Well, pretty sure the "Universal" is because it was supposed to replace the game controller port, printer port, serial port, ps/2 for keyboard and mouse we had before and it did.
Riley forgot the "SB". Literally "Serial Bus". In other words, he can still manage to be a smarty pants about 1/3 of a full concept, which is impressive. But 33% is still an F.
@@porkstamina Well as manufacturers thinking about going 'portless'(port that needs a hole in this case), it will come back soon, dont worry, whit all the diffrenet magnet-based ports, like magsafe. (My only hope is a magnetic USB release that could solve this issue before it comes up)
The very fact that they took existing specs and rebranded them is just insane. For example, taking USB 3.0 and rebranding it as USB 3.1 Gen 1 and then rebranding that same spec again as USB 3.2 Gen 1. Sure, they claim they are trying to make things more transparent for the consumer with USB4 since it has to be type C and 20gbps or 40gbps but just you wait until they make USB 4 Gen 1x2 or some BS rebranding for an older spec.
The only reason they did it was for marketing. This way you can sell USB 3.0 devices as 3.2 and people with no technical knowledge will believe its better, even thought its exactly the same thing. The same happened to HDMI for exactly same reason.
@@hubertnnn The thing is manufacturers dont all use the same terminology. When trying to find a motherboard some say they have usb 3.0, and others 3.2 -gen 2- gen 1. The thing is, they both support 5GB, because they are the exact same thing. Some boards even had usb 3.2 gen 2 while others had just 3.2.
@@warriorsmustang1784 yeah they dont use the same terminologie but you are wrong in youre statement usb 3.2 gen 2 is 10gbps vs usb 3.0 5gbps but its the same as 3.2 gen1.. but the fact is that this is complete bullshit....
This would never have happened under Clippy. Clippy would pop up and go "I see you are plugging a USB 3.1415265 device into a USB 3.131527 port using a USB 3.10 cable - would you like to reevaluate your life?"
I had a teacher we used to call Clippy. Then one day he tripped over and lost a tooth. Poor bugger become chippy for the rest of his life :D Children are mean.
@@wayland7150 Nope, Clippy is gone, but human nature has not changed one bit. I live in Japan and had the Japanese version of Office during the Office Assistant era - its Office Assistant character was a dog that was much cuter and less annoying than Clippy. But I still clicked Go Away without reading its advice (which was in Japanese, of course).
@@earthtaurus5515 The dog in English Office is different from the one I was thinking of. But now I'm discovering that my memory is fuzzy - the dog was related to Windows XP, not Office. His name was apparently Rover: th-cam.com/video/rjy53IOsC4U/w-d-xo.html In Japanese Office, I'm now reminded that the default was a dolphin, apparently named Kairu. Did the English version have the dolphin as an option? Here is a video of just Kairu's movements: th-cam.com/video/Plax9B2e9wM/w-d-xo.html (The video is longer than it needs to be, but it gets a little more interesting in the latter half or so, including animations I don't even remember seeing before.) And here is Kairu in context: th-cam.com/video/WjZcgMFwTOU/w-d-xo.html (At 1min 14sec, the user typed the question we have all asked at some point: "How do I get rid of you?") In a previous version of Office, the Japanese default was a lady named Saeko-sensei, which seems highly likely to be Japan only, as it fits the culture here perfectly.
Back when I used to edit videos professionally, after each project was completed, I used to render out the final iteration of the video as "final.mp4" But then I'd spot a mistake and call this one "final2.mp4" But then the client will ask for a few tweaks; "final2_final" By the time I'm actually done the file would call itself "final7_finalClient_v6_YesThisIsActuallyFuckingDone.mp4" I'm guessing USB is going through the same phase
See this is why we have FOLDERS guys. File names are wrecked by other people but an organised folder system will easily deal with it! Name it "Decent filenames are for pussies folder" and drop your client files in there lol.
I can relate to this quite a lot. I've never edited videos professionally before, but I have done numerous videos as personal projects and I've done that exact same thing with the "final4_etc" madness.
Some of us don't have unlimited storage space, so we would overwrite "final.mp4" instead of keeping all the superseded versions. But PPro project files (or sequences within those projects) are another matter!
I'm so exited for USB 4.1.2 Gen6 rev3-3 Mk2_final_final. It finally clears up the confusion between 4.1.1 Gen5 rev3-2 α6 and it's predecessors. The handy comparison chart is wonderful, and doubles as wallpaper; 6.5 posters completely covers your average room! Though seriously I think switching to a unified color scheme might be the best solution for consumers, most people could ignore the technobabble entirely: I plug into the yellow one for power, because yellow is electricity color. Also I thought that the red ports were for bios recovery or something similar?
You probably mean USB 4.1.2 Gen6 rev3-3 Mk2_final_final hyper ultra mega supra speed, since USB 4.1.2 Gen6 rev3-3 Mk2_final_final is just a rebrand of past iterations.
If they made a standardized colour for each USB gen then all the Chinese companies will make USB 1.0 cables with that colour to rip ya off so India and China mess everything up anyway
I realize it’s a generational thing, but compared to the disaster of connectors we used before USB, this is still a HUGE improvement. Never needing a gender-bender, null-modem, or centronix-to-db25 is what made it universal and all this modern BS is a walk in the park in comparison.
I have been using USB forever. I have never learned about any standards. I didn’t know about colour codes. My strategy has been simple: if it plugs in, basically works, and nothing complains, that’s enough. After all, I remember hand-wiring serial ports.
@@qT_p13 but it doesnt fit in the goddamn port and i'm jiggling it and it just wont *Turns upside down* oh never mind i had it the wrong way even though i tried that way first...
The first thing is for USB to stop renaming older revisions to newer numbers, and just keep incrementing on newer revisions. Second, codify the colors in the specification.
So what do you name a usb type C at 5 Gbps speed ? It can't be 3.0 cause those were only type A/B. Yes , the revision number (3.0) is more than just a speed number
I used to build computers with my dad when I was a boy, back in the mid eighties and I very much remember how ecstatic he was about USB when it came. A while ago, I told him about the current affairs with USB and he simply didn't believe me. «Nobody's that stupid», he said.
TBH, that's more or less me. I was psyched to get a computer that had USB in it, even though it was one of those early ports, I can't recall if it was 1.0 or 1.1. But, the ability to swap devices and choose how to divvy them up was amazing. Not since the demise of Firewire have I been so saddened by choices with respect to connectivity. Firewire was awesome because you could access the RAM of a hung computer and dump that for debugging, something that is incredibly hard without.
@@jeschinstad Yes, but even with other protocols, you shouldn't be plugging in random things, do I'm not sure it's that much worse. But, the speed was incredible.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade: Peripherals having direct access to main memory means they can be very fast, but it also means you have absolutely no security. While you shouldn't plug in random USB devices because they can be used to exploit vulnerabilities in the OS, it's still very different from allowing peripherals to bypass OS security entirely. One is a risk, while the other is guaranteed failure.
this is my main gripe with usb-c, it supports everything, but unlike usb-a, you can't just LOOK at it to see what it supports, you have to blindly hope it works, and if it's e.g. usb2.0, you better label it, or you'll have to rediscover it's slow-ass all over again... usb-A you can clearly see whether it's 2.0 or 3.x by the amount of pins, "more than 4 pins = good speed", and tbh, around usb 3.0 or 3.1 is enough for normal usage, and higher bandwidth is needed only for fancy stuff like stuffing video signal or gigabit ethernet over it (even usb2.0 should be able to do 100mbps internet I think, there are usb2 ethernet adapters)
@@userjames2009 Not only that, but these charging cables also tend to be easier to bend. Where as nearly all USB-C 3.x cables are difficult to bend Bendy cables are way easier to work with, especially for just charging.
@@MrDeaf Exactly, and Thunderbolt (and presumably USB-4) is even thicker. The only exceptions are active cables like Oculus Link that convert the signal to and from fiber optic, so the cable only has the thin fiber optic line and 2 copper wires for charging. I wouldn't be surprised if active cables became more popular in the future for long, high speed, low wattage cables.
Yeah, but you usually only find those on most products, such as the latest cutting edge phones and tablets like the Galaxy Sfuckyou HyperDeluxe and Galaxy TabTastic Number Edition. Niche products like random external ssd docks sold under a brand with zero recognition whatsoever use USB 3xyz ?Gbps, and I've even seen a few ssd enclosures with support for TB3 (and usb 3xyz ?Gbps).
@@MayankJairaj well, the point of usb-c is to have universal cable... the phones have ALWAYS been usb2.0, so it's no surprise that most of them stay at 2.0, and only the higher end ones that support stuff like external displays, have any need for anything faster... the point for phones, is that usb-c is physically stronger, and that you don't need separate charging cable types, even if your device doesn't support some specific fast-charging, it would still be able to charge slowly, with ANY power brick and ANY cable... etc...
My problem is I shouldn't have to read a spec sheet or reviews to determine if my usb-c cable is a true to spec cable. Keep it consistent with the speed, quailty, and colors and we're good to go.
there are usb c cables that are even 2.0 speeds of just 480mbps. You usually see these as the cheapest usb c charging cables for sale on amazon. The manufacturer assumes they will only be used for charging and thus cheap out by limiting it to usb 2.0 speeds.
USB 2.0 only needs 4 conductors, 3 if you cheap out and use the shield as ground. USB 3 adds another 5 conductors, bringing the total to 9. Additionally, USB 2 is relatively slow and tends to work fine without shielding, while USB 3 absolutely needs shielding. So there is quite a bit of cost to be saved by making it USB 2 only. Some included charging cables even go a step further and have only the two power lines, so they can only be used for charging.
@@drkastenbrot makes sense that a lot of the cheaper usb c cables are usb 2.0 especially the longer ones like 10 feet as having literally less than half the conductors adds up through a 10 foot (~3m) length. From my experience charging only cables are less common/ less highly promoted or rated on a storefront because a lot of people will occasionally use the charging cable to plug it into a computer and if it connects even at usb 2.0 speed the average consumer really would never know the difference. But if they plug it in only for their device not to be detected by their computer they may think the cable is faulty not realizing its power only.
There are no USB C cables that don't support USB 3 speeds. That wouldn't meet any USB standards and wouldnt make sense. There are however USB hosts or devices that use USB C connectors but only support USB 1.1/2.0. I don't see this anything other than a demonstration of backward compatibility working well. It shows that the convenience of USB C cables can still carry older USB signals.
I'd like to think that the USB Implementers Forum actually do want to simplify all of this, but every time they try to have an in person meeting to hammer it all out they can't ever get all of the necessary meeting hardware properly working due to USB cable confusion. I can dream, can't I?
I really like Riley's videos. They are straight forward and he has the perfect on-screen personality for presenting technical topics in a fun way. Keep them coming.
The inventor of the USB type A when died was lowered down in his coffin. But, at some moment the coffin went up. Then it was turned around and lowered the oposite way...
You can run usb 2.0 through a USB type C connector, as the connector is just the connector, it doesn't do anything else other than provide an electrical connection between things.
I hate when manufacturers do that, worse offenders are some Chinese phone makers that have USB-C but with 2.0 speed and their proprietary fast charging that only works with a USB-C to A cable on their brick.
Doesn't that depend upon the chips involved? USB 2.0 was only backwards compatible to the 1.x versions because it had extra chips to handle the other protocols.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade USB 2.0 controllers can run on slower clock speeds to support 1.0/1.1 devices, this has been built into every USB 2.0 controller. Up until USB 3.0, USB used just two differential wires (D+ and D-) to transmit data, USB 3.0 (or USB 3.2 Gen 1 as I think it's called now...) introduced two extra pairs for more bandwidth. The available USB type depends on many things, including the USB controller, the USB device, the cabling, ports, USB hubs in between etc. For instance you can have a USB C cable that only connects VBUS, GND, D+ and D-, connect it to the latest USB port and it will only support up to USB 2.0 (or lower).
Still, it's super-great that so many modern gadgets use USB to power themselves, instead of the myriad of proprietary power supplies in years before. I even predicted this circa 2008, when I still had my OG Moto Razr -but not to this extent.-
Yep. Still remember a time where every phone had a different iteration of a charging port. Samsung used something different, so did the moto and lg. Nokia even had a few different ports and sizes for charging.
@@KevinBenecke Impossible. The more power a device needs the thicker the wires have to be. So unless you want a chunky USB cable as a standard, high power devices will need their own power sources.
@@hubertnnn Not impossible, USB-4 supports alot of watts and most appliances don't require that much watts. The only appliance the USB standard won't work on (perhaps later versions) is a large fan assisted oven. The only reason electronic appliances won't switch over to USB connectors is the fuses. It's easier to replace a blown fuse in a plug then it is to replace an fuse inside an electronic appliance.
The other flow that I missed in the video is the wrong implementation, e.g. in the Raspberry Pi 4 (fixed in newer revisions) or the Nintendo Switch were they didn't add a transistor to signalizes charges to charge. With the effect that some won't work.
How the USB standard should be, in my opinion: usb-c 20.15 --> usb type-c port that handles 20gb/sec with 15w power delivery. There are only three real parts, and if this were engraved/printed on ports OR the heads of cables, it would make it easier. We already have the standard little lighting bolt to mean "charging port". This isn't all that much more information.
15W @ 5V = 3 Amps. Which in the world of power is not a particularly small number. 1.5 Amps is a lot more realistic with small chargers. Double of 1.5 A and you're starting to talk about some real hardware to manage it.
It's ridiculous at this point, if a lot of us tech enthusiasts are confused you have to wonder how confused the average consumer is. I've been into PC for about 25yrs and even I can't remember what device is what when it comes to the 3.0+ version at this point. Would be far easier if they just used the speeds instead of making up random names, at least if the device does 10Gbps and the cable is 10Gbps+ you know the speed you should get instantly instead of seeing USB 3.0/3.1 Gen 1, USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, USB 3.2 Gen 2×1 and then remembering which speed is which standard.
Tbf its a lot better than before though. I remember that the first controller I used had for some bizarre reason a VGA connector or so... Generally though, you cant do much wrong with USB, as long as you know the difference between USB 3.0 and micro/C connectors.
@@richard-davies USB 3.0, AKA USB SuperSpeed, AKA USB 3.1 Gen 1, AKA USB 3.2 Gen 1. Also important to remember that SuperSpeed+, SuperSpeed+, and SuperSpeed+ are three different standards.
@@termitreter6545 You can't do much wrong with USB as long as all you do is charge your phone and connect a flash drive (do people still use those anyways?) As soon as you want to charge your laptop, connect a display or two using Displayport over USB C with daisy chain or want to actually get 10 or 20Gb/s speeds you will spend hours searching in the manuals for your devices and even cabling to figure out why it isn't working, again...
it is the bus that is universal, as the name "universal serial bus" implies; the connectors and link speeds may vary, but simple adapters providing electrical and physical compatibility essentially ensure that what you plug in will hot-plug, and work.
It's not even a bus (not the schoolbus type... the electrical type) but a point to point architecture... It is (originally) serial though, but even that is not fully true anymore as since USB 3.0 they use multiple pairs (parallel) to speed things up, so 'not-very-universal serial and parallel point to point' would be the new name... Also, the universal refers to the origins of USB, when it replaced gameport, serial, parallel and a few more obsolete ports I've forgotten about, it became 1 universal connector for all those things, universal doesn't refer to the 'bus' Also, USB is not electrically compatible, starting from USB 3.0, it uses multiple pairs making it electrically incompatible with USB 2.0 and older, requiring weird and bulky combined connectors. Same for voltage, used to be 5VDC, but can now be up to 38VDC I think with some power delivery modes...
Yes and when PC97 was standardized, they even added color coding to help with that. It was kind of overkill as it was mostly the mouse and keyboard ports that looked the same, but still nice and helpful. You could tell even the most ignorant of end user to plug the cable into the port of the appropriate color and the only bad things that could happen would be if they damaged the pins trying to insert it upside down, or swap the keyboard for mouse as those parts were more or less the same. It's been quite a while, so I don't even remember if that mattered after the computer booted.
Yeah I recently bought a keyboard with a detachable cable and a few of the reviews warned that the included USB-C cable fried their keyboard. Definitely something to watch out for
It's because the standard just dictates the connectors and cable, not what you do with it. The first Rapberry Pi 4s had issues due to the way they were designed that caused issues when they were plugged into the wrong power adapter.
You know why they did that though. Now anybody who buys the current version of a USB port, is compatible with everything older 100%. That's the most likely scenario for them. Everything sold with older ports is probably either second hand or third party so they don't care about those people so much. They did it to preserve compatibility for NEW users and didn't care that it removes the universality for older users. They should buy new computers is what we will be told :D
@@DailyCorvid no you muppet, the new shit was always compatible with older stuff. All they did was change the names of the older versions so now you can't tell them apart.
@@DailyCorvid USB is compatible all the way backwards and forwards. If you can plug it in the only difference is what power can be delivered and what speed it can use. It's actually a very good standard apart from the confusing names and colours.
*Esperanto* is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by Polish ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communication, or "the international language".
Tried to buy a USB 3.x Type-C cable for my phone. It was a nightmare... x.x I ended up having to read most of the technical specification just to be sure that what I ordered was what I really wanted. It's become a nightmare.
You most likely wasted your time doing so, unless you have a very niche phone with USB 3 speeds and not 2 speeds. USB 2 is still the default option for modern phones, since OEMs know that 99+ percent of smartphone owners never do wired data transfers anymore.
@@awesomeferret It turns out it actually has a USB3 capable controller - but has problems when run at USB2. I thought the same at first too but since getting the proper cable, it works as expected and no longer has errors. Fastboot and ADB also behave as they should now whereas Fastboot would lose connection way, way too often with the older cable. Its quite a nieche though... but that didnt make finding the right cable any easier and I probably overpaid for it x.x
You forgot the full size USB 3.0 Type B connector. It's used mostly on 3.5" external drive cases. As for port colors, my Dell laptop has black in all of its ports, USB 2 and 3, and the combo eSATA/USB 2.0 port.
It's actually amazing to be able to charge most devices with the same cable and charger! Remember the early years of this century when it felt like every single device had a different proprietary connector?! But yes, shopping for a laptop last week was still too much work. So, the c-ports on the T580 are half-thunderbird, so I can't do x, but the X1 Extreme has full thunderbird while the E580's c-port is only USB 3.1 (and that's just one brand, ThinkPad). And, which c-ports can I use to charge the laptop? And how much power do I need? Oh probably 45W when on with low use but maybe less when it's asleep or off, but we can't give you an exact number. Just try it. Then, so, which dock is just a USB hub and which is thunderbolt? The ad says thunderbolt but the ports look like it's only a hub. This other one has two c-ports on the front, but oh, those are labelled "usb-c" instead of the more useful "USB 3.1" that the type A ports are labelled with. Do they behave any different? Many hubs/dock have HDMI but good luck trying to determine which laptops output HDMI on the c-port. And, to output to two displayport monitors... Also, why are thunderbolt docks so expensive?!
Also, USB Type-B physically fits (but doesn't work, obviously) into Eithernet port, both of which are often present in printers. This causes a lot of confusion in offices, especially the ones without a dedicated IT guy.
The "universal" part of USB is that pretty much any device using any USB port can communicate to anything else using USB, regardless of when that port was made or what device it's on. A USB 2.0 and a USB 3.0 2x2 can communicate just fine, just at 2.0 speeds. I'm pretty sure even 1.1 is perfectly compatible. And that's true regardless of the port type (mini, micro, type A, B, C, etc). As long as you have a cable, you can get them to communicate. Before USB, that was not so true for devices that were very disparate! (phones, printers, computers, consoles, etc)
I could see a software that lets you know when you got a mismatch and then points to a compliant port if your computer has one. This would be based upon the hardware you currently have plugged in and could even recommend moving some connectors around to optimize the situation.
@@DailyCorvid I've bought some magnetic adapters. The problem is that they aren't all compatible and I'm lucky enough that the two versions I have don't use the same polarity, so there's no risk of accidentally plugging the wrong one in. It should still be fine as the pins on the computer and device are the same, so the wires inside should also, but I worry a bit about such things.
Me in kindergarten: Red orange yellow green blue purple those are the colors of the rainbow! Me today: Red orange yellow green blue purple WTF DO THEY ALL MEAN JUST KILL ME NOW
One of the things that pisses me off THE MOST about USB is the power delivery. Prime example: smartphones and tablets. When you plug these devices into your desktop or laptop, chances are they won't charge anywhere near as quickly compared to using a separate dedicated charger. And apparently there are NO hubs / docks etc out there that support power delivery for the DEVICES -- they support it for the host only.
You're confusing USB with your laptop's limited hub power. It's not USB's fault here. Plug stuff to the back of your desktop if you need it to charge quickly.
@@YounesLayachi I’m not. Desktops may support some quick charge standards, typically only on a single port, but this is NOT USB-PD (power delivery). Power delivery is only supported for a *single* HOST, not end devices, even on more expensive hubs and docks that use PD charging bricks.
@@5urg3x now I'm not sure what you're talking about. None of your USB A ports support power delivery (PD) anyway... but some of then can deliver more power than others
@@YounesLayachi I’m talking about a laptop computer - or a desktop computer - or even a powered hub connected to a laptop or desktop computer being able to provide PD to a connected end device like a phone or a tablet; this is not possible. Some may be able to do certain quick charge standards, but quick charge is a pain in the ass, for the reasons stated in the video. Too many different standards. A powered hub may support PD, but only on ONE port - the host port, for a laptop, for example.
I can see the USB-C connector taking over when everything starts supporting only USB 4.0. USB 3.0 was a stop gap, where the USB-C connector was optional. I think many devices will still try to be USB 2.0 or USB 3 for a long time becuase of cost and easy backwards compatibility.
It's the same reason why 3G was never actually 3G, going on to 4G, 4G LTE, and now the various flavors of 5G. The sales team steps in and mandates putting certain names on the product, and nobody's able to stop them because the standard isn't actually enforced in any meaningful way.
I had already concluded that the world of USB was entirely awful based on prrsonal experience, but this vid shows that I've only encountered the tip of a gargantuan iceberg of confusion/frustration. How could it have gotten so bad?
lack of standardization, letting a corporation/private organization oversee the spec instead of an organization that specialized in standards, like ANSI, ISO, IEC, ECMA, IEEE, etc. One might recognize IEEE as the organization overseeing such standards as IEEE 754 (Digital Floating Point Number Representation) and IEEE 1394 (Firewire)
More like marketing and sales. Basically what happens now is that the can sell devices with USB 3.0 and call them USB 3.2. That way they can fool customers who don't know better into thinking they are getting the latest USB standard.
Interesting that DB-25 was used for a variety of incompatible signal types and protocols. Is the DB-25 port on your computer RS-232 serial, SCSI or IEEE 1284 (parallel printer), and if 1284 then is it standard, bidirectional, EPP or ECP? Or on pro AV gear it could be eight balanced analog channels, multitrack AES3 digital audio (in one of a few different pinouts), or perhaps SMPTE 274M digital video. And that's not to mention proprietary uses such as an Amiga joystick port.
Well, B in USB stands for Bus, I.e. it is about communication and protocol logic. Physical implementation of connectors has nothing to do with anything. Have you ever heard about internal connectors? Or maybe devices with built-in USB hubs? Keyboards with extra USB ports usually contain 2 independent USB devices: keyboard and hub, which connected using 4 conductors on PCB, you even can resolder your own device instead of hub. (See Ben's Eater video here in TH-cam)
I thought things were odd when my fancy new USB-C phone started powering the Dell MiniPC I use at work instead of charging from it. Ok, so that didn't actually happen, the phone just failed to charge.
The thing I remember in my younger days about USB: It was supposed to be truly universal. No more need for drivers. Printers I guess threw that idea out the window
Universal as in the port, not the drivers (95% comes with windows these days anyway) You remember ports before usb? PS/2 port, Serial port, Parallel port, Game port and dozens of proprietary ports. It was a mess.
@@wayland7150 I will work as long as the operating system is compatible with those drivers. That technique was used for a long time, but some devices only have drivers eg. up to windows xp, so on vista+ or on linux or mac they won't install. UEFI was supposed to fix that, but project ended up as a failure.
I'm glad someone is finally calling usb-c what it is, a connector! So many people on TH-cam talk about usb-c like it's a standard in and of itself and it isn't. This can be very misleading for people and I really wish a lot more places were a lot more clear about this.
I didn't even know there were colors for USB, and I've been a tech nerd for most of my life. It always felt random. Every port on most modern devices I've owned are either white or blue for 3.0 or better.
I got to know about colors because my monitor's USB hub had a red one so I Googled what it means. And I am pretty sure the red color in this case means always on, it's definitely 2.0. And my USB 3.whatever cable are purple lol
When you chuck a cable into the wrong port it reports that you are using a port at low power. That's sort of doing it, it knows it's a USB but it also knows it ain't 100% right.
Every usb version is cross compatible, from 1.0 all the way to 3.2, so there isn't any compatibility issue so to speak. But as the other comment says, it kinda does let us know the versions are different.
I work on Lenovo machines and I can tell you they don't even follow those port colors... Sometimes you'll see the blue ones but sometimes they make them all black anyway no matter the speed and it's really annoying because the only way to find out is to check the maintenance manual or dig through the device manager.
U stands for Universal and the B means bus. The data line, the bus, is universal, supporting so many different kind of data streams. The physical port is not universal unfortunately. They have grown and shrunk over time. But the USB protocol is pretty clever I think. The way it supports different endpoints and is hot pluggable is very nice.
As soon as you started talking about manufacturer's coloring their USB ports for aesthetic purposes only, RAZER IMMEDIATELY jumped to mind haha. I have several Razer peripherals and a Razer Blade 15, so I am all too familiar with the green colored USD port 😂
Also be sure to note that there are USB C 2.0 cables. You can actually find those on Amazon, and I was nearly scammed from one seller who kept sending me those when I ordered 3.0 cables. It was clearly on the label what they sent me, so they were either hoping I was blind, or they were the blind ones.
That's a bit sensational. Because in truth there is definitely a universal interface due to backward compatibility. Speed may not always be optimal, but I can connect modern devices to 20-year-old cables and vice versa.
It is indeed. USB has been incredibly successful in consolidating almost everything into a few types of ports and being able to charge your devices with basically anything. Complaining that a port might work at 5Gbps rather than 40Gbps or it's the wrong color... From the title, I was expecting something like every device and operating system having to implement a ton of custom code/integration to be able to work. To an extent this is essential complexity and e.g. printer drivers are a necessary evil to manage that problem.
As muddled as USB has become, I'm glad to be long past the days of RS-232, parallel ports with giant connectors, PS2 for mice and keyboards, and for phones... well... those springy handset cables that always twisted on themselves after you stretched them out because you tried to stand in a different part of the room while talking. How many of you are old enough to relate to this?
Ignoring the specs, I think it is pretty much universal. All devices have them, and when you plug it into the thing it just works. Dont even have to setup an IRQ for my LPT port.
Most annoying thing I've ever had the displeasure of setting up was a Gravis Ultrasound Max. First you have to set all of the jumpers for IRQ, DMA and IO ranges, then once the configuration software can find the card, you have to setup a few more that don't have jumpers for things like SB compatibility. And once you think you are done, you find out that something else quit working due to IRQ/DMA conflict. Many a days were wasted trying to figure out the perfect setup where everything works at the same time.
Tell that to USB-C only portable monitors that are WORTHLESS to me even tho my Laptop has 2 c ports. ZERO support for video over usb-c on the laptop so I am pretty much forced to use a portable monitor with an hdmi port and separate USB port for power
"if you disliked it you know what to do" 1 open another tab 2 google "youtube dislike button extension" 3 go to the appropriate website and add the extension to your browser 4 go back to the youtube tab with riealy still here 5 refresh 6 now you really know what to do
The much stronger counter argument is that it's very very appropriate to call it "universal" because... It truly is in a way that nothing else is. Sorry but it's very very hard to defend your position. The speeds are not universal, but come on. The fact that you can plug a 20 year old flash drive into a modern computer and be effectively entitled for it to work without any adapters is the "universal" in USB. The only standard that's more universal is the 3.5 mm headphone jack. Frankly it's a bit shocking that 9 people upvoted your comment, considering how illogical your statement actually is.
USB started out well, no more different specific ports for keyboard, mouse, joysticks, modems, printers, plotters, display, external storage. But it gotten really confusing after 3.0 came out.
I like this channel because of the quick and extremely informative stuff they talk about while at the same having a very entertaining format. Shame this channel has to abuse clickbaity titles like this one that completely mislead us just to scratch a bit more views. No, USB is not "a lie". The fact that there's not much standardization with colours or other features doesn't mean it is a lie. That title is ambiguous and doesn't summarize or explain anything related to the content of the video.
Yeah I like a lot of the content, but hate the thumbnails. Linus claims of he didn't do it they would lose 20 percent of views, but it isn't either/or. You could have some concern over decent titles, aesthetics..
@@michaelcorcoran8768 I know I'm not running a media group like he is, but I'd like to think I'd rather lose on 20% of my views while sticking to my principles
You can thank Intel for some of the USB chaos. In the beginning there was Firewire. It was fast and it was easier than SCSI. Than there came along USB that was a replacement of the aging old RS232 and LPT ports. It had a lot of manufacture input but Intel was a major contributor. Apple wanting to move away from Firewire worked with Intel to come up with Thunderbolt. It was fast. Worked flawless for sound and video and you could break off USB ports from it. This allowed you to plug your mouse and keyboard into your monitor. And your monitor had a single cable going to your computer. USB at this time was going from a progression of slow peripheral things (still much faster than RS232) to higher and higher speeds. Every time the speed was bumped up the manufactures of different gadgets to plugin to USB would jump at the chance to go faster. NOW today, we are in the day and age of where Thunderbolt is being merged in with USB. The confusing part is... they are somewhat interchangeable AS IN... a Thunderbolt port connection can do anything USB C can. BUT a USB C port can't do all the things a Thunderbolt port can do. THIS would have been a good time to use a little color coding. Did they? NOPE. Do they document what the port actually is? Rarely. For the most part on packaging, it's all "USB C" good luck with knowing what it can do!
Even as a tech-savvy person, something as easy as finding a tablet capable of display output over usb-c was soooo frustrating... The listings, the standards, the manufacturers - its all over the place
As a fluent Esperanto speaker who's very familiar with the shortcomings of the language, I was both pleasantly surprised and appreciative of that joke at the beginning
Imagine a world where every connection is USB-C, your keyboard, mouse, phone, monitor, microphone, everything. Even your GPU can just connect anywhere to your motherboard and stream via the USB-C ports on the motherboard so you don't need a traditional GPU anymore, you could have a cube GPU, one that fits to the top of your case, etc.
you don't need a traditional GPU anymore, you could have a cube GPU, one that fits to the top of your case, etc. Then people will be building cases that encompass your cube GPU, cube CPU, etc
Thanks for the color scheme specs. For years I never bothered to learn what the colors meant (not that it matters anymore apparently). My Gigabyte monitor came with a crazy USB 3.0 AB and I just don't know why they keep making variants with the same specs.
Don't knock Esperanto, that was a beautiful dream. Everyone learns two languages and the second one is cake to learn for half the world and still pretty easy for the other half. Bam. The whole world can talk to each other. Breaks my heart it never caught on.
Fun-fact a port that accepts this cable, will also accept a standard Micro usb cable; you just dont get stuck with 2.0 speed. (so if you have a device like an external hard-drive that requires one of these, but you cant find a cable, you can make due with any micro usb)
Many people think USB-C means it's USB 3.x, but not always. Many laptops with USB-C most likely support 3.x specs, but many phones still likely have 2.0 data specs.
USB began with a lie. It came out around the same time as "plug and play," and the #1 advertised feature was "no more driver disks!" That boast quickly disappeared when devices other than HMIs hit the scene.
![[RANT] The DUMBEST Thing About USB](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/gShRBsahzXg/mqdefault.jpg)
Well, pretty sure the "Universal" is because it was supposed to replace the game controller port, printer port, serial port, ps/2 for keyboard and mouse we had before and it did.
Still, fuck usb marketing guys lol
No shit.
Yeah, it's definitely better than it was before. Otherwise we'd still be seeing manufacturer-specific charging ports for phones too.
Riley forgot the "SB". Literally "Serial Bus". In other words, he can still manage to be a smarty pants about 1/3 of a full concept, which is impressive.
But 33% is still an F.
@@porkstamina Well as manufacturers thinking about going 'portless'(port that needs a hole in this case), it will come back soon, dont worry, whit all the diffrenet magnet-based ports, like magsafe. (My only hope is a magnetic USB release that could solve this issue before it comes up)
The very fact that they took existing specs and rebranded them is just insane. For example, taking USB 3.0 and rebranding it as USB 3.1 Gen 1 and then rebranding that same spec again as USB 3.2 Gen 1. Sure, they claim they are trying to make things more transparent for the consumer with USB4 since it has to be type C and 20gbps or 40gbps but just you wait until they make USB 4 Gen 1x2 or some BS rebranding for an older spec.
The only reason they did it was for marketing.
This way you can sell USB 3.0 devices as 3.2 and people with no technical knowledge will believe its better, even thought its exactly the same thing.
The same happened to HDMI for exactly same reason.
@@hubertnnn The thing is manufacturers dont all use the same terminology. When trying to find a motherboard some say they have usb 3.0, and others 3.2 -gen 2- gen 1. The thing is, they both support 5GB, because they are the exact same thing. Some boards even had usb 3.2 gen 2 while others had just 3.2.
I need that USB4 version 6 gen 3 revision 9 in light Antique Brass
@@warriorsmustang1784 yeah they dont use the same terminologie but you are wrong in youre statement usb 3.2 gen 2 is 10gbps vs usb 3.0 5gbps but its the same as 3.2 gen1.. but the fact is that this is complete bullshit....
That is some absolute bullshit.
This would never have happened under Clippy. Clippy would pop up and go "I see you are plugging a USB 3.1415265 device into a USB 3.131527 port using a USB 3.10 cable - would you like to reevaluate your life?"
I had a teacher we used to call Clippy. Then one day he tripped over and lost a tooth.
Poor bugger become chippy for the rest of his life :D Children are mean.
Yes and people would immediately click the Go Away button without considering Clippy's advice or has human nature changed in the last 20 years?
@@wayland7150 Nope, Clippy is gone, but human nature has not changed one bit.
I live in Japan and had the Japanese version of Office during the Office Assistant era - its Office Assistant character was a dog that was much cuter and less annoying than Clippy. But I still clicked Go Away without reading its advice (which was in Japanese, of course).
@@L4JP Well, you could always swap out Clippy for a cute little robot helper or a dog.
@@earthtaurus5515 The dog in English Office is different from the one I was thinking of. But now I'm discovering that my memory is fuzzy - the dog was related to Windows XP, not Office. His name was apparently Rover: th-cam.com/video/rjy53IOsC4U/w-d-xo.html
In Japanese Office, I'm now reminded that the default was a dolphin, apparently named Kairu. Did the English version have the dolphin as an option?
Here is a video of just Kairu's movements: th-cam.com/video/Plax9B2e9wM/w-d-xo.html (The video is longer than it needs to be, but it gets a little more interesting in the latter half or so, including animations I don't even remember seeing before.)
And here is Kairu in context: th-cam.com/video/WjZcgMFwTOU/w-d-xo.html (At 1min 14sec, the user typed the question we have all asked at some point: "How do I get rid of you?")
In a previous version of Office, the Japanese default was a lady named Saeko-sensei, which seems highly likely to be Japan only, as it fits the culture here perfectly.
Back when I used to edit videos professionally, after each project was completed, I used to render out the final iteration of the video as "final.mp4"
But then I'd spot a mistake and call this one "final2.mp4"
But then the client will ask for a few tweaks; "final2_final"
By the time I'm actually done the file would call itself "final7_finalClient_v6_YesThisIsActuallyFuckingDone.mp4"
I'm guessing USB is going through the same phase
See this is why we have FOLDERS guys. File names are wrecked by other people but an organised folder system will easily deal with it!
Name it "Decent filenames are for pussies folder" and drop your client files in there lol.
@@DailyCorvid tags are even better
I can relate to this quite a lot. I've never edited videos professionally before, but I have done numerous videos as personal projects and I've done that exact same thing with the "final4_etc" madness.
Some of us don't have unlimited storage space, so we would overwrite "final.mp4" instead of keeping all the superseded versions. But PPro project files (or sequences within those projects) are another matter!
@@L4JP use a Version Control System with incremental backups, not full size backups.
I'm so exited for USB 4.1.2 Gen6 rev3-3 Mk2_final_final. It finally clears up the confusion between 4.1.1 Gen5 rev3-2 α6 and it's predecessors. The handy comparison chart is wonderful, and doubles as wallpaper; 6.5 posters completely covers your average room! Though seriously I think switching to a unified color scheme might be the best solution for consumers, most people could ignore the technobabble entirely: I plug into the yellow one for power, because yellow is electricity color.
Also I thought that the red ports were for bios recovery or something similar?
that name looks likes its from gmod lol
You probably mean USB 4.1.2 Gen6 rev3-3 Mk2_final_final hyper ultra mega supra speed, since USB 4.1.2 Gen6 rev3-3 Mk2_final_final is just a rebrand of past iterations.
If they made a standardized colour for each USB gen then all the Chinese companies will make USB 1.0 cables with that colour to rip ya off so India and China mess everything up anyway
I exhaled through my nose fairly hard reading this :)
th-cam.com/video/qkNev2lA-u4/w-d-xo.html finally it's here.
I realize it’s a generational thing, but compared to the disaster of connectors we used before USB, this is still a HUGE improvement. Never needing a gender-bender, null-modem, or centronix-to-db25 is what made it universal and all this modern BS is a walk in the park in comparison.
I have been using USB forever. I have never learned about any standards. I didn’t know about colour codes. My strategy has been simple: if it plugs in, basically works, and nothing complains, that’s enough. After all, I remember hand-wiring serial ports.
It was only recently that I had to be aware of 3.0 or better USBs. Features such as Oculus Quest PC Link needs the faster speeds.
This is the way
That's until you need a USB-C to HDMI adapter. Those are hella picky.
That is the point of it. Once the connector fits into the rectangle shaped thingy, it works.
@@qT_p13 but it doesnt fit in the goddamn port and i'm jiggling it and it just wont *Turns upside down* oh never mind i had it the wrong way even though i tried that way first...
The first thing is for USB to stop renaming older revisions to newer numbers, and just keep incrementing on newer revisions.
Second, codify the colors in the specification.
You'd also have to deal with China and it's "chabuduo" reply to their failures to meet contract specifications or basic standards.
@@bobthecannibal1 Not really, where do you think where most of the worlds electronics are made lol....
So what do you name a usb type C at 5 Gbps speed ?
It can't be 3.0 cause those were only type A/B.
Yes , the revision number (3.0) is more than just a speed number
@@YounesLayachi USB Type-C 5gig, simple as that
I agree.
I just love that whenever given a chance, Riley will go on huge a rant about this new USB semantic.
I feel ya, maaaan.
i love it
@@user-vs3rr8qx2b get out
Yeahh... Riley rant are so funny and Genuinely Funny.. 👍
Didn't Linus did the first two USB rant?
I used to build computers with my dad when I was a boy, back in the mid eighties and I very much remember how ecstatic he was about USB when it came. A while ago, I told him about the current affairs with USB and he simply didn't believe me. «Nobody's that stupid», he said.
TBH, that's more or less me. I was psyched to get a computer that had USB in it, even though it was one of those early ports, I can't recall if it was 1.0 or 1.1. But, the ability to swap devices and choose how to divvy them up was amazing.
Not since the demise of Firewire have I been so saddened by choices with respect to connectivity. Firewire was awesome because you could access the RAM of a hung computer and dump that for debugging, something that is incredibly hard without.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade: Yes, it's incredibly crazy. Firewire, was of course, crazy for the reason you describe. Plug-to-hack is a bad idea. :)
@@jeschinstad Yes, but even with other protocols, you shouldn't be plugging in random things, do I'm not sure it's that much worse.
But, the speed was incredible.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade: Peripherals having direct access to main memory means they can be very fast, but it also means you have absolutely no security. While you shouldn't plug in random USB devices because they can be used to exploit vulnerabilities in the OS, it's still very different from allowing peripherals to bypass OS security entirely. One is a risk, while the other is guaranteed failure.
Please show your dad the new Intel naming schemes
I think it's important to note at 2:55 there are USB 2.0 Type-C cables so the connection speed could range from 480Mb-40Gbps
Yep. The majority of USB-C cables that are sold as "charging cables" are only USB 2.0. It has fewer wires and so is less expensive to manufacture.
@@userjames2009 I bought my mom Ulefone Armor X8, and I can confirm it uses USB-C 2.0.
this is my main gripe with usb-c, it supports everything, but unlike usb-a, you can't just LOOK at it to see what it supports, you have to blindly hope it works, and if it's e.g. usb2.0, you better label it, or you'll have to rediscover it's slow-ass all over again...
usb-A you can clearly see whether it's 2.0 or 3.x by the amount of pins, "more than 4 pins = good speed", and tbh, around usb 3.0 or 3.1 is enough for normal usage, and higher bandwidth is needed only for fancy stuff like stuffing video signal or gigabit ethernet over it (even usb2.0 should be able to do 100mbps internet I think, there are usb2 ethernet adapters)
@@userjames2009 Not only that, but these charging cables also tend to be easier to bend. Where as nearly all USB-C 3.x cables are difficult to bend
Bendy cables are way easier to work with, especially for just charging.
@@MrDeaf Exactly, and Thunderbolt (and presumably USB-4) is even thicker. The only exceptions are active cables like Oculus Link that convert the signal to and from fiber optic, so the cable only has the thin fiber optic line and 2 copper wires for charging. I wouldn't be surprised if active cables became more popular in the future for long, high speed, low wattage cables.
"There are still USB C ports that only support old 5Gbps"
Well, there are also ones, that only support USB2.0 or even lower.
Yeah, but you usually only find those on most products, such as the latest cutting edge phones and tablets like the Galaxy Sfuckyou HyperDeluxe and Galaxy TabTastic Number Edition. Niche products like random external ssd docks sold under a brand with zero recognition whatsoever use USB 3xyz ?Gbps, and I've even seen a few ssd enclosures with support for TB3 (and usb 3xyz ?Gbps).
A lot of audiophile products have USB C ports that are only 1.0 speeds
2:56 there is also some USB 2.0 type C, on smartphones for example
And consider that wireless USB was a thing a few years ago...
yes the biggest rickroll by phone manufacturers, even the most expensive bbk phones use type C but it's 2.0 ffs
I have a keyboard with detachable usb 2.0 type c. The passthrough is 3.0 though.
th-cam.com/video/qkNev2lA-u4/w-d-xo.html finally it's here.
@@MayankJairaj well, the point of usb-c is to have universal cable... the phones have ALWAYS been usb2.0, so it's no surprise that most of them stay at 2.0, and only the higher end ones that support stuff like external displays, have any need for anything faster... the point for phones, is that usb-c is physically stronger, and that you don't need separate charging cable types, even if your device doesn't support some specific fast-charging, it would still be able to charge slowly, with ANY power brick and ANY cable... etc...
It's way faster to transfer files between smartphones and computers using FTP instead of cable. Yeah, the world has changed.
My problem is I shouldn't have to read a spec sheet or reviews to determine if my usb-c cable is a true to spec cable. Keep it consistent with the speed, quailty, and colors and we're good to go.
But then someone would complain about not being able to buy $1 usb cables
Yes, and if you fail to read it, or understand it, the cable shouldn't be capable of destroying your devices.
3:25 hey don't make fun of my plugins for my storage device
We need a revolution to overthrow the committee that names USB standards
The universal universal standard standards committee perhaps? The UUSSC for USB :D
Let's call it just NSB: New Serial Bus. Because then they can't call the second one new new sb.
there are usb c cables that are even 2.0 speeds of just 480mbps. You usually see these as the cheapest usb c charging cables for sale on amazon. The manufacturer assumes they will only be used for charging and thus cheap out by limiting it to usb 2.0 speeds.
USB 2.0 only needs 4 conductors, 3 if you cheap out and use the shield as ground. USB 3 adds another 5 conductors, bringing the total to 9.
Additionally, USB 2 is relatively slow and tends to work fine without shielding, while USB 3 absolutely needs shielding.
So there is quite a bit of cost to be saved by making it USB 2 only.
Some included charging cables even go a step further and have only the two power lines, so they can only be used for charging.
@@drkastenbrot makes sense that a lot of the cheaper usb c cables are usb 2.0 especially the longer ones like 10 feet as having literally less than half the conductors adds up through a 10 foot (~3m) length. From my experience charging only cables are less common/ less highly promoted or rated on a storefront because a lot of people will occasionally use the charging cable to plug it into a computer and if it connects even at usb 2.0 speed the average consumer really would never know the difference. But if they plug it in only for their device not to be detected by their computer they may think the cable is faulty not realizing its power only.
Some phones are USB 2.0 but use USB C, so having a USB 3.0+ cable would be a waste
@@drkastenbrot some cables don't even bother with connecting data pins through
There are no USB C cables that don't support USB 3 speeds. That wouldn't meet any USB standards and wouldnt make sense.
There are however USB hosts or devices that use USB C connectors but only support USB 1.1/2.0. I don't see this anything other than a demonstration of backward compatibility working well. It shows that the convenience of USB C cables can still carry older USB signals.
I'd like to think that the USB Implementers Forum actually do want to simplify all of this, but every time they try to have an in person meeting to hammer it all out they can't ever get all of the necessary meeting hardware properly working due to USB cable confusion. I can dream, can't I?
I really like Riley's videos. They are straight forward and he has the perfect on-screen personality for presenting technical topics in a fun way. Keep them coming.
th-cam.com/video/qkNev2lA-u4/w-d-xo.html finally it's here.
He used to head the NCIX channel
Hell yeah Riley Reid is the best
@@swsephy 🌚
I swear he singlehandedly gives me life
As a Graphic Designer. I can guarantee that we are good at naming our final export files better than USB.
Ah yeah, my file system is actually quite good. File USE_THIS_social_01022022_v7_final_FINAL.psd is still hanging in there
Yeah mine usually is samoosa n chabbati
@@citroenboter imagine going to such efforts. i just do
idjvefhjz.xcf
idjvefhjz 2.xcf
idjvefhjz 3.xcf
The inventor of the USB type A when died was lowered down in his coffin. But, at some moment the coffin went up. Then it was turned around and lowered the oposite way...
Funny
@@technolucas3720 You know what else? I'm from Poland and Im anti Russian Orcs freak so I can also:
*DO THE FUNNI* 😆
You can run usb 2.0 through a USB type C connector, as the connector is just the connector, it doesn't do anything else other than provide an electrical connection between things.
I hate when manufacturers do that, worse offenders are some Chinese phone makers that have USB-C but with 2.0 speed and their proprietary fast charging that only works with a USB-C to A cable on their brick.
Doesn't that depend upon the chips involved? USB 2.0 was only backwards compatible to the 1.x versions because it had extra chips to handle the other protocols.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade USB 2.0 controllers can run on slower clock speeds to support 1.0/1.1 devices, this has been built into every USB 2.0 controller. Up until USB 3.0, USB used just two differential wires (D+ and D-) to transmit data, USB 3.0 (or USB 3.2 Gen 1 as I think it's called now...) introduced two extra pairs for more bandwidth.
The available USB type depends on many things, including the USB controller, the USB device, the cabling, ports, USB hubs in between etc.
For instance you can have a USB C cable that only connects VBUS, GND, D+ and D-, connect it to the latest USB port and it will only support up to USB 2.0 (or lower).
Still, it's super-great that so many modern gadgets use USB to power themselves, instead of the myriad of proprietary power supplies in years before.
I even predicted this circa 2008, when I still had my OG Moto Razr -but not to this extent.-
Yep. Still remember a time where every phone had a different iteration of a charging port. Samsung used something different, so did the moto and lg. Nokia even had a few different ports and sizes for charging.
It would be nice if they could make it so the USB could power everything including printers and everything else that still need external power.
@@KevinBenecke Impossible. The more power a device needs the thicker the wires have to be. So unless you want a chunky USB cable as a standard, high power devices will need their own power sources.
@@hubertnnn Not everything could, but things like printers could easily work if laptops can
@@hubertnnn Not impossible, USB-4 supports alot of watts and most appliances don't require that much watts. The only appliance the USB standard won't work on (perhaps later versions) is a large fan assisted oven. The only reason electronic appliances won't switch over to USB connectors is the fuses. It's easier to replace a blown fuse in a plug then it is to replace an fuse inside an electronic appliance.
The other flow that I missed in the video is the wrong implementation, e.g. in the Raspberry Pi 4 (fixed in newer revisions) or the Nintendo Switch were they didn't add a transistor to signalizes charges to charge. With the effect that some won't work.
How the USB standard should be, in my opinion:
usb-c 20.15 --> usb type-c port that handles 20gb/sec with 15w power delivery.
There are only three real parts, and if this were engraved/printed on ports OR the heads of cables, it would make it easier.
We already have the standard little lighting bolt to mean "charging port". This isn't all that much more information.
Or call it "USB-C 20GB 15W." I'm 100% sure manufacturers would switch around 20.15 and 15.20 if done in that format.
So why don't we just use USB-D 100W instead? Because it hasn't been invented yet. Do you see the issue here?
15W @ 5V = 3 Amps. Which in the world of power is not a particularly small number. 1.5 Amps is a lot more realistic with small chargers. Double of 1.5 A and you're starting to talk about some real hardware to manage it.
The USB "standard" is a total mess at this point.
It's ridiculous at this point, if a lot of us tech enthusiasts are confused you have to wonder how confused the average consumer is. I've been into PC for about 25yrs and even I can't remember what device is what when it comes to the 3.0+ version at this point. Would be far easier if they just used the speeds instead of making up random names, at least if the device does 10Gbps and the cable is 10Gbps+ you know the speed you should get instantly instead of seeing USB 3.0/3.1 Gen 1, USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, USB 3.2 Gen 2×1 and then remembering which speed is which standard.
Tbf its a lot better than before though. I remember that the first controller I used had for some bizarre reason a VGA connector or so...
Generally though, you cant do much wrong with USB, as long as you know the difference between USB 3.0 and micro/C connectors.
@@richard-davies USB 3.0, AKA USB SuperSpeed, AKA USB 3.1 Gen 1, AKA USB 3.2 Gen 1. Also important to remember that SuperSpeed+, SuperSpeed+, and SuperSpeed+ are three different standards.
The best thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.
@@termitreter6545 You can't do much wrong with USB as long as all you do is charge your phone and connect a flash drive (do people still use those anyways?)
As soon as you want to charge your laptop, connect a display or two using Displayport over USB C with daisy chain or want to actually get 10 or 20Gb/s speeds you will spend hours searching in the manuals for your devices and even cabling to figure out why it isn't working, again...
it is the bus that is universal, as the name "universal serial bus" implies; the connectors and link speeds may vary, but simple adapters providing electrical and physical compatibility essentially ensure that what you plug in will hot-plug, and work.
th-cam.com/video/qkNev2lA-u4/w-d-xo.html finally it's here.
Esperanto pretty cool doe
"hot-plug, and work"
No keyboard detected press F1 to continue
It's not even a bus (not the schoolbus type... the electrical type) but a point to point architecture...
It is (originally) serial though, but even that is not fully true anymore as since USB 3.0 they use multiple pairs (parallel) to speed things up, so 'not-very-universal serial and parallel point to point' would be the new name...
Also, the universal refers to the origins of USB, when it replaced gameport, serial, parallel and a few more obsolete ports I've forgotten about, it became 1 universal connector for all those things, universal doesn't refer to the 'bus'
Also, USB is not electrically compatible, starting from USB 3.0, it uses multiple pairs making it electrically incompatible with USB 2.0 and older, requiring weird and bulky combined connectors. Same for voltage, used to be 5VDC, but can now be up to 38VDC I think with some power delivery modes...
I liked the older connectors more, because it was easy to tell what it was for.
Yes and when PC97 was standardized, they even added color coding to help with that. It was kind of overkill as it was mostly the mouse and keyboard ports that looked the same, but still nice and helpful. You could tell even the most ignorant of end user to plug the cable into the port of the appropriate color and the only bad things that could happen would be if they damaged the pins trying to insert it upside down, or swap the keyboard for mouse as those parts were more or less the same. It's been quite a while, so I don't even remember if that mattered after the computer booted.
Yeah I recently bought a keyboard with a detachable cable and a few of the reviews warned that the included USB-C cable fried their keyboard. Definitely something to watch out for
th-cam.com/video/qkNev2lA-u4/w-d-xo.html finally it's here.
It's because the standard just dictates the connectors and cable, not what you do with it. The first Rapberry Pi 4s had issues due to the way they were designed that caused issues when they were plugged into the wrong power adapter.
keep in mind, some usb c ports also use 2.0 speeds. Or at least, many phone cables do.
knowing what they did in the past, I wouldn't be surprised if when USB4 comes out all the old stuff starts getting branded as USB4 too
USB 4.1 gen 1.1 12Mbit
You know why they did that though.
Now anybody who buys the current version of a USB port, is compatible with everything older 100%. That's the most likely scenario for them. Everything sold with older ports is probably either second hand or third party so they don't care about those people so much.
They did it to preserve compatibility for NEW users and didn't care that it removes the universality for older users. They should buy new computers is what we will be told :D
@@DailyCorvid no you muppet, the new shit was always compatible with older stuff. All they did was change the names of the older versions so now you can't tell them apart.
@@DailyCorvid USB is compatible all the way backwards and forwards. If you can plug it in the only difference is what power can be delivered and what speed it can use. It's actually a very good standard apart from the confusing names and colours.
@@wayland7150 usb4 only exists as usbc
So it’s not really compatible with all previous specifications
To understand USB standards fully, you need to take a full-time 4-year USB course.
Doctor of USB😅
*Esperanto* is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by Polish ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communication, or "the international language".
Tried to buy a USB 3.x Type-C cable for my phone.
It was a nightmare... x.x I ended up having to read most of the technical specification just to be sure that what I ordered was what I really wanted. It's become a nightmare.
You most likely wasted your time doing so, unless you have a very niche phone with USB 3 speeds and not 2 speeds. USB 2 is still the default option for modern phones, since OEMs know that 99+ percent of smartphone owners never do wired data transfers anymore.
@@awesomeferret It turns out it actually has a USB3 capable controller - but has problems when run at USB2. I thought the same at first too but since getting the proper cable, it works as expected and no longer has errors. Fastboot and ADB also behave as they should now whereas Fastboot would lose connection way, way too often with the older cable. Its quite a nieche though... but that didnt make finding the right cable any easier and I probably overpaid for it x.x
Why do you roll the end of your sleeves?..
You forgot the full size USB 3.0 Type B connector. It's used mostly on 3.5" external drive cases. As for port colors, my Dell laptop has black in all of its ports, USB 2 and 3, and the combo eSATA/USB 2.0 port.
It's actually amazing to be able to charge most devices with the same cable and charger! Remember the early years of this century when it felt like every single device had a different proprietary connector?! But yes, shopping for a laptop last week was still too much work. So, the c-ports on the T580 are half-thunderbird, so I can't do x, but the X1 Extreme has full thunderbird while the E580's c-port is only USB 3.1 (and that's just one brand, ThinkPad). And, which c-ports can I use to charge the laptop? And how much power do I need? Oh probably 45W when on with low use but maybe less when it's asleep or off, but we can't give you an exact number. Just try it. Then, so, which dock is just a USB hub and which is thunderbolt? The ad says thunderbolt but the ports look like it's only a hub. This other one has two c-ports on the front, but oh, those are labelled "usb-c" instead of the more useful "USB 3.1" that the type A ports are labelled with. Do they behave any different? Many hubs/dock have HDMI but good luck trying to determine which laptops output HDMI on the c-port. And, to output to two displayport monitors... Also, why are thunderbolt docks so expensive?!
Also, USB Type-B physically fits (but doesn't work, obviously) into Eithernet port, both of which are often present in printers.
This causes a lot of confusion in offices, especially the ones without a dedicated IT guy.
The "universal" part of USB is that pretty much any device using any USB port can communicate to anything else using USB, regardless of when that port was made or what device it's on.
A USB 2.0 and a USB 3.0 2x2 can communicate just fine, just at 2.0 speeds. I'm pretty sure even 1.1 is perfectly compatible. And that's true regardless of the port type (mini, micro, type A, B, C, etc). As long as you have a cable, you can get them to communicate. Before USB, that was not so true for devices that were very disparate! (phones, printers, computers, consoles, etc)
I could see a software that lets you know when you got a mismatch and then points to a compliant port if your computer has one. This would be based upon the hardware you currently have plugged in and could even recommend moving some connectors around to optimize the situation.
Windows does this to an extent by default in file explorer
They needs to come up with USB magnetic standard so that we don't stuck with all the manufactures making their own magnetic ports & cables.
Called Qi wireless charging
You can always just magnetise an existing connector? It wouldn't impede performance at all.
Yeah, pogo, magsafe, Microsoft's Surface. It's annoying.
@@DailyCorvid I've bought some magnetic adapters. The problem is that they aren't all compatible and I'm lucky enough that the two versions I have don't use the same polarity, so there's no risk of accidentally plugging the wrong one in. It should still be fine as the pins on the computer and device are the same, so the wires inside should also, but I worry a bit about such things.
Me in kindergarten: Red orange yellow green blue purple those are the colors of the rainbow!
Me today: Red orange yellow green blue purple WTF DO THEY ALL MEAN JUST KILL ME NOW
The beauty of having a standard is that there is a lot of variety
But if that variety is unpredictable it can mitigate the point of the standard by rendering it unusable due to lack of understandability
th-cam.com/video/qkNev2lA-u4/w-d-xo.html finally it's here.
The beauty of having a standard is basic compatibility/interoperability and minimum specs.
And all these years my only concern was looking at the plug before I plug it in, to pull it out of its state of quantum flux.
"Flux capacitor's...fluxxing."
@@barrettdecutler8979 sounds hawt
One of the things that pisses me off THE MOST about USB is the power delivery. Prime example: smartphones and tablets. When you plug these devices into your desktop or laptop, chances are they won't charge anywhere near as quickly compared to using a separate dedicated charger. And apparently there are NO hubs / docks etc out there that support power delivery for the DEVICES -- they support it for the host only.
You're confusing USB with your laptop's limited hub power.
It's not USB's fault here. Plug stuff to the back of your desktop if you need it to charge quickly.
@@YounesLayachi I’m not. Desktops may support some quick charge standards, typically only on a single port, but this is NOT USB-PD (power delivery). Power delivery is only supported for a *single* HOST, not end devices, even on more expensive hubs and docks that use PD charging bricks.
@@5urg3x now I'm not sure what you're talking about. None of your USB A ports support power delivery (PD) anyway... but some of then can deliver more power than others
@@YounesLayachi I’m talking about a laptop computer - or a desktop computer - or even a powered hub connected to a laptop or desktop computer being able to provide PD to a connected end device like a phone or a tablet; this is not possible. Some may be able to do certain quick charge standards, but quick charge is a pain in the ass, for the reasons stated in the video. Too many different standards. A powered hub may support PD, but only on ONE port - the host port, for a laptop, for example.
3:12 That's why I only use cables and chargers for my tablet and phone that are the same brand as the devices.
I can see the USB-C connector taking over when everything starts supporting only USB 4.0.
USB 3.0 was a stop gap, where the USB-C connector was optional.
I think many devices will still try to be USB 2.0 or USB 3 for a long time becuase of cost and easy backwards compatibility.
It's the same reason why 3G was never actually 3G, going on to 4G, 4G LTE, and now the various flavors of 5G. The sales team steps in and mandates putting certain names on the product, and nobody's able to stop them because the standard isn't actually enforced in any meaningful way.
Yeah, the marketing department bullies all the engineers and gives them wedgies until they agree to change the numbers.
I had already concluded that the world of USB was entirely awful based on prrsonal experience, but this vid shows that I've only encountered the tip of a gargantuan iceberg of confusion/frustration. How could it have gotten so bad?
lack of standardization, letting a corporation/private organization oversee the spec instead of an organization that specialized in standards, like ANSI, ISO, IEC, ECMA, IEEE, etc. One might recognize IEEE as the organization overseeing such standards as IEEE 754 (Digital Floating Point Number Representation) and IEEE 1394 (Firewire)
Design by committee.
2:39 yeah about that... SOMEONE MAKE A WINDOWS 7 TYPE C DRIVER DOG GAMN IT!
this is a prime example of when you let only a bunch of techie guys design stuff for regular consumers.
More like marketing and sales. Basically what happens now is that the can sell devices with USB 3.0 and call them USB 3.2.
That way they can fool customers who don't know better into thinking they are getting the latest USB standard.
My favorite is the orange standard for high retention force.
I honestly love USB-C but I wish we could all just go back to DB-25 connectivity. Sooo much more simple.
th-cam.com/video/qkNev2lA-u4/w-d-xo.html finally it's here.
Interesting that DB-25 was used for a variety of incompatible signal types and protocols.
Is the DB-25 port on your computer RS-232 serial, SCSI or IEEE 1284 (parallel printer), and if 1284 then is it standard, bidirectional, EPP or ECP?
Or on pro AV gear it could be eight balanced analog channels, multitrack AES3 digital audio (in one of a few different pinouts), or perhaps SMPTE 274M digital video.
And that's not to mention proprietary uses such as an Amiga joystick port.
@@abdicantrecursion8964 lol
Didn’t IEEE 488 use DB-25 connectors as well?
usb is equivalent to "you had something nice but you went and messed it up"
Well, B in USB stands for Bus, I.e. it is about communication and protocol logic. Physical implementation of connectors has nothing to do with anything. Have you ever heard about internal connectors? Or maybe devices with built-in USB hubs? Keyboards with extra USB ports usually contain 2 independent USB devices: keyboard and hub, which connected using 4 conductors on PCB, you even can resolder your own device instead of hub. (See Ben's Eater video here in TH-cam)
Ww shouldn't even need hubs! It's supposed to be an actual bus, so we should be able to plug them in parallel.
th-cam.com/video/qkNev2lA-u4/w-d-xo.html finally it's here.
@@JulianSildenLanglo yes,yes, but actually connecting it as hub device has own benefits.
I thought things were odd when my fancy new USB-C phone started powering the Dell MiniPC I use at work instead of charging from it. Ok, so that didn't actually happen, the phone just failed to charge.
The thing I remember in my younger days about USB: It was supposed to be truly universal. No more need for drivers. Printers I guess threw that idea out the window
Universal does not mean no drivers.
It meant that drivers can detect your device themselves and configure it for different uses.
Universal as in the port, not the drivers (95% comes with windows these days anyway) You remember ports before usb? PS/2 port, Serial port, Parallel port, Game port and dozens of proprietary ports. It was a mess.
No more need for drivers? I guess we don't need any functionality on our USB devices anyway
@@JoshYxVdM I've got a USB 3 NIC, It doubles as a storage device with the driver files inside.
@@wayland7150 I will work as long as the operating system is compatible with those drivers. That technique was used for a long time, but some devices only have drivers eg. up to windows xp, so on vista+ or on linux or mac they won't install.
UEFI was supposed to fix that, but project ended up as a failure.
I'm glad someone is finally calling usb-c what it is, a connector! So many people on TH-cam talk about usb-c like it's a standard in and of itself and it isn't. This can be very misleading for people and I really wish a lot more places were a lot more clear about this.
I didn't even know there were colors for USB, and I've been a tech nerd for most of my life. It always felt random. Every port on most modern devices I've owned are either white or blue for 3.0 or better.
Are you color blind wtf
I got to know about colors because my monitor's USB hub had a red one so I Googled what it means. And I am pretty sure the red color in this case means always on, it's definitely 2.0.
And my USB 3.whatever cable are purple lol
3:26 if you’ve ever had to deal with a dodgy hard drive port you’ll know how frustrating it is that these are still widely used.
Just wish operating systems gave you alerts about the compatibility of usb cables and devices plugged into the computers
When you chuck a cable into the wrong port it reports that you are using a port at low power. That's sort of doing it, it knows it's a USB but it also knows it ain't 100% right.
Every usb version is cross compatible, from 1.0 all the way to 3.2, so there isn't any compatibility issue so to speak. But as the other comment says, it kinda does let us know the versions are different.
Write a letter to the EU, they are breddy into regulating tech standards recently including the ban of custom connector wall adapter.
You guys ever plug a USB 2.0 into a 3.0 port 'just in case' the USB 2.0 wants some extra capacity? LMAO
Woah woah woah calm down buddy... I like to live dangerously but I'm not a bloody psychopath
I work on Lenovo machines and I can tell you they don't even follow those port colors... Sometimes you'll see the blue ones but sometimes they make them all black anyway no matter the speed and it's really annoying because the only way to find out is to check the maintenance manual or dig through the device manager.
0:17 Mi parolas Esperanton tamen.
The USB standard corpo is really stuck in the infinite loop of "people complains there are too many options. Lets make a new one to solve the issue."
U stands for Universal and the B means bus. The data line, the bus, is universal, supporting so many different kind of data streams. The physical port is not universal unfortunately. They have grown and shrunk over time. But the USB protocol is pretty clever I think. The way it supports different endpoints and is hot pluggable is very nice.
I do like not having to install a new PCI card for every peripheral, which had it's own weird little connector.
@@alanp3334 lol imagine.
As soon as you started talking about manufacturer's coloring their USB ports for aesthetic purposes only, RAZER IMMEDIATELY jumped to mind haha. I have several Razer peripherals and a Razer Blade 15, so I am all too familiar with the green colored USD port 😂
I feel like I’ve seen this video before
Also be sure to note that there are USB C 2.0 cables. You can actually find those on Amazon, and I was nearly scammed from one seller who kept sending me those when I ordered 3.0 cables. It was clearly on the label what they sent me, so they were either hoping I was blind, or they were the blind ones.
Do people actually not know this? Wow.
That's a bit sensational.
Because in truth there is definitely a universal interface due to backward compatibility. Speed may not always be optimal, but I can connect modern devices to 20-year-old cables and vice versa.
Them young'uns don't know their born. In my day we had 25 way RS232 to 9 way RS232 and Centronics cables and PS/2 and loads more.
It is indeed. USB has been incredibly successful in consolidating almost everything into a few types of ports and being able to charge your devices with basically anything. Complaining that a port might work at 5Gbps rather than 40Gbps or it's the wrong color...
From the title, I was expecting something like every device and operating system having to implement a ton of custom code/integration to be able to work. To an extent this is essential complexity and e.g. printer drivers are a necessary evil to manage that problem.
As muddled as USB has become, I'm glad to be long past the days of RS-232, parallel ports with giant connectors, PS2 for mice and keyboards, and for phones... well... those springy handset cables that always twisted on themselves after you stretched them out because you tried to stand in a different part of the room while talking. How many of you are old enough to relate to this?
I mean, RS-232 is still widely used to this day (and the next few decades...)
Ignoring the specs, I think it is pretty much universal. All devices have them, and when you plug it into the thing it just works. Dont even have to setup an IRQ for my LPT port.
Most annoying thing I've ever had the displeasure of setting up was a Gravis Ultrasound Max. First you have to set all of the jumpers for IRQ, DMA and IO ranges, then once the configuration software can find the card, you have to setup a few more that don't have jumpers for things like SB compatibility. And once you think you are done, you find out that something else quit working due to IRQ/DMA conflict. Many a days were wasted trying to figure out the perfect setup where everything works at the same time.
Tell that to USB-C only portable monitors that are WORTHLESS to me even tho my Laptop has 2 c ports. ZERO support for video over usb-c on the laptop so I am pretty much forced to use a portable monitor with an hdmi port and separate USB port for power
@@Montisaquadeis i feel like that is a cable or a configuration problem, not actually a port problem to be fair.
@@qT_p13 nope NOT all ports atr treated equal
@@Montisaquadeis well It is a fact that the whole usb standard has gone off the rails since it first began. They definitely lost the plot.
"if you disliked it you know what to do"
1 open another tab
2 google "youtube dislike button extension"
3 go to the appropriate website and add the extension to your browser
4 go back to the youtube tab with riealy still here
5 refresh
6 now you really know what to do
USB c can also do usb 2.0 speeds which you did not mention (my phone for example)
i thought that was more dependent on the internal storage, my note 9 storage was barely faster than usb 2.0 iirc
USB C connectors are sometimes only old USB 2.0 speeds. So now you need to try and find specs on products that like to hide them.
Calling something "universal" and having this many iterations in the first place is already a crime against logic.
They all still work with each other though. Making it FAR more universal then the wide range of different cables it replaced.
Isn't that the very definition of universal though? Different iterations still fit in the same slot.
The much stronger counter argument is that it's very very appropriate to call it "universal" because... It truly is in a way that nothing else is. Sorry but it's very very hard to defend your position. The speeds are not universal, but come on. The fact that you can plug a 20 year old flash drive into a modern computer and be effectively entitled for it to work without any adapters is the "universal" in USB. The only standard that's more universal is the 3.5 mm headphone jack. Frankly it's a bit shocking that 9 people upvoted your comment, considering how illogical your statement actually is.
USB started out well, no more different specific ports for keyboard, mouse, joysticks, modems, printers, plotters, display, external storage. But it gotten really confusing after 3.0 came out.
I like this channel because of the quick and extremely informative stuff they talk about while at the same having a very entertaining format.
Shame this channel has to abuse clickbaity titles like this one that completely mislead us just to scratch a bit more views. No, USB is not "a lie". The fact that there's not much standardization with colours or other features doesn't mean it is a lie. That title is ambiguous and doesn't summarize or explain anything related to the content of the video.
Yeah I like a lot of the content, but hate the thumbnails. Linus claims of he didn't do it they would lose 20 percent of views, but it isn't either/or. You could have some concern over decent titles, aesthetics..
@@michaelcorcoran8768 I know I'm not running a media group like he is, but I'd like to think I'd rather lose on 20% of my views while sticking to my principles
You can thank Intel for some of the USB chaos. In the beginning there was Firewire. It was fast and it was easier than SCSI. Than there came along USB that was a replacement of the aging old RS232 and LPT ports. It had a lot of manufacture input but Intel was a major contributor. Apple wanting to move away from Firewire worked with Intel to come up with Thunderbolt. It was fast. Worked flawless for sound and video and you could break off USB ports from it. This allowed you to plug your mouse and keyboard into your monitor. And your monitor had a single cable going to your computer. USB at this time was going from a progression of slow peripheral things (still much faster than RS232) to higher and higher speeds. Every time the speed was bumped up the manufactures of different gadgets to plugin to USB would jump at the chance to go faster.
NOW today, we are in the day and age of where Thunderbolt is being merged in with USB. The confusing part is... they are somewhat interchangeable AS IN... a Thunderbolt port connection can do anything USB C can. BUT a USB C port can't do all the things a Thunderbolt port can do. THIS would have been a good time to use a little color coding. Did they? NOPE. Do they document what the port actually is? Rarely. For the most part on packaging, it's all "USB C" good luck with knowing what it can do!
At least we can be certain that a usb cable from Apple will be overpriced
and never be on sale. 8o)
Even as a tech-savvy person, something as easy as finding a tablet capable of display output over usb-c was soooo frustrating... The listings, the standards, the manufacturers - its all over the place
A
Edit : 1st comment now don't say 1st
B
D
@@LizordSword c
Z
As a fluent Esperanto speaker who's very familiar with the shortcomings of the language, I was both pleasantly surprised and appreciative of that joke at the beginning
Imagine a world where every connection is USB-C, your keyboard, mouse, phone, monitor, microphone, everything. Even your GPU can just connect anywhere to your motherboard and stream via the USB-C ports on the motherboard so you don't need a traditional GPU anymore, you could have a cube GPU, one that fits to the top of your case, etc.
you don't need a traditional GPU anymore, you could have a cube GPU, one that fits to the top of your case, etc. Then people will be building cases that encompass your cube GPU, cube CPU, etc
USB Type B is still very rigid and still used on music gear. Except from Type A & C all others are to flimsy.
Thanks for the color scheme specs. For years I never bothered to learn what the colors meant (not that it matters anymore apparently). My Gigabyte monitor came with a crazy USB 3.0 AB and I just don't know why they keep making variants with the same specs.
Don't forget USB cables/ports that are for charging only and are actually missing the data pins.
USB: We always hated that word "universal." We've been trying hard to get rid of such notions.
Don't knock Esperanto, that was a beautiful dream. Everyone learns two languages and the second one is cake to learn for half the world and still pretty easy for the other half. Bam. The whole world can talk to each other. Breaks my heart it never caught on.
*disses razer*
"THIS VIDEO IS SPONSORED BY CORSAIR"
I hope this guy is in a suburban improv troupe somewhere so he can receive exactly the amount of attention he deserves.
"Standards are like toothbrushes. Everybody wants one but nobody wants to use anybody else’s."
-Connie Morella
One sentence to summarise all the usb misconception: so sad to tell you, usb 3.0, 3.1 gen1, 3.1 gen2, 3.2 gen1 are all the same.
Fun-fact a port that accepts this cable, will also accept a standard Micro usb cable; you just dont get stuck with 2.0 speed. (so if you have a device like an external hard-drive that requires one of these, but you cant find a cable, you can make due with any micro usb)
My video lagged and I didn’t realize and thought Riley was just standing g there and totally thought it was normal
Still better than all the proprietary shit from the early '00s
We take USB for granted
Many people think USB-C means it's USB 3.x, but not always. Many laptops with USB-C most likely support 3.x specs, but many phones still likely have 2.0 data specs.
I expected a rant about USB just being an upgraded PS/2 plug, but this was more hilarious.
USB began with a lie. It came out around the same time as "plug and play," and the #1 advertised feature was "no more driver disks!" That boast quickly disappeared when devices other than HMIs hit the scene.