Reply to: USB cable with two connectors

[PinkPoshRat]

SCART leads used to drive me potty too. They were too chunky and cumbersome to easy rotate, and they're always in mind fumblingly difficult places to reach. Pah! Those HDMIs are too similar to USBs. Pah Pah!!

[Spacecadet]

The Apple ones do have a little symbol on one side so you can tell which way up they should be.

most usb cables have a little usb symbol on the top side

[Sysman]

Why not bung an extension on em? My office desk has bits of wire sticking out everywhere connected to all sorts of things. USB extensions, telephone, line in, amps, power for various things. Trouble is I never know which is which.

We had an electrical checkup a few years ago as part of the building insurance, so I carefully unravelled all my cabling and labelled it in preparation.

Within no more than 6 months it was a tangled mess, even the stuff at the side of my desk which I can't kick accidentally.

[Sysman]

I know what you mean.

I wish the USB logo on the plugs was either had a braille type profile or was a different colour so you could easily see which is the correct way up.

The Apple ones do have a little symbol on one side so you can tell which way up they should be.

[xoggoth]

Why not bung an extension on em? My office desk has bits of wire sticking out everywhere connected to all sorts of things. USB extensions, telephone, line in, amps, power for various things. Trouble is I never know which is which.

[Sysman]

For me the USB plug will only go in once I've turned it 180 degrees and then back to the original position again.

I've had that as well.

If I can I look into the socket to see which side has the plastic bit.

This doesn't work for sockets buried around the back of my PC which are obscured by all the other cables.

[gingerjedi]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone else suffer from the same problem as me.... The USB plug is ALWAYS upside down when you try to plug it in....

Drives me mad, everytime

For me the USB plug will only go in once I've turned it 180 degrees and then back to the original position again.

[Clippy]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone else suffer from the same problem as me.... The USB plug is ALWAYS upside down when you try to plug it in....

Drives me mad, everytime

I know what you mean.

I wish the USB logo on the plugs was either had a braille type profile or was a different colour so you could easily see which is the correct way up.

[Sysman]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone else suffer from the same problem as me.... The USB plug is ALWAYS upside down when you try to plug it in....

Drives me mad, everytime

This is a manifestation of the Murphy's Law which states that any given cable will naturally orientate itself by 180 degrees to the receiving connector.

[PinkPoshRat]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone else suffer from the same problem as me.... The USB plug is ALWAYS upside down when you try to plug it in....

Drives me mad, everytime

[Clippy]

Slight tangent, but I see Intel are now moving into the USB space with their new competing connectivity solution Thunderbolt.

[Sysman]

I think the only time I've had to use the second connector is with an old-ish laptop, so maybe they upped the power ceiling sometime after USB2, as I'm pretty sure it wasn't USB1. I'd have noticed it taking all week to copy a few gigs!

I tried that a couple of months ago. I couldn't be bothered unpacking my laptop so used the old laptop (USB-1) to do some large downloads and started copying them to a USB drive...

I unpacked my laptop after all.

[PAH]

In my experience, it's in case the device you connect it to isn't outputting enough juice per USB port, so you need two connections to provide enough power.

I think the only time I've had to use the second connector is with an old-ish laptop, so maybe they upped the power ceiling sometime after USB2, as I'm pretty sure it wasn't USB1. I'd have noticed it taking all week to copy a few gigs!

[Clippy]

Presumably to get around the 500mA current limit on USB.

Probably cheaper for the manufacturer to include such a USB cable than an external power adapter.

[xoggoth]

Cheers all. I was thinking it was so could stick them together in a chain or summit, drives D:, E: etc, that would be handy.