I didn’t know how they did it, but USB connectors exist in a superposition in 11-dimensional space. Every time you collapse the wave form by plugging one in, its orientation changes to one at random unless you directly observe their respective orientations.
I think I reached level 12 once while trying to plug a phone in after heavy drinking
That reminds me of the only tangentially related time I won a game of Jenga while piss drunk. Not my greatest accomplishment, but memorable as it was strip Jenga at a party, guys vs gals, and my win brought out the boobs. That was the end of the game, it was like 4am lol
This could actually be some creative engineering. If you want to split power/fuses along two different circuits, this could be a way to differentiate. I have a tv with 3 HDMI ports but only one of them is CEC…🤷
Counter-argument. If you had three usb cables to plug in, each one would take 2-3 rotations to get it right anwyay.
Next level, make the center one USB-C.
But, make it charge only.
At work we have this proprietary piece of hardware that has many rj45 connectors that delivers PoE and a clock pulse synced to GPS. More than once people have called me asking if this ethernet switch they found in my stash of spares is broken or something. More than once I’ve had to explain to them that what they’re holding is PoE but without the E.
Why would such abomination even exist tho?
We use it to discipline and sync chip scale atomic clocks, and power them without draining their batteries. We just happen to use ethernet cables for the connection. And each clock pulse distributor is rackmounted and has 48 rj45 ports.
Your chippa wrack a disiprine
Yes, pretty much: Section 2.10 of the manual says so.
WHO SHOULD READ THIS GUIDE
This document is intended for engineers and telecommunications professionals who are designing, installing, operating, or maintaining time, frequency, and synchronization systems having a requirement for a low profile and highly precise frequency generator.
To use this document effectively, you should have a good understanding of digital telecommunications technologies and analog frequency generation and synthesis techniques.
Fine, I guess I’ll use it INEFFECTIVELY.
Without the negotiation resistors. Will work only with cheap crap that doesn’t check for them, or have them either.
90degrees turned
Exhibit B
As someone who has worked a lifetime in IT, I cannot tell you how unbelievably common this is.
I actually try to shove the USB into the HDMI on my work laptop by mistake all the damn time because they are right next to eachother.
Yeah but at least the cable won’t go in. USB-A plugs fit perfectly into eithernet ports, often leaving you wondering why the device isn’t working, until you visually inspect the port and realize your mistake.
Even better when you plug a USB c into a USB A port and you wonder why your computer just shut off
This might actually be the opposite of evil: if you try to insert the USB cable the wrong way, you don’t need to rotate it, you can just try the next port. Seems more convenient to me.
Until…
…there’s only one port left.
I was thinking similarly about the amount of medical equipment I have seen where something like this was done because it shipped with a right angle WiFi adapter that covered the upper ports or something like that and changing the port was easier than recertification with a different dongle.
That was what I was thinking. Whatever plugs into this is larger or something. It also has those extra funny ports up top.
This can be fixed
And of course it only goes in after the third attempt
Nah, make it worse! The BIOS randomly selects between zero and three ports and ignores them for a random amount of time. It always rerolls when you reboot or when the timer runs out. They are all real and do work, but you never know which ones (if any) or how long.
Did you design my last motherboard?
And they’re also too close together and the screws may be an obstacle to certain dongles, although that shouldn’t be a problem for industrial PCs
Just keeping them on their toes.
We found Satan.
Yeah, you deserve hell
