when you build something foolproof...

[Anthony de Boer]

D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> ... they invent a better fool.
> 
> (I'm behind the times, I know.)
> 
> I got a slap-bracelet / USB flash memory as swag a while back.
> 
> We just tried it for transporting pictures.  I plugged it into my 
> computer's USB port, and nothing happened.  It turns out that the usb plug 
> had no housing, only a tongue, and so could be plugged in backwards (and 
> not work).
> 
> One of the few things USB got half right was that you could not plug it in 
> backwards.  But we've now had innovation.
> 
> (I say "half right" because the obviously right approach would be to have 
> it work whichever way it is plugged in.  The *next* USB connector is 
> supposed to do that.)
> 
> (My Lenovo ThinkPads, like most notebooks, have barrel plugs, with 
> complete rotational symmetry.  My latest Lenovo (IdeaPad) has a 
> rectangular plug with 180-degree symmetry, like the new USB.  This doesn't 
> seem like progress.)

Part of the problem is that they don't make it easy to plug it in the
right way around first go.  If you have to have a connector that doesn't
work flipped over, then make eg one side textured and the other smooth so
you can tell which way you're holding it, and mark the socket so you know
which side takes the top of the connector.

The best solution I've found with USB A connectors is that if you look at
which side has the USB logo and put that "up" with regard to where the
motherboard is sitting in the computer it's usually right, but I have at
least one counterexample I have to deal with.  And that still depends on
having to stop and look at it.

Meanwhile, the old PS/half connectors had a flat one one side and I could
always without even looking at it rotate it to the correct alignment
right away.  That IMHO made it a better connector.

-- 
Anthony de Boer
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