom board printed in 2001 at the electronics class, where I was some kind of precursor by powering it with a USB cable rather than a bulky lab power supply. As I did salvage the connector it was a A-A abomination but they had that cable at the supermarket for some reason ¯_(ツ)_/¯
If you go buy one of those laser engravers off of eBay, for some reason their data in ports are USB-A, and they come with USB A to A cables. My understanding is you can both plug it into a PC and run it kind of like a printer, click Print and the machine jumps to life, or plug in a USB key with tool path profiles on it to use standalone. Why not have a USB-B port for device mode and a USB-A port for host mode is beyond me, I don’t live in Shenzhen.
I read the Wikipedia a little and apparently A to A cables can damage your devices, and the ones that do exist are for specific purposes and should only be used in those specific scenarios, and often they are more than just cables and have some computational stuff inside them
Why would that be illegal? Shouldn’t there be some way to plug an older flash drive or console cable into a laptop that doesn’t have a type A port? (Ahem, Mac)
USB-A male to USB-A male is not in any USB standard (not entirely true, but compliant cables are very rare and don’t connect voltage), and if you plug it into a device it’s not meant for, the behavior is entirely unspecified. It will probably do nothing. But it might fry your USB controller that is not expecting to receive voltage.
USB-C to USB-C is in the spec, and if you plug in two host devices, they won’t hurt each other. You can actually charge a host device over USB-C, unlike USB-A.
That’s why it isn’t ok. It’s not the same thing, it’s not in the standard, and it can even be dangerous (to the device).
I absolutely have some Type C cables that only work one way because there’s no enforced standards and the manufacturer will wire them however is cheap, throw on another company’s logo, and sell it to Amazom.
Even if you don’t, there is basically no way to tell you’ve got a legit authentic product that passed QC until you test it yourself.
The supply chains that give retailers plausible deniability wrt child labor also by their nature allow counterfeits.
You have to get your electronics from somewhere, retailers’ supply chain has a helluva lot more quality control than Amazon. Just because you can’t get to 100% doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive for, well, anything more than the worst chances anyone can offer.
I imagine that “sold by Amazon” has about the same supply chain reliability as big box retailers. On Amazon you do gotta check your seller rating if you’re not buying prime, but that’s not harder than driving to best buy, and big box retailer online stores have the same problem when they’re the storefront for 3rd parties (as many are, trying to emulate Amazon).
On Amazon, reviews can be faked, but at least it has reviews.
You’re wrong. Amazon mixes inventory between themselves and any other seller that’s fulfilled by Amazon, meaning if one random seller has fake product, then even the “sold by Amazon” option can send you that other seller’s fake product. And vice versa, of course.
There is absolutely a certification process, but playing legal whack-a-mole with fly-by-night counterfeiters is difficult.
This is why buying reputable brands from reputable sellers is important.
But even then, I remember years ago I read an article about major retailers selling counterfeit brand name SD cards that didn’t meet the labeled performance specifications and had very poor QC. Turns out that gray market sellers were buying batches of the real product that failed QC and just reselling them as though they were fine, and they ended up making their way back into the distribution network.
In the end the conclusion was that we’re all kind of fucked until retailers start being way more strict about their supply chains, which they are disincentivized to do, because the current system gives them plausible deniability on things like child labor.
Who is “they”?
You have to test the product to know it’s counterfeit. Then you have to return it. Then you have to buy it again and, what? Hope that what they have stocked is from a different batch? I don’t think this is any different between Amazon and other retailers
The counterfeiters buy legit products and return their cheapo fakes through fake buyer accounts. So for the price of manufactoring the counterfeit products they’ve purchased the real thing.
They then sell the authentic products through other channels and appear to be supplying authentic, quality products affordably to buyers and marketplaces while at the same time poisoning the legitimate market.
USB began as a protocol where one side (USB-A) takes the leading role and the other (USB-B) the following role . this was mandated by hardware with differently shaped plugs and ports . this made sense for the time as USB was ment to connect computers to peripherals .
however some devices don’t fit this binary that well : one might want to connect their phone to their computer to pull data off it , but they also might want to connect a keyboard to it , with the small form factor not allowing for both a USB-A and USB-B port. the solution was USB On-The-Go : USB Mini-A/B/AB and USB Micro-A/B/AB connectors have an additional pin which allows both modes of operations
with USB-C , aside from adding more pins and making the connector rotationally symmetric , a very similar yet differently named feature was included , since USB-C - USB-C connections were planed for
so yeah USB-A to USB-A connections are explicitly not allowed , for a similar reason as you only see CEE 7 (fine , or the objectively worse NEMA) plugs on both ends of a cable only in joke made cables . USB-C has additional hardware to support both sides using USB-C which USB-A , neither in the original or 3.0 revision , has .
please don’t use that term, every time i see it i immediately verge on orgasming. you’ve already made me ruin 2 undergarments today. i have a serious bdsm kink and this is not funny.
edit : to clarify , I believe it does , using the CC1 & CC2 pins which are also used for other things , but I don’t know anything about USB protocol side , I should learn about it haha
I think since it’s now a software implementation, USB-C supports many such modes, some of which are slave-master as is needed, but others such as various display modes, and power modes.
I bought a charging pad once that had a USB c connector but none of the 40 USB power adapters I have have one so I returned it. IDK wtf they were thinking. Just make the wall end an A connector like everyone else has been doing for a decade.
Oh no the wires are a mess. Usb3 cables have extra wires and pins for super-speed. IIRC usb-c has said extra pins for usb configuration like pd or displayport alt mode. The wires can also be different. Some can carry more current, most cables are insufficient for really high data rates…
I had to look up, USB PD does work with a USB A port.
That being said, I personally want to get to a single type of cable so any I get can be spares for anything I have, so I like USB c to be all around.
That ALSO being said, I doubt I will ever get to all USB C.
Side note, USB PD is awesome because I know it can do up to 240w. (Last I knew.) That is 48v at 5a, so I am not sure what they can do to squeeze out more wattage.
USB PD is not specced for USB-A which is limited to 5V 2.4A. They had Quick Charge back in the day that got a little bit higher power using 9V but all the modern higher voltage high current PD stuff uses USB-C. The USB-A cables aren’t specced to be running 5A or more that PD uses.
Well, if you have asymmetric cables, there’s always one clearly-defined host and the other one is the slave.
it works like sex: with usb-c, both devices more or less kinda have ti “negotiate” who’s dom and who’s sub. that takes extra negotiation effort and makes the protocol more complicated. and therefore more expensive imo.
actually the same pins (well one of them , though since the connector is rotationally symmetric you need two anyway) are used for USB Power Delivery and to negotiate what speed regime to operate in .
furthermore , USB On the go , which was introduced in USB 2.0 , offers the same functionality for USB Micro and USB Mini
I actually found an A to A cable in my Big Box of Cables I Might Need One Day™ when trying to flash my Gotek floppy emulator with FlashFloppy firmware.
The USB spec requires one master and one slave device, which is usually decided by which type of connector each side has. USB OTG can bypass that restriction, but I’ve only ever seen it done with micro USB or type C.
I actually have one of the USB A cables above from an old android tablet that had 2 full USB A ports on the side.
One was always a slave/device port while the other actually had a physical switch to change from Host to Device.
That used to be my mobile media tablet. I could cast wirelessly or steam directly from the mini HDMI port. Such an awesome device for how cheap it was.
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I have an external 3.5“ HDD enclosure that has a USB-A port to connect the usb cable to. I have no idea who thought that was a good idea. The difference in price to a B connector can’t be that significant…
I have a similar PATA enclosure. I thought it was cursed until I got to reuse the A-A cable to upload FlashFloppy custom firmware to Gotek floppy emulators without wiring up a USB-serial adaptor.
You underestimate what price difference is significant in some cases. If it is even a tenth of a cent cheaper, it is decided.
I know, but it shouldn’t matter. Also, it feels like the amount the A port is cheaper an A to A cable would be more expensive
I guess the usb spec makes you sick then.
With the the first one you can fry your gear, while stuff that takes the second one does auto negotiation.
My WH1080 weather station has a USB-A connector on the device side, I assume for the convenience of the slimmer profile.
That’s the only natural occurrence of that cable I’ve ever seen.
The other one was a custom board printed in 2001 at the electronics class, where I was some kind of precursor by powering it with a USB cable rather than a bulky lab power supply. As I did salvage the connector it was a A-A abomination but they had that cable at the supermarket for some reason ¯_(ツ)_/¯
If you go buy one of those laser engravers off of eBay, for some reason their data in ports are USB-A, and they come with USB A to A cables. My understanding is you can both plug it into a PC and run it kind of like a printer, click Print and the machine jumps to life, or plug in a USB key with tool path profiles on it to use standalone. Why not have a USB-B port for device mode and a USB-A port for host mode is beyond me, I don’t live in Shenzhen.
It is expected to be rare, since A to A cables are out of spec.
I read the Wikipedia a little and apparently A to A cables can damage your devices, and the ones that do exist are for specific purposes and should only be used in those specific scenarios, and often they are more than just cables and have some computational stuff inside them
What if I put a C-to-A Adapter on both ends? Is that okay?
Yea but it’s inefficient. USB-A has a significantly lower transfer rate than USB-C so it’ll bottleneck
C to A adapters are sick and illegal
I still have some
Why would that be illegal? Shouldn’t there be some way to plug an older flash drive or console cable into a laptop that doesn’t have a type A port? (Ahem, Mac)
They might have been referring to an adapter with a female USB type C port and male type a port.
I use them just fine for charging purposes
Apple Watch -> Qi to USB C -> USB C to USB A -> 5w wall adapter
This is what I mean. This won’t help in your case.
I actually thought this was about rolling up cables: circling on the top and over-under at the bottom
If I remember correctly you can’t do data copy with A to A. I maybe wrong but I’m to lazy to look up.
USB-A male to USB-A male is not in any USB standard (not entirely true, but compliant cables are very rare and don’t connect voltage), and if you plug it into a device it’s not meant for, the behavior is entirely unspecified. It will probably do nothing. But it might fry your USB controller that is not expecting to receive voltage.
USB-C to USB-C is in the spec, and if you plug in two host devices, they won’t hurt each other. You can actually charge a host device over USB-C, unlike USB-A.
That’s why it isn’t ok. It’s not the same thing, it’s not in the standard, and it can even be dangerous (to the device).
I think the argument that A-A should be in the spec.
But usb-c is just so much better all around.
USB-A requires three attempts to connect, C only one.
I absolutely have some Type C cables that only work one way because there’s no enforced standards and the manufacturer will wire them however is cheap, throw on another company’s logo, and sell it to Amazom.
Don’t buy electronics through amazon. This is precisely why.
Even if you don’t, there is basically no way to tell you’ve got a legit authentic product that passed QC until you test it yourself. The supply chains that give retailers plausible deniability wrt child labor also by their nature allow counterfeits.
You have to get your electronics from somewhere, retailers’ supply chain has a helluva lot more quality control than Amazon. Just because you can’t get to 100% doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive for, well, anything more than the worst chances anyone can offer.
I imagine that “sold by Amazon” has about the same supply chain reliability as big box retailers. On Amazon you do gotta check your seller rating if you’re not buying prime, but that’s not harder than driving to best buy, and big box retailer online stores have the same problem when they’re the storefront for 3rd parties (as many are, trying to emulate Amazon).
On Amazon, reviews can be faked, but at least it has reviews.
You’re wrong. Amazon mixes inventory between themselves and any other seller that’s fulfilled by Amazon, meaning if one random seller has fake product, then even the “sold by Amazon” option can send you that other seller’s fake product. And vice versa, of course.
Ooph yeah that seems pretty bad. What is even the purpose of seller rating with FBA if the inventories are mixed?
When I need something for work I have a company account.
Gross. I haven’t run into that.
I have never seen this.
There is absolutely a certification process, but playing legal whack-a-mole with fly-by-night counterfeiters is difficult.
This is why buying reputable brands from reputable sellers is important.
But even then, I remember years ago I read an article about major retailers selling counterfeit brand name SD cards that didn’t meet the labeled performance specifications and had very poor QC. Turns out that gray market sellers were buying batches of the real product that failed QC and just reselling them as though they were fine, and they ended up making their way back into the distribution network.
In the end the conclusion was that we’re all kind of fucked until retailers start being way more strict about their supply chains, which they are disincentivized to do, because the current system gives them plausible deniability on things like child labor.
They’ll also buy the real product, return the counterfeit product, then sell the real one.
Who is “they”?
You have to test the product to know it’s counterfeit. Then you have to return it. Then you have to buy it again and, what? Hope that what they have stocked is from a different batch? I don’t think this is any different between Amazon and other retailers
The counterfeiters buy legit products and return their cheapo fakes through fake buyer accounts. So for the price of manufactoring the counterfeit products they’ve purchased the real thing.
They then sell the authentic products through other channels and appear to be supplying authentic, quality products affordably to buyers and marketplaces while at the same time poisoning the legitimate market.
It’s essentially counterfeit laundering.
I have a switch controller that requires two plug ins to work
Six since it has A at both ends.
There is no USB-B here and it is pretty hard to get the wrong direction anyway.
Sorry, I meant for a “normal” A to B cord lol.
actually they would be correct :
USB began as a protocol where one side (USB-A) takes the leading role and the other (USB-B) the following role . this was mandated by hardware with differently shaped plugs and ports . this made sense for the time as USB was ment to connect computers to peripherals .
however some devices don’t fit this binary that well : one might want to connect their phone to their computer to pull data off it , but they also might want to connect a keyboard to it , with the small form factor not allowing for both a USB-A and USB-B port. the solution was USB On-The-Go : USB Mini-A/B/AB and USB Micro-A/B/AB connectors have an additional pin which allows both modes of operations
with USB-C , aside from adding more pins and making the connector rotationally symmetric , a very similar yet differently named feature was included , since USB-C - USB-C connections were planed for
so yeah USB-A to USB-A connections are explicitly not allowed , for a similar reason as you only see CEE 7 (fine , or the objectively worse NEMA) plugs on both ends of a cable only in joke made cables . USB-C has additional hardware to support both sides using USB-C which USB-A , neither in the original or 3.0 revision , has .
With USB-C isn’t there still a slave-master dynamic that is now negotiated via software rather than hardware?
please don’t use that term, every time i see it i immediately verge on orgasming. you’ve already made me ruin 2 undergarments today. i have a serious bdsm kink and this is not funny.
sorry, I didn’t mean trigger you. I’ll refer to it as a daddy-pig duo instead
it seems like it , but I have no idea !
edit : to clarify , I believe it does , using the CC1 & CC2 pins which are also used for other things , but I don’t know anything about USB protocol side , I should learn about it haha
I think since it’s now a software implementation, USB-C supports many such modes, some of which are slave-master as is needed, but others such as various display modes, and power modes.
I bought a charging pad once that had a USB c connector but none of the 40 USB power adapters I have have one so I returned it. IDK wtf they were thinking. Just make the wall end an A connector like everyone else has been doing for a decade.
USB-C can deliver more power which is why they’ve been appearing more and more on charging bricks.
C-C carries more power than A-C?
USB-PD is only specified for USB-C. I think they use an extra channel for this configuration, so it’s not possible to use PD over A plugs.
There were competing standards like Qualcom quick charge. AFAIK they never went above 20-ish watts on USB-A, while PD is specced at up to 240W.
Interesting. I always figured the wires inside were all the same.
Oh no the wires are a mess. Usb3 cables have extra wires and pins for super-speed. IIRC usb-c has said extra pins for usb configuration like pd or displayport alt mode. The wires can also be different. Some can carry more current, most cables are insufficient for really high data rates…
Yes, USB-A is only spec’ed for 5v 2.4a, so it will end up throttling the USB-C end which has higher power delivery specs.
I had to look up, USB PD does work with a USB A port.
That being said, I personally want to get to a single type of cable so any I get can be spares for anything I have, so I like USB c to be all around.
That ALSO being said, I doubt I will ever get to all USB C.
Side note, USB PD is awesome because I know it can do up to 240w. (Last I knew.) That is 48v at 5a, so I am not sure what they can do to squeeze out more wattage.
USB PD is not specced for USB-A which is limited to 5V 2.4A. They had Quick Charge back in the day that got a little bit higher power using 9V but all the modern higher voltage high current PD stuff uses USB-C. The USB-A cables aren’t specced to be running 5A or more that PD uses.
https://www.usb.org/usb-charger-pd
Well, if you have asymmetric cables, there’s always one clearly-defined host and the other one is the slave.
it works like sex: with usb-c, both devices more or less kinda have ti “negotiate” who’s dom and who’s sub. that takes extra negotiation effort and makes the protocol more complicated. and therefore more expensive imo.
actually the same pins (well one of them , though since the connector is rotationally symmetric you need two anyway) are used for USB Power Delivery and to negotiate what speed regime to operate in .
furthermore , USB On the go , which was introduced in USB 2.0 , offers the same functionality for USB Micro and USB Mini
Just a small nitpick, but sub or dom doesn’t care about gender or sex, its top or bottom you mean in your example :)
bottom dom sounds interesting 🤔
Is that like a power bottom on steroids?
more like a power button
“they are the same picture” -my wife
I actually found an A to A cable in my Big Box of Cables I Might Need One Day™ when trying to flash my Gotek floppy emulator with FlashFloppy firmware.
The USB spec requires one master and one slave device, which is usually decided by which type of connector each side has. USB OTG can bypass that restriction, but I’ve only ever seen it done with micro USB or type C.
I actually have one of the USB A cables above from an old android tablet that had 2 full USB A ports on the side.
One was always a slave/device port while the other actually had a physical switch to change from Host to Device.
That used to be my mobile media tablet. I could cast wirelessly or steam directly from the mini HDMI port. Such an awesome device for how cheap it was.