[HN Gopher] USB Cheat Sheet
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       USB Cheat Sheet
        
       Author : WithinReason
       Score  : 308 points
       Date   : 2022-05-05 08:43 UTC (14 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (fabiensanglard.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (fabiensanglard.net)
        
       | synergy20 wrote:
       | Like the simple site design with a one page info about USB.
       | 
       | someone please make similar one-page with tables about PCI
       | Express, Ethernet, HDMI...
        
         | NoXero wrote:
         | I second that request!
        
         | ProZsolt wrote:
         | I created a cheat sheet for Ethernet, when I built my home
         | network:
         | https://github.com/ProZsolt/runbook/blob/master/ethernet-cab...
        
           | synergy20 wrote:
           | shoud 100, 400, 800G be added, yes a bit earlier for 800G but
           | I think 100/400G are already in use at data centers.
        
             | ProZsolt wrote:
             | This only covers twisted pair, as I only use this as
             | reference when I need new endpoints in my or my parents
             | house.
             | 
             | I'll update the guide when I rewire my house with fiber
             | optics (currently I don't even use the full potential of
             | cat 6), but contributions are welcomed.
        
           | navaati wrote:
           | Really nice !
           | 
           | Today I learn that there is a 25 and 40G-BASE-T on copper,
           | these PHY must heat like hell haha.
        
       | dschuetz wrote:
       | So where exactly does USB-C fall into?
       | 
       | I have 2 different generations of USB-C hosts, and they behave
       | quite differently when approaching max cap, especially with high-
       | quality low-latency audio (USB-C was supposed to be de-facto
       | replacement for FireWire).
        
         | Tepix wrote:
         | Good question. I bought a RaidSonic Icy Box IB-1121-C31 USB 3.1
         | (10Gbit) S-ATA dock recently (with a USB Type C connector) that
         | came with a USB C cable and had a buy a special "USB-A - USB
         | type C cable" to achieve 10Gbit/s with the 10GBit/s USB A
         | connector of my mainboard.
         | 
         | The "USB A - USB type C cables" that i had already only worked
         | up to 480MBit/s.
        
         | hyperman1 wrote:
         | It's orthogonal.
         | 
         | Usb A is a host side connection Usb B (normal/mini/micro) is a
         | client side connector Usb C is a 2 way connector.
         | 
         | Each of them can be implemented for each USB version, except
         | USB C came later and makes no sense befor USB 3.
         | 
         | Then USB versions added features, signalling conventions and
         | wires. But the USB A and B connector are backward compatible
         | all the way to USB 1.0 1.5Mbit/s
        
           | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
           | On-the-Go allows mini and micro B to be host as well.
        
         | LeonidasXIV wrote:
         | USB-C is a connector type, like USB-A (usually known as the
         | classic USB plug) and USB-B (usually the other side of said
         | plug, a square kind of connector). USB-B had other offspring
         | like miniUSB and microUSB (note that in these cases on the
         | other side of the cable you usually have a USB-A plug).
         | 
         | USB-C is the first time cables have the same connector on both
         | sides, so it obsoletes USB-A and USB-B. But what is sent over
         | USB-C? Can be USB 3 with which it is often conflated because
         | they came around the same time, but it can also be USB 2, so it
         | is a bit hard to tell. But USB 3 can use old style USB-A as
         | well (the blue plugs with the same shape as the classic USB
         | plugs) and USB-C (the microUSB plugs with an extension off to
         | the side).
        
           | LordDragonfang wrote:
           | >note that in these cases on the other side of the cable you
           | usually have a USB-A plug
           | 
           | Usually a _full-size_ USB-A, you mean, because what we
           | commonly know as mini-USB and micro-USB are actually mini-B
           | and micro-B, which have corresponding (but now rarely used)
           | micro-A and micro-A ports. Before USB-OTG, USB used to be an
           | explicitly directional protocol, with a master and a slave
           | device.
           | 
           | https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/USB_2.0_.
           | ..
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware
        
           | danieldk wrote:
           | _Can be USB 3 [...] USB 2, so it is a bit hard to tell._
           | 
           | ...or Thunderbolt, USB 4, DisplayPort (through Alt-mode or
           | encapsulated in Thunderbolt), or HDMI (Alt-mode), or MHL
           | (Alt-mode), USB Power Delivery...
           | 
           | Unfortunately, not every cable with USB-C connectors can
           | carry all of these. E.g. there are USB-C cables that can only
           | carry USB 2. Or cables that can carry USB 3, but not
           | Thunderbolt. Also, not all cables can carry the same wattage
           | for power delivery.
           | 
           | It's a mess.
        
             | jasomill wrote:
             | Worse, there are no "best" cables longer than 0.5m: any
             | longer than that, Thunderbolt 3 requires active cables
             | which don't pass non-Thunderbolt data beyond, IIRC, 480
             | Mbps.
             | 
             | As someone who spent many years using a mix of
             | 25/50/68/80-pin fast/ultra/... single-ended, LVD and HVD
             | parallel SCSI devices, however, USB-C/Thunderbolt cabling
             | _still_ feels like a breath of fresh air.
        
               | danieldk wrote:
               | I think Thunderbolt 4 active cables are supposed to pass
               | higher USB 3 speeds? At least the Apple Thunderbolt 4
               | cable claims to do so:
               | 
               | https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MN713AM/A/thunderbolt-
               | 4-p...
        
             | nolok wrote:
             | There was a period of time where a google engineer was
             | producting review on amazon about which usb-c cable would
             | make your laptop burn. That was fun, and totally not the
             | sign of an overbloated standard.
        
               | cesarb wrote:
               | IIRC, that particular cable was one which had its power
               | wired to the ground pin and ground wired to the power
               | pin. No standard can help you if the cable is that badly
               | made.
               | 
               | (The effect of that miswiring is to apply a negative
               | voltage, around -5V, to a chip most probably designed for
               | a range of -0.5V to 20.5V; which results in a short
               | circuit through at least the ESD protection diodes within
               | the chip, and possibly other parts of the chip too.)
        
               | Dylan16807 wrote:
               | Yep, a batch of cables having the super basic power pins
               | wired backwards tells you basically nothing about the
               | standard, no matter how often people try to use it as
               | evidence of complication.
               | 
               | And the docks that were frying switches were putting 9
               | volts on a signal pin, also obviously wrong.
        
             | rob74 wrote:
             | Of course USB-C makes this worse, but the problem already
             | started earlier: a few years ago I connected my phone to my
             | computer with a USB-A to micro USB cable and was scratching
             | my head why it didn't work. Then I remembered that the
             | cable had come with some Bluetooth headphones and was only
             | a charging cable without data lines...
        
               | colejohnson66 wrote:
               | Desktop speakers do this still. Instead of simply being a
               | USB speaker set, they use the line out jack for audio and
               | a USB plug for power.
        
               | LordDragonfang wrote:
               | There's actually a reason for that. Standard USB can
               | (obviously) only transfer digital audio, and most
               | speakers are "dumb" devices designed to just amplify an
               | analog signal. In order to convert digital to analog, you
               | need a DAC (Digital-to-Analog-Converter), and good DACs
               | are still a nontrivial cost to a manufacturer, so
               | whatever DAC you already have in your computer is
               | probably better than the crappy one that would come with
               | cheap consumer speakers.
        
               | izacus wrote:
               | Funny enough, USB-C can transport analogue audio over USB
               | cable though :)
               | 
               | Tends to be too expensive for the cheapest of products.
        
       | willis936 wrote:
       | USB 4 AKA USB 4 Gen2x2
       | 
       | USB 4 (opt) AKA USB 4 Gen3x2
       | 
       | They had a chance to fix their colossal fuckup and they decided
       | not to.
        
         | ThreePinkApples wrote:
         | In marketing and on cables they've chosen to use the terms USB4
         | 20Gbps and USB4 40Gbps, so at least that's explicit. There's
         | also officials ways to mark cables as being 100W or 240W
         | capable.
        
         | nolok wrote:
         | Their issue was not the naming for consumer or tech user, their
         | issue was "how do we allow any random laptop from claiming
         | latest usb despite not actually supporting it".
         | 
         | It was super obvious with usb 3 and its sub versions, and it
         | gets even worse with 4.
        
           | paulmd wrote:
           | Yes. The "IF" in "USB-IF" stands for _implementers forum_ ,
           | it is a consortium of hardware companies who make devices.
           | It's preferable to them if they can slap "USB 3.2 support!"
           | on the box without having to redo their boards with a new,
           | expensive component.
           | 
           | In other words, the incentives here are for USB-IF to
           | _promote_ customer confusion, not to _reduce_ it, because
           | that confusion can sell devices and push profit margins.
           | 
           | It's absolutely terrible that the EU is giving this group a
           | legal monopoly on the ability to create and proliferate new
           | standards. Their incentives fundamentally run against the
           | consumer and they have repeatedly acted against the interests
           | of the consumer. Unlike HDMI, there is no VESA to
           | counterbalance them, it is USB or nothing, so you'll have to
           | deal with these crappy standards going forward.
           | 
           | --
           | 
           | HDMI is doing something similar now too - "HDMI 2.1" is a
           | completely hollow standard where every single feature and
           | signaling mode added since HDMI 2.0 is completely optional.
           | You can take HDMI 2.0 hardware and get it recertified as HDMI
           | 2.1 without any changes - actually you _must_ do this since
           | HDMI Forum is not issuing HDMI 2.0 certifications any more,
           | only HDMI 2.1 going forward, the new standard  "supercedes"
           | the old one entirely.
           | 
           | So - "HDMI 2.1" on the box doesn't mean 4K120 support, it
           | doesn't mean VRR support, it doesn't mean HDR support. It
           | could actually just literally be HDMI 2.0 hardware inside.
           | You need to look for specific feature keywords if that is
           | your goal.
           | 
           | https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/12/the-hdmi-forum-
           | follo...
           | 
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo9Y7AMPn00
        
       | hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
       | If you think it's not complicated enough, add Thunderbolt to it.
        
         | CharlesW wrote:
         | Thunderbolt 4 is effectively USB 4.
         | https://www.cablematters.com/blog/Thunderbolt/usb4-vs-thunde...
        
       | netsharc wrote:
       | Ah USB. In the old days it was different cables for different
       | things, nowadays it's 1 connector for everything but beware, the
       | cable might physically plug into the socket, but whether you'll
       | get the functionality you want?
        
         | izacus wrote:
         | Just how many devices do you meet that regularly hit those edge
         | cases? Outside 4K+ multimonitor connections?
         | 
         | (It's really popular and easy to bash on USB on this forum, but
         | it turns out that in real life your USB-C device will "just
         | work" for pretty much all setups outside really fringe high
         | performance ones. And even those will usually just negotiate
         | lower rate.)
        
         | doubled112 wrote:
         | Seems it is going backward to me too.
         | 
         | At one point I remember hooking up a computer being like one of
         | those shape puzzles we give children. If you can match them
         | they'll work. No two of my devices used the same cable or port,
         | but if it fit it'd work.
         | 
         | Keyboard switched to PS/2 so those and PS/2 mice were
         | confusing, but eventually they standardized on colours.
         | 
         | USB came out and you could just plug it in wherever. This was
         | great.
         | 
         | And now? 20 combinations of cable features with the same socket
         | but all do something else. I can only imagine what the return
         | rate will be for stuff like this.
        
       | cosmotic wrote:
       | Where's the standard speed?
        
       | can16358p wrote:
       | So on the next versions of USB, the cable length will get shorter
       | and shorter until the max gets to 5cm?
       | 
       | While I get the technical reasoning about high
       | frequency/attenuation etc that limits cable length as speeds go
       | higher, there are obviously some practical limits to how short
       | cables can be.
       | 
       | How would that be solved, I don't know.
        
         | moffkalast wrote:
         | Keep the same speeds, add more wires.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | CoastalCoder wrote:
         | Not my area of expertise, but maybe some (unrealistic) options
         | include using fiber optics for the data lines, or adding more
         | data lines.
        
           | birktj wrote:
           | There already exists some fiber-optic USB cables that come in
           | lengths >50m and with support for USB 3.1 so it doesn't seem
           | like a very unrealistic option.
        
             | Chilinot wrote:
             | That sounds more like fiber optic adapters/converters that
             | fit into usb-ports and talk usb, rather than USB-cables
             | that can be 50+ meters.
        
               | Dylan16807 wrote:
               | What's the difference between talking USB and being USB?
        
               | duskwuff wrote:
               | Some USB4 / Thunderbolt cables are like that, but with
               | copper in the middle. The drivers on the device end
               | wouldn't be able to maintain signal integrity over that
               | size of cable, so there's a pair of transceivers in each
               | end of the cable to convert the signal into a format
               | that'll survive transmission.
        
               | michaelt wrote:
               | https://www.amazon.com/FIBBR-Female-Active-Extension-
               | Optical... provides USB-to-fibre-to-USB in a single
               | cable, and a copper pair in parallel for power.
        
               | jayd16 wrote:
               | Seems like you can get 3m optical usb-c cables. Oculus
               | sells an official "Full featured USB active optical
               | cable. USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C" for tethered play.
               | 
               | That's what the cheatsheet says so maybe that's part of
               | the spec.
        
               | jsjohnst wrote:
               | I think GP is thinking of fiber optic Thunderbolt cables
               | probably.
        
             | BolexNOLA wrote:
             | Redmere chips also proved HDMI can go very, very far with a
             | little extra investment. I've run 4K signals hundreds of
             | feet with them. We've seen this problem solved several
             | times, I can't imagine it's physically impossible with
             | USB-C.
        
           | dual_dingo wrote:
           | I guess at some point optical will be the only way forward.
           | 
           | Having more data lines in a serial bus is interesting, as the
           | whole reasoning to go from parallel lines (e.g. Centronics,
           | ATA/SCSI or ISA/PCI buses) to serial (SATA/SAS, PCIe, USB)
           | was that coordinating multiple data lines got impossible due
           | to physical limitations where e.g. minimal differences in
           | cable lengths started to matter).
        
             | Dylan16807 wrote:
             | > I guess at some point optical will be the only way
             | forward.
             | 
             | Maybe. Though Infiniband's currently at 100Gbps per lane on
             | a 1.5 meter passive cable. And active cables can give you a
             | moderate boost while still on copper.
        
               | paulmd wrote:
               | that's a giant QSFP+ cable (I think mine are at least
               | 3/8") with tons of shielding and a terrible bend radius
               | though.
               | 
               | And my cables all have a "10 plug/unplug cycle lifespan"
               | sticker on them - it undoubtedly will go for longer in
               | practice but it's not designed for USB-style usage where
               | you might plug and unplug your phone a dozen times a day
               | as you charge it.
               | 
               | Commercial design concerns are very different from
               | consumer design concerns, basically. Phones would
               | probably be easier if we had a 1/2" x 1/2" x 1.5"
               | connector with a shielded connector body! ;)
        
             | helpm33 wrote:
             | Multiple serial busses, each with its own clocking and
             | buffer, so that the combined data is extracted
             | synchronously at the end. The crosstalk is still a problem
             | but there are ways around that: different twist rates for
             | different pairs for instance.
        
       | legalcorrection wrote:
       | Suggestion: maybe include all the USB-C-plug Thunderbolt versions
       | too. My personal policy these days is to just buy reputable
       | Thunderbolt cables for all my USB-C needs. Maybe I'm doing the
       | wrong thing?
       | 
       | Also, I think there's a difference between active and passive
       | USB-C cables, or something like that.
        
         | masklinn wrote:
         | > Maybe I'm doing the wrong thing?
         | 
         | If you're happy with it then probably not.
         | 
         | The main possible issues are that it's more expensive and you
         | get shorter and thicker (less flexible) cables, a passive non-
         | optical TB (or USB4) cable will top out around 1m.
         | 
         | Less capable cables can be longer and thinner which is
         | convenient for e.g. mice and such small devices. But otherwise
         | may not matter overly much.
        
           | moron4hire wrote:
           | I've been pretty happy with my less flexible cables. I don't
           | need to snake them around tight corners anywhere. Being less
           | flexible seems to keep them from auto-tangling.
        
       | masklinn wrote:
       | Some of the entries seem incorrect: "USB 3.2 (USB 3.2 Gen 2x2)
       | and "USB 4" (USB 4 USB4 Gen 2x2) should have the same nominal
       | data rate of 2500MB/s, they're 2 lanes (x2) of 10GB/s. Though
       | they are apparently coded differently electrically, so they're
       | distinct protocols.
       | 
       | The tables would benefit from mentioning the coding (8/10 or
       | 128/132) as IMO it's one of the most confusing bits when you see
       | the _effective_ data rates:
       | 
       | * USB 3.2 Gen 1x2 has a nominal data rate of 10G (2 lanes at 5G)
       | with a raw throughput of 1GB/s (effective data rates topping out
       | around 900MB/s)
       | 
       | * USB 3.2 Gen 2x1 has the same nominal data rate of 10G (1 lane
       | at 10G) but a raw throughput of 1.2GB/s (and effective data rates
       | topping out around 1.1GB/s)
       | 
       | The difference is that Gen 1x uses the "legacy" 8/10 encoding,
       | while Gen 2x uses the newer 128/132 encoding, and thus has a much
       | lower overhead (around 3%, versus 20).
        
         | belter wrote:
         | Also should be:
         | 
         | 12 Mbps -> 1.43 MiB/s -> 1.5 MB/s
         | 
         | 480 Mbps -> 57 MiB/s -> 60 MB/s
         | 
         | 5000 Mbps (5 Gbps) -> 596 MiB/s -> 625 MB/s
         | 
         | 10000 Mbps (10 Gbps) -> 1192 MiB/s -> 1250 MB/s
         | 
         | 20000 Mbps (20 Gbps) -> 2384 MiB/s -> 2500 MB/s
         | 
         | 40000 Mbps (40 Gbps) -> 4768 MiB/s -> 5000 MB/s
        
           | adrian_b wrote:
           | No, some of your rates are wrong.
           | 
           | The so-called 5 Gb/s USB has a data rate of 4 Gb/s.
           | 
           | The marketing data rates for Ethernet are true, i.e. 1 Gb/s
           | Ethernet has a 1 Gb/s data rate, but a 1.25 Gb/s encoded bit
           | rate over the cable.
           | 
           | The marketing data rates for the first 2 generations of PCIe,
           | for all 3 generations of SATA, and for USB 3.0 a.k.a. "Gen 1"
           | of later standards, are false, being advertised as larger
           | with 25% (because 8 data bits are encoded into 10 bits sent
           | over the wire, which does not matter for the user).
           | 
           | All these misleading marketing data rates have been
           | introduced by Intel, who did not follow the rules used in
           | vendor-neutral standards, like Ethernet.
           | 
           | So PCIe 1 is 2 Gb/s, PCIe 2 & USB 3.0 are 4 Gb/s and SATA 3
           | is 4.8 Gb/s.
           | 
           | So USB "5 Gbps" => 500 MB/s (not 625 MB/s), and after
           | accounting for protocols like "USB Attached SCSI Protocol",
           | the maximum speed that one can see for an USB SSD on a "5
           | Gbps" port is between 400 MB/s and 450 MB/s.
           | 
           | The same applies for a USB Type C with 2 x 5 Gb/s links.
           | 
           | As other posters have already mentioned, USB 3.1 a.k.a. the
           | "Gen 2" of later standards has introduced a more efficient
           | encoding, so its speed is approximately 10 Gb/s.
           | 
           | The "10 Gbps" USB is not twice faster than the "5 Gbps" USB,
           | it is 2.5 times faster, and this is important to know.
        
             | fabiensanglard wrote:
             | I should add Nominal vs Raw vs Effective speed to the
             | table.
             | 
             | Can you confirm with the rule to be used.
             | 
             | Raw Speed = Nominal / Encoding
             | 
             | UMS Speed = Raw / UMS overhead
             | 
             | In the case of 3.0 that would be:
             | 
             | Nominal = 625 MiB/s
             | 
             | Raw = 625 - 20% = 500 MiB/s
             | 
             | UMS = 500 - 20% = 400 MiB/s
        
               | adrian_b wrote:
               | The names for the various bit rates vary between authors
               | and standards.
               | 
               | I believe that the least confusing names would be:
               | 
               | Data bit rate = the rate at which the data bits provided
               | by the user are sent
               | 
               | Signaling bit rate = the rate at which bits are sent over
               | the physical communication medium
               | 
               | The 2 rates are not the same because the user data bits
               | are encoded in some way before being sent. The signaling
               | bit rate does not have any importance, except for those
               | who design communication equipment. For the users of some
               | communication equipment, only the data bit rate matters.
               | 
               | The data bit rate is equal to the signaling bit rate
               | multiplied by the ratio between data bits and the
               | corresponding encoded bits.
               | 
               | For example, for USB 3.0 (single link Gen 1):
               | 
               | Signaling bit rate = 5 Gb/s
               | 
               | Data bit rate = (5 * 8 / 10) Gb/s = 4 Gb/s
               | 
               | Data byte rate = (4 / 8) GB/s = 500 MB/s = 477 MiB/s
               | 
               | 5 Gb/s corresponds to 625 MB/s, but for a signaling bit
               | rate it is completely useless to convert bits to bytes,
               | because groups of 8 bits on the physical communication
               | medium do not normally correspond to bytes from the data
               | provided by the user. Only for the data bit rate it is
               | meaningful to be converted to a data byte rate.
               | 
               | For USB 3.1 (single link Gen 2):
               | 
               | Signaling bit rate = 10 Gb/s
               | 
               | Data bit rate = (10 * 128 / 132) Gb/s = 9.7 Gb/s
               | 
               | Data byte rate = (9.7 / 8) GB/s = 1212 MB/s = 1156 MiB/s
        
             | jbverschoor wrote:
             | Is that the same intel that "forgot" to mention that they
             | overclocked a demo cpu and used ndustrial water chiller?
        
               | ridgered4 wrote:
               | My favorite is when Intel demoed the new ivybridge iGPU
               | by having a guy fire up VLC player to play some footage
               | of a racing game while he pretended to control it with a
               | steering wheel controller.
               | 
               | I looked this up and it's actually even worse than than I
               | thought. When called out he claimed it was being control
               | from backstage.
               | 
               | https://www.techpowerup.com/158448/that-dodgy-intel-ivy-
               | brid...
        
               | asciii wrote:
               | I was curious and went looking for it. That's pretty
               | hilarious oversight!
               | 
               | https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-28-core-
               | cpu-5ghz,372...
        
               | jbverschoor wrote:
               | Lol that's hilarious
        
         | CamperBob2 wrote:
         | He goes off the rails earlier than that, by saying that USB 2.0
         | is "also known as" Hi-speed. HS is only one data rate supported
         | by the USB 2.0 standard; it incorporates both full speed from
         | the earlier standard and low speed, which isn't mentioned at
         | all.
        
           | masklinn wrote:
           | That's more of an approximation matching how, frankly, most
           | people think of the specs: yes USB 2.0 supersedes 1.1
           | entirely, but everyone will think of "full speed" and "low
           | speed" as USB 1 which are BC supported by USB 2.0.
           | 
           | That's also why USB 3.1 and 3.2's rebranding of previous
           | versions is so confusing and a pain in the ass to keep
           | straight: USB 3.2 1x1 is USB 3.1 Gen 1 is USB 3.0 (ignoring
           | the USB 2.0 BC).
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | fabiensanglard wrote:
         | Thank you for noticing these issues, I have updated the table.
         | 
         | I would be happy to improve it and add encoding. I am surprised
         | by some of the summary entries on Wikipedia
         | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB4). Looks like USB4
         | "reverted" to 128b/132b. It is accurate?
        
           | lxgr wrote:
           | 128b/132b is the more efficient coding. The closer to 1 the
           | fraction is, the less coding overhead it has, and 128/132 is
           | larger than 8/10.
        
             | fabiensanglard wrote:
             | Actually, I just noticed that 128/132 is the same fraction
             | as 66/64 so both scheme has the same encoding efficiency.
             | So USB-4 did no "revert in terms of efficiency.
        
       | 0xTJ wrote:
       | Just how much do you have to hate consumers to come up with a
       | scheme like this? Increment revisions as you add more features,
       | add something to the end to say how fast it goes. The 3.2
       | renaming is idiotic.
        
       | Villodre wrote:
       | I'm always flabbergasted at how difficult and hostile to the user
       | is discern between the various USB standards.
        
       | markus_zhang wrote:
       | Is that year 2025...
        
         | a3w wrote:
         | Nope, USB4 has been defined for a while now.
        
       | cesaref wrote:
       | There's something about the naming of USB that is great. I love
       | how there are now something like a dozen 'universal' standards,
       | and how the serial bus now has multiple lanes.
        
       | moffkalast wrote:
       | All it's missing is the pinouts and the charger resistor divider
       | setup definitions.
        
       | dimman wrote:
       | Thanks. Nit-picking here but ground is usually abbreviated GND,
       | not GRD.
        
       | Aragorn2331 wrote:
       | Hello Fabien ! I saw on twitter that you had built a gaming
       | setup, can you write an article on your blog as you did for your
       | silent pc ?
        
         | fabiensanglard wrote:
         | I did build a PC last year especially to play Diablo2:
         | Ressurected. I did write something at the time but never
         | published it. Maybe I will clean it up.
        
       | Someone wrote:
       | No USB On-The-Go (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_On-The-Go) or
       | Wireless USB (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_USB)?
       | 
       | USB is a triumph of marketeers over engineers. All these things
       | are called USB because USB sells (see also: Bluetooth).
        
         | ChrisRR wrote:
         | Bluetooth Smart aka. Bluetooth Low Energy aka. Wibree aka. not
         | actually bluetooth
        
         | IshKebab wrote:
         | I don't know anything about wireless USB but USB OTG is called
         | USB because it _is_ USB. It 's not some totally unrelated
         | protocol.
        
           | jandrese wrote:
           | I thought OTG was just changing up where the host controller
           | is sitting in the USB relationship? So you can have a device
           | that acts like a client when hooked to a computer, or a
           | master when hooked to a thumb drive/webcam/etc...?
        
             | IshKebab wrote:
             | Yeah it just allows you to use a B port as a host (if
             | supported). It's still the USB protocol.
        
               | cesarb wrote:
               | AFAIK, according to the standard you still cannot use the
               | B port as a host, it should instead be an AB port (a
               | socket in which both A and B plugs fit).
        
               | paulmd wrote:
               | I had an iRiver H320 with USB-OTG support. At the time I
               | thought it was just a straight-up mini-B port but you're
               | right, that's actually a mini-AB port!
               | 
               | https://www.guru3d.com/miraserver/images/reviews/soundcar
               | ds/...
               | 
               | I am not sure I have ever seen mini-A anywhere.
               | 
               | God, what a wacky standard. (USB-OTG specifically but
               | really USB plugs in general)
        
               | jcrawfordor wrote:
               | Another example of mini-AB is the TI-84 series. Two
               | calculators can be directly connected but a USB A-A cable
               | is verboten by the spec (although I sometimes see them
               | nonetheless), so TI put an AB port on the calculator and
               | sold a mini-A to mini-B cable. It is somewhat confusing
               | to users that a cable with two different ends was
               | nonetheless completely transposable.
               | 
               | I'm not sure of this at all but I sort of doubt the TI-84
               | used spec compliant OTG, because in general the USB
               | implementation on that calculator was very weird and
               | unreliable and gave the feeling that they were doing
               | something uncouth like bit-banging and not quite fast
               | enough. I remember it routinely taking multiple attempts
               | to get something to transfer successfully.
        
               | thatfunkymunki wrote:
               | i cannot find any examples of this kind of port, can you
               | share a link?
        
               | paulmd wrote:
               | iriver h320
               | 
               | https://www.guru3d.com/miraserver/images/reviews/soundcar
               | ds/...
        
               | jandrese wrote:
               | It is one of these connectors:
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#USB_On-The-
               | Go_con...
               | 
               | But every OTG device I have ever used has just used the
               | USB-A port.
        
               | [deleted]
        
       | _joel wrote:
       | I've definitely used 5m+ extensions on USB1 (and 2 iirc) before.
       | I guess it'd be sketchy running something that requires decent
       | throughput and not b0rk on ECC/FEC/whatever it uses but for
       | temperature sensors which I was using, it was fine.
        
         | TonyTrapp wrote:
         | A long time ago, I was using a USB 1 or 2 Wifi adapter through
         | a USB extension cord, I'm pretty sure the total cable length
         | was more than 5 meters. It "worked", but even just flicking a
         | light switch caused the network connection to reset. So yeah,
         | it may "work", for certain values of "work".
        
       | Lucasoato wrote:
       | Why didn't they focus enough on cable length? I'm not sure about
       | how much latency they would add since the current is still
       | traveling at light speed.
       | 
       | Maybe there's someone in the world wondering if it's possible to
       | emulate MarioKart from his office PC to the living room with a
       | 10m HDMI and USB3 cable... Just guessing :)
        
       | IvanK_net wrote:
       | Fun fact: USB 2.0 webcams have been existing for over 10 years.
       | USB 2.0 is 60 MB/s.
       | 
       | A pixel of an image is 3 Bytes. A 1920x1080 FullHD image is 6.2
       | MB. At 30 frames per second, second of a FullHD video is 186 MB.
       | How did they do that?
       | 
       | Answer: frames are transferred as JPEG files. Even a cheap $15
       | webcam is a tiny computer (with a CPU, RAM, etc), which runs a
       | JPEG encoder program.
        
         | pseudosavant wrote:
         | Most webcams, especially 10 years ago are not 1080p, or even
         | 60fps. Many aren't even 720p. 1280 x 720 x 3 bytes x 30 fps =
         | ~80MB/second. 480p @ 30 fps = 26MB. That is how many webcams
         | can get by without hardware JPEG/H264 encoding.
         | 
         | 4K @ 60fps = 1.4GB/sec. USB 3, even with 2 lanes, will have
         | trouble with that.
        
         | grishka wrote:
         | Hm. But then wouldn't it make more sense to just stream the raw
         | sensor data, which is 1 byte per pixel (or up to 12 bits if you
         | want to get fancy), and then demosaic it on the host? Full HD
         | at 30 fps would be 59.33 MB/s, barely but still fitting into
         | that limit.
         | 
         | But then also I think some webcams use H264? I remember reading
         | that somewhere.
        
           | BayAreaEscapee wrote:
           | I don't know where you get "1 byte per pixel" from. At
           | minimum, raw 4:2:0 video would be two bytes per pixel, and
           | RGB would be three bytes per pixel with 8-bit color depth.
        
             | Dylan16807 wrote:
             | When talking about digital cameras, each "pixel" is a
             | single color sensor. Blame marketing.
             | 
             | Also 4:2:0 is 6 values per 4 pixels. 1.5 bytes per pixel at
             | 8-bit.
        
             | nybble41 wrote:
             | You're talking about processed color frames. The GP was
             | suggesting that the camera stream the raw sensor data,
             | which doesn't have individual color channels, just a
             | monochrome grid with 10 or 12 bits of usable data per
             | pixel. A bayer filter[0] is placed in front of the sensor
             | so that a given color of light falls on each cell. The USB
             | host would be responsible for applying a demosaicing[0]
             | algorithm to create the color channels from the raw sensor
             | data.
             | 
             | If we take the AR0330 sensor used in the USB Camera C1[2]
             | as an example, it has a native resolution of 2304H x 1296V
             | and outputs 10 bits per native pixel after internal A-Law
             | compression[3] for a total raw frame size of 3.56 MiB,
             | assuming optimal packing. The corresponding image,
             | demosaiced and downscaled to Full HD (1920x1080), in RGB
             | with eight bits per channel would be 5.93 MiB.
             | 
             | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter
             | 
             | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demosaicing
             | 
             | [2] https://www.kurokesu.com/shop/cameras/CAMUSB1
             | 
             | [3] https://www.onsemi.com/products/sensors/image-
             | sensors/ar0330
        
               | masklinn wrote:
               | > it has a native resolution of 2304H x 1296V
               | 
               | Seems to me like that kills the idea dead? GGP assumed
               | 8bpp and that the raw resolution matched the output, and
               | came out... well wrong (the effective bulk transfer rate
               | of USB 2.0 is 53MB/s on a good day), but by just a few
               | megs.
               | 
               | However the raw resolution is 40% higher than the final
               | output, meaning even at 8bpp you're at 85MB/s and you've
               | blown way past any hope of recovering via a few tricks.
               | At 10 bpp you're above 100MB/s.
        
               | nybble41 wrote:
               | Native resolution at 10bpp requires 40% less data per
               | frame than the final Full HD RGB output at 8bpp per
               | channel (24bpp total), so it would represent some
               | savings.
               | 
               | The problem is that neither format fits within the limits
               | of USB 2.0 at 15 FPS or higher. To achieve a reasonable
               | framerate you need to apply compression, and generally
               | speaking you'll get better compression if you demosaic
               | first.
        
           | monocasa wrote:
           | The pixel density doesn't generally refer to the density of
           | the Bayer pattern, which can be even denser. Generally a
           | cluster of four Bayer pixels makes up one pixel (RG/GB), but
           | like most things in computing, the cognitive complexity is
           | borderline fractal and this is a massive simplification.
        
           | Dylan16807 wrote:
           | > Full HD at 30 fps would be 59.33 MB/s, barely but still
           | fitting into that limit.
           | 
           | That limit is too high even as a theoretical max.
           | 
           | You _could_ do raw 720p.
        
           | masklinn wrote:
           | > Full HD at 30 fps would be 59.33 MB/s, barely but still
           | fitting into that limit.
           | 
           | It's not fitting into anything I fear, best case scenario the
           | _effective_ bulk transfer rate of USB2 is 53MB /s.
           | 
           | 60 is the signaling rate, but that doesn't account for the
           | framing or the packet overhead.
        
           | verall wrote:
           | It would need a funny driver and since that stuff is big
           | parallel image processing it's easy in HW but if someone has
           | a netbook or cheap/old Celeron crap it would peg their CPU to
           | do the demosaic and color correction.
        
         | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
         | The cheap ones are using hardware JPEG encoders. The associated
         | micro isn't powerful enough to do it in firmware alone.
        
           | masklinn wrote:
           | Surprised they don't use a hardware video encoder, is it
           | because the well and efficiently supported formats are all
           | MPEG, and thus have fairly high licensing cost on top of the
           | hardware? Or because even efficient HVEs use more resources
           | than webcams can afford? Or because inter-frame coding
           | requires more storage, which (again) means higher costs,
           | which (again) eats into the margin, which cheap webcam
           | manufacturers consider not worth the investment?
        
             | izacus wrote:
             | MJPEG is just a very simple "video" format that needs very
             | simple and cheap electronics to work. Video encoding blocks
             | are mostly part of bigger SoCs and comes with licensing
             | costs.
             | 
             | Same goes on the other hand for the receiving end -
             | decoding a stream of JPEGs is just much simpler in both CPU
             | use and code complexity than dealing with something like
             | H.264.
        
             | martinmunk wrote:
             | My older Logitech C920 has an on-board H.264 encoder. Newer
             | revisions of the same model does not.
             | 
             | I haven't figured out why they chose to remove it, but your
             | point about licensing cost combined with them not
             | advertising it much as a feature, and most of their
             | competitors not including "proper" video encoding might
             | explain it.
             | 
             | Edit: Found an official explanation here:
             | https://www.logitech.com/en-us/video-
             | collaboration/resources... TLDR, they figure most computers
             | at that point had HW encoders.
        
               | lxgr wrote:
               | Unfortunately, this makes it much harder to use these as
               | webcams on a Raspberry Pi (which even has H.264 hardware
               | acceleration - the bottleneck is decoding the MJPEG
               | stream from the camera, for which ffmpeg does not have
               | hardware acceleration on the RPi).
        
               | broomhall wrote:
               | As an alternative to ffmpeg, GStreamer provides hardware
               | accelerated MJPEG decoding on the Pi. I think there are
               | bugs, though, which makes it unsuitable for some use
               | cases. Here's an example pipeline - https://forums.raspbe
               | rrypi.com/viewtopic.php?p=1989575#p1989...
        
         | verall wrote:
         | It needs a uC with some special hardware anyways to do demosaic
         | or else it would require special drivers that would peg some
         | people's crappy laptop CPUs.
         | 
         | Also the raw YUV 4:2:0 is 1.5 bytes per pixel so that's doing
         | half of the "compression" work for you.
        
       | JoeDaDude wrote:
       | If only it included a guide to the different USB connectors, but
       | that might make TFA too long to publish.
        
       | eugene3306 wrote:
       | just curious. Can USB3 work without D+ and D- ?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | formerly_proven wrote:
         | USB 3 and previous standards are completely separate
         | connections and software stacks - the USB 1/2 D+/D- pair does
         | not interact at all with SSRX/SSTX. You should be able to
         | literally cut the D+/D- wires in an USB 3 cable and it should
         | still work as a USB 3 cable.
        
           | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
           | I doubt any normal hosts will enumerate a USB device without
           | the USB 2 data lines. PD will definitely not work. You might
           | be able to get an alt mode running.
        
             | cesarb wrote:
             | They probably would enumerate just fine, because the
             | SuperSpeed enumeration is completely independent from the
             | USB 2.x enumeration. USB-PD uses a separate pin/wire, not
             | the USB 2.x D-/D+ pair, and you cannot get an alt mode
             | running (except the special analog audio and debug
             | accessory modes) if USB-PD doesn't work, since alt mode
             | enumeration goes on top of USB-PD.
        
       | stavros wrote:
       | What does the U in USB stand for again?
        
         | jbverschoor wrote:
         | Actually, I think it's just a upside down "[?]". Makes sense
         | because the non-C connectors are always upside down, and all it
         | does is intersect wires.
        
         | theandrewbailey wrote:
         | Unintuitive.
        
         | _joel wrote:
         | Unintelligable
        
         | notorandit wrote:
         | Uikipedia
        
         | jbverschoor wrote:
         | U-turn
        
       | Kab1r wrote:
       | USB versioning is such a clusterfuck.
        
         | 411111111111111 wrote:
         | There was a really short timeframe when I was really positive
         | about USB, but that has been long lost since.
         | 
         | They should've never allowed cables to only provide some
         | capabilities and still get the branding. Having capabilities
         | for connectors was fine imo, but also accepting them with
         | cables was bad because you cannot really find out what it
         | supports and where the issue originates of something goes wrong
        
           | jsjohnst wrote:
           | It's why I always buy TB3 (or now TB4) cables rather than a
           | cheaper USB-C to USB-C. Due to the strict requirements on TB
           | cables, you can pretty much guarantee it'll support any use
           | case (alt modes, PD, etc). Sometimes overspending is worth
           | the headache prevention.
        
             | jbverschoor wrote:
             | Apple just released a EUR159 cable
        
               | paulmd wrote:
               | 3m is beyond the max cable length specified by
               | Thunderbolt, so it requires active extenders (they're
               | hidden in the plugs) and tight manufacturing and
               | shielding. You're paying extra for the ability to break
               | that max length spec, and it's one of only a handful of
               | products that do it.
               | 
               | The only other one I'm aware of is the Corning Active
               | Optical Cable series which costs $360 for a 10m
               | Thunderbolt 3 cable or $479 for a 30m cable, or $215 for
               | a 10m Thunderbolt 2 cable (ie slower and different
               | connector, potentially needs a $50 converter on each
               | end). Also those Corning cables have a reputation for
               | failing _barely_ out of warranty even if they are treated
               | very delicately. Amazon reviews are _full_ of  "my cable
               | failed 1 year and 1 month after purchase and Corning told
               | me to go eat a dick" type reviews.
               | 
               | https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1577008-REG/optica
               | l_c...
               | 
               | Also, just FYI, but max length spec on a USB 4 cable
               | (which will support Thunderbolt-like features) is 0.8m
               | and you'll need to use special cables to get the full
               | capabilities there too, you can't just use a $15 usb-c to
               | usb-c cable you bought off amazon. Just like some usb-c
               | cables only support usb 2.0 speeds, you won't get full-
               | duplex 40gbps signaling out of a 10gbps half-duplex USB
               | 3.1 cable. USB certification isn't magic, these are
               | physics-based electrical/RF problems here and high-
               | capability cables/devices require more expensive
               | implementations.
               | 
               | But anyway go ahead and click through that B+H link and
               | look through their thunderbolt 3 cable category for
               | another 3-meter cable. You won't find any. If 2 meters is
               | not enough... your options are Apple, Corning, or
               | nothing.
               | 
               | The Apple premium is still a thing, but I'd expect
               | competitors to clock in around $100 if/when they come
               | out. There is always a steep price inflection once you
               | move from passive cables to active cables or fiber. If
               | you can avoid that, great, use a shorter cable. If you
               | can't, you have to pay up. Not everyone can just move
               | everything closer (eg running through walls) and it's
               | always so disappointing to see people arguing _against
               | consumers having options_ just because they don 't
               | personally need them. No one is making you buy this, but
               | the people who do now have an option they didn't before.
               | That "if I'm not interested in a product then it
               | shouldn't exist at all!" mindset seems to be extremely
               | pervasive in the tech space and I just don't get it, not
               | every product has to be aimed at you personally. It's
               | "center of the universe syndrome" as one of my teachers
               | liked to call it.
               | 
               | I've looked at the Corning cables for setting up a Vive
               | Wireless Adapter that can be in a different room from my
               | desktop rig (adapter goes in a Thunderbolt enclosure,
               | mounted on the wall, thunderbolt optical cable goes
               | through the walls...) but the price and the failures
               | kinda scared me off. I get that this won't work for
               | normies, but personally I'd prefer to have the
               | transceivers and the fiber be separate so I can replace
               | one or the other if needed. Shipping it pre-assembled is
               | fine but given we're talking about a $500 investment here
               | I'd want it to not break in a year or at least to be
               | semi-repairable if it does.
        
               | Dylan16807 wrote:
               | > 3m is beyond the max cable length specified by
               | Thunderbolt, so it requires active extenders (they're
               | hidden in the plugs) and tight manufacturing and
               | shielding. You're paying extra for the ability to break
               | that max length spec, and it's one of only a handful of
               | products that do it.
               | 
               | I'm pretty sure it's not breaking the spec. Are you sure
               | about that claim?
               | 
               | And the main factor is almost always decibels of signal
               | loss rather than length, isn't it?
               | 
               | > Also those Corning cables have a reputation for failing
               | barely out of warranty even if they are treated very
               | delicately. Amazon reviews are full of "my cable failed 1
               | year and 1 month after purchase and Corning told me to go
               | eat a dick" type reviews.
               | 
               | My understanding is that the thunderbolt 2 ones reliably
               | self-destruct but the thunderbolt 3 ones probably fixed
               | it? At the very least they can take a lot of physical
               | abuse.
               | 
               | > 10gbps half-duplex USB 3.1 cable
               | 
               | I don't think any of the high speed wires are ever half
               | duplex?
        
               | paulmd wrote:
               | > I'm pretty sure it's not breaking the spec. Are you
               | sure about that claim?
               | 
               | Actually we're both wrong... it appears max length for a
               | passive cable is 18 inches for full performance. Passive
               | cables technically max out at 18 inches for 40gbps and
               | drop to 20gbps at 2 meters. Past that you need an active
               | cable (which has signal repeaters).
               | 
               | Active cables generally run up to 2 meters (the Apple is
               | the first 3m active cable except for the Corning AOC
               | cables), but in most cases (everyone except apple) you
               | start dropping features like USB 3.1 or displayport.
               | AFAIK Apple's solutions are unique in that they don't -
               | like for example I looked up a 2 meter Belkin cable
               | advertised as TB3 and it doesn't carry the DisplayPort
               | channel.
               | 
               | Which is why the advice for Thunderbolt is "just shut up
               | and pay apple their money".
               | 
               | https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/08/15/psa-
               | thunderbolt-3...
               | 
               | Not absolutely positive what the official standard is -
               | they might well only say the passive number (ie 18
               | inches) because active can obviously be more or less
               | arbitrarily long with things like fiber, it might not
               | make sense to define a maximum cable length in that
               | context. Or they might amend it as they go... obviously
               | Apple has now broken the 2 meter barrier with their
               | active copper cable.
               | 
               | I thiiiiink this becomes 0.8m for a passive cable in
               | USB4/TB4 as the official passive spec? CableMatters seems
               | to have a 2 meter active cable out though.
               | 
               | > I don't think any of the high speed wires are ever half
               | duplex?
               | 
               | High-speed is half-duplex, yeah. It looks like SuperSpeed
               | is full-duplex though so I'm wrong on that bit.
               | 
               | I just remember it being a nightmare trying to use USB
               | external hard drives (which would have been back in the
               | USB 2.0/High-speed era when I used them last!) and
               | reading/writing at the same time tanked performance _far_
               | beyond what you 'd get with even an internal HDD. Read or
               | write, one at a time, mixing both was a trip to hell.
               | 
               | https://www.ramelectronics.net/USB-3.aspx
        
               | Dylan16807 wrote:
               | > Actually we're both wrong... it appears max length for
               | a passive cable is 18 inches for full performance.
               | Passive cables technically max out at 18 inches for
               | 40gbps and drop to 20gbps at 2 meters. Past that you need
               | an active cable (which has signal repeaters).
               | 
               | I'm still pretty sure it's based on signal loss, and the
               | lengths are just estimates of what you can reliably get
               | out of a cost-optimized manufacturing process.
               | 
               | > High-speed is half-duplex, yeah. It looks like
               | SuperSpeed is full-duplex though so I'm wrong on that
               | bit.
               | 
               | By "the high speed wires" I mean the pairs introduced
               | with USB 3. Not USB's dumb naming conventions.
               | 
               | > I just remember it being a nightmare trying to use USB
               | external hard drives (which would have been back in the
               | USB 2.0/High-speed era when I used them last!) and
               | reading/writing at the same time tanked performance far
               | beyond what you'd get with even an internal HDD. Read or
               | write, one at a time, mixing both was a trip to hell.
               | 
               | I think a big part of that is also the mass storage
               | protocol combined with slow responses off a hard drive. I
               | have a USB 2.0 SSD-class drive around here and it
               | actually performs pretty well even on mixed workloads.
        
               | bombela wrote:
               | Can you use USB3 (whatever gen crap it is) for this
               | application maybe?
               | 
               | I can drive an occulus quest2 via 8m of USB3 cable. The
               | cable contains a fiber optic with a repeater hidden
               | inside the female end. The total bandwidth this way is
               | enough for the occulus quest2 at 90fps.
        
               | paulmd wrote:
               | The goal here is wireless, a single thinner cable would
               | be better but it's better to not have to worry about
               | wires at all. And I'm not willing to set up a facebook
               | account just for a Quest.
               | 
               | The Vive Wireless Adapter (VWA) is a PCIe card (single
               | slot/low profile/mitx length). The output from the card
               | is an SMA connector with a RF signal that goes to the
               | antenna, max official length is 2 meters (and it isn't
               | another SMA on the other end, it's hardwired into the
               | antenna, so you have to use an extension, meaning
               | multiple SMA connectors in the middle). I've seen people
               | use some fairly long extension cables, but that
               | attenuates the signal somewhat. It's _probably_ fine but
               | it 's undesirable.
               | 
               | There are USB wireless adapters (TPLink makes one iirc)
               | but generally they are agreed to be an inferior solution
               | in various respects - higher CPU usage, higher latency,
               | worse signal quality, a green bar on the top, etc. This
               | is basically an ideal use-case for WiGig, it was
               | literally designed to be a wireless display transmitter,
               | and that's what the Vive Wireless Adapter uses inside,
               | it's actually an off-the-shelf Intel WiGig card. The
               | TPCast uses a much lower-bandwidth solution and
               | compresses it much harder and that requires more latency,
               | more oomph on the PC, and still gets a worse signal
               | quality.
               | 
               | But, the WiGig card only has a short cable to the
               | antenna. Solution: put the card in an enclosure and mount
               | the enclosure on the wall, run the cables to the PC.
               | Problem: thunderbolt also only runs 2 meters. Solution:
               | optical thunderbolt cables. The rest is solvable from
               | there.
               | 
               | The other reason I haven't raced into it is that HTC
               | hasn't kept it up with the newer hardware. The Vive Pro
               | has a higher-res screen and the VWA can only run at
               | (iirc) 3/4ths resolution. It's still a better screen,
               | there's less Screen Door Effect, but when you're talking
               | about dropping around $1000 to get wireless working
               | flawlessly and tucked away into the walls, it better be
               | fucking flawless. On paper the WiGig actually has three
               | channels and should be able to send on all three at once,
               | but this doesn't seem to be implemented...
               | 
               | Honestly the TPCast is probably a 90% solution, it
               | probably chokes on the Vive Pro as well but maybe for
               | $200 instead of $1000 that's acceptable. But it's tough
               | for me to accept "good enough" when there's a technically
               | better solution. The VWA is an absolutely ideal solution
               | here. At one point there were some updates pushed that
               | looks like Valve was working on it, but (with apologies
               | to South Park)... in typical Valve fashion, "they just
               | sort of got high, and wandered off..."
               | 
               | And then, the Index is just an all-around better
               | headset... but it doesn't have a wireless solution at all
               | right now (apart from maybe the TPCast?). It kinda sucks,
               | drives me up the wall that there's no "perfect answer"
               | here. Every solution has some large downsides.
        
               | jsjohnst wrote:
               | And? Apple used to sell a way more expensive than that
               | TB2 cable if high price is your point and besides, saying
               | Apple charges a premium price for a premium product (like
               | this) is about as insightful as saying the sky is blue.
        
               | CharlesW wrote:
               | FWIW, Monoprice's 1m USB4/TB4 cable (100W) is $25.
               | 
               | https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=41946
        
               | username190 wrote:
               | Apple's cable is 3m, which is likely most of why it's
               | more expensive.
               | 
               | https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MWP02AM/A/thunderbolt-
               | 4-p...
        
               | jsjohnst wrote:
               | Their 1.8m cable is $129, so still >2x the price of
               | competitors. It's an extremely well made cable, but
               | overkill, probably?
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | a3w wrote:
       | USB 4 (opt) is ... optical? Or optional?
        
         | willis936 wrote:
         | It would have a longer max length if the data lanes were
         | optical.
        
           | johnwalkr wrote:
           | You can actually get optical usb3 and thunderbolt (all
           | generations) cables. Thunderbolt was originally called light
           | peak and shown off by Intel and Apple in demos as optical,
           | and Sony had a line of laptops with optical light peak
           | connectors to connect to external GPUs. But ultimately the
           | default became non-optical because it can carry power too.
        
             | mschuster91 wrote:
             | > But ultimately the default became non-optical because it
             | can carry power too.
             | 
             | There's no problem in making a cable with two fibre leads
             | for data and two (at higher lengths thicker to reduce
             | issues with voltage drop) power lines.
        
               | johnwalkr wrote:
               | That's a good point although optical usb3 and
               | thunderbolt3 cables tend to be advertised with electrical
               | isolation as a feature and suggest using an external hub
               | to provide power.[1]
               | 
               | [1] https://www.corning.com/optical-cables-by-
               | corning/worldwide/...
        
               | mschuster91 wrote:
               | Whoa, that pricing is quite a bit.
        
               | johnwalkr wrote:
               | Yeah that must be the real reason it didn't catch on as a
               | default. Light peak did have cheaper cables though, the
               | optical part was in the connector, not the cable. The
               | connector was a usb-a connector if I remember correctly..
               | and the history is actually pretty interesting!
               | Apparently that connector was deemed proprietary and
               | frowned upon by the usb folks for causing consumer
               | confusion[1]. Kind of hilarious now, seeing how
               | thunderbolt 1/2 ended up barely being adopted outside of
               | Apple and usb itself is a confusing mess these days.
               | 
               | [1] https://www.theverge.com/2011/10/14/2490694/how-sony-
               | acciden...
        
               | mschuster91 wrote:
               | > Kind of hilarious now, seeing how thunderbolt 1/2 ended
               | up barely being adopted outside of Apple
               | 
               | Which is to a large degree the fault of Intel restricting
               | the TB spec to hell and back.
        
         | masklinn wrote:
         | According to the wiki table (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB4
         | #Support_of_data_transfer_...), it's "optional":
         | 
         | * "USB4 20 Gbit/s Transport" (= USB4 20Gbps = USB4 Gen 2x2) is
         | required for host to support
         | 
         | * "USB4 40 Gbit/s Transport" (= USB4 40Gbps = USB4 Gen 3x2) is
         | not
         | 
         | Also USB4 apparently only requires support for tunneling
         | "SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps" (USB 3.2 Gen 2x1), "SuperSpeed USB
         | 20Gbps" (USB 3.2 Gen 2x2) is optional.
        
       | kashunstva wrote:
       | > May 05, 2025
       | 
       | The article is dated May 5, 2025. I've long been wondering about
       | the future of USB.
        
         | Beta-7 wrote:
         | USB 4.2 (later renamed to USB 3.2 gen 2 Mk. 1) comes with built
         | in time traveling. They just keep adding features to the
         | protocol and making it complicated.
        
         | notorandit wrote:
         | Not to be read before: see article time stamp
        
         | vesinisa wrote:
         | OP forgot [2025] from the title.
        
           | WithinReason wrote:
           | I could still fix it, but I fear the wrath of Dang
        
         | Fatnino wrote:
         | It's a form of SEO. Google promotes "fresh" content, so if it
         | sees a date less than a year ago it often assumes the content
         | is better. Normally you will see this abused by crappy content
         | mills using a plugin that constantly updates the date on their
         | garbage.
         | 
         | Putting a static date from 3 years in the future seems like a
         | quick a dirty hack to do the same thing.
        
       | IshKebab wrote:
       | This is wrong. For example Full Speed isn't a name for USB 1,
       | it's the name for a speed which is supported by USB 1 _and_ 2
       | (not sure about 3). Most USB microcontrollers are Full Speed USB
       | 2.
        
       | gsich wrote:
       | CC1 and CC2 pins are missing.
        
         | megous wrote:
         | They are not required to be wired through all cables. Similar
         | to SBU signals.
        
       | Tepix wrote:
       | I have a related question:
       | 
       | Is the official name
       | 
       | USB 3.2 Gen 2x2
       | 
       | or
       | 
       | USB 3.2 Gen 2x2
       | 
       | (x vs x)?
        
         | jjoonathan wrote:
         | Which USB do I choose for a 4x4 offroad adventure?
        
         | masklinn wrote:
         | The USB pages and specs (on usb.org) seem to use "x" where they
         | use the technical spelling.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2022-05-05 23:00 UTC)