There is usually still a concept of front. Most desktops if laid down would be laying on their right side (so the motherboard & cpu aren't upside down). From there you can still pretty easily tell how the port is oriented without looking.
USB-C is better than A in that it works in two orientations instead of one, but the correct answer for connectors should be any orientation — the best connectors are cylindrical connectors: barrel plugs, RCA, BNC, banana, phono, TRS, TRRS, etc. Just make them round.
Would it be practical to have a round port as a universal connector? USB C uses a lot of pins, how would that work? Like an audio plug with a lot of rings?
I think it would be practical with glass fibre. Two wires/rings for power, and fibre for data. Something like a Mini-TOSLINK, but even smaller. Ideally the plug would be barely thicker than the cable.
My laptop has one of these ethernet ports that half close when not in use. It doesn't work anymore because someone mistook it for the USB port that's right next to it when distractingly plugging their keyboard in.
This reminds me so much of the old story about how a user called support to tell them their floppy drive wasn't working. When the tech got there, the computer had no floppy drives, and the user had been forcing the disks in the gap between the drive blank plates.
no, they definitely fit. They're just awkwardly exactly the right size that while you're trying to plug things in punched over under the desk and crawling around and feeling around the backside; it just yeah.
When I'm trying to plug my PS/2 keyboard into the port in back of my computer which I cannot see, instead of needing to try two orientations, I need to try every orientation.
It's very weird that USB-C solved the problem of "we can't tell which way to insert the plug" by mandating that both orientations should work, as opposed to just making the exterior of the plug as asymmetrical as the interior.
I don't find it weird. Not even having to work out a correct orientation is a great convenience. The micro-USB connection (or is it "min"?), which I need to fiddle with to charge some older gadgets, is a testament to how annoying an "asymetric exterior" plug can still be.
Yes, micro USB is far too flimsy for a lot of things it’s used for from what I’ve observed. The connector seems to have a lot of leverage for ripping its tracks off, but often not a great mechanical connection to the board.
You mean something like HDMI? If you’ve ever tried to plug one of those into the back of a TV, you’ll know it’s still pretty difficult to get it the right way up.
> If you’ve ever tried to plug one of those into the back of a TV, you’ll know it’s still pretty difficult to get it the right way up.
That's true, but the difficulty in that case comes from being unable to see the hole or fit into the space between the television and the wall.
For example, plugging an HDMI cable into the back of a monitor involves none of the difficulty of plugging an HDMI cable into the back of a TV, even though the connector and the port are the same in both cases.
Less weird as they get smaller. Call it an accessibility thing if you like, but I think it's better for everyone and congrats to them. Isn't this what technology is supposed to do, make things easier?
sometimes you're plugging in things at the back of something nearly flush against a wall and you can't really see, its quite useful for the connector to be reversible.
Which way up it should go.