[RANT] The DUMBEST Thing About USB
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2019-05-06
·
1,222 words · ~6 min read
0:00
you know what really overcooks my pasta when groups of seemingly
0:04
very smart people in positions of power in the tech world build this really cool
0:10
technology then when it's finally time to bring it
0:13
to market come up with naming schemes for it that make no sense the worst and
0:18
yes that's right i am looking at you usb
0:22
forum and for you guys specifically what
0:25
really confuses me is that you went over to the dark side after a long history of
0:31
making things actually pretty simple and straightforward so we
0:36
started out with usb 1 then we got 1.1
0:40
which was a minor revision to 1. cool then we got usb 2.0 which was much
0:46
faster then we got usb 3.0 which was
0:50
much faster again so then it wasn't until around 2013 that
0:55
things started getting a little weird you see the original usb 3.0 spec had a
1:01
max theoretical speed of 5 gigabits per second so you would think that the next
1:07
revision which doubled that speed to 10 gigabit would be usb
1:12
4.0 right wrong
1:15
instead what we got was usb 3.1 but
1:19
honestly i was even okay with that i mean one is clearly a larger number than
1:25
zero and i guess it wasn't a fundamental redesign of the spec or anything
1:29
no no no the issue is that at the same
1:33
time they also renamed the original usb
1:37
3.0 spec as usb 3.1 gen 1 then called
1:43
the new 10 gigabit spec usb 3.1 gen 2.
1:48
i mean how do you just rename something after
1:52
the fact do you are you shampoo
1:56
do you think that makes it seem new and cool now now improved but it's the old
2:01
one but you're also releasing a new one that is improved why
2:05
and in fairness yeah it's been done before but still
2:09
then making matters worse we've just
2:12
gotten another doubling in speed to 20
2:15
gigabits per second why am i mad i mean extra speed's a good thing right
2:20
the reason is that the usb forum has given us an even worse nonsensical
2:26
naming twist so bear with me here the original usb
2:31
3.0 5 gigabit spec is now usb 3.2 gen 1
2:37
with the 10 gigabit version becoming usb
2:40
3.2 gen 2 which
2:44
okay so by this moon logic then the 20 gigabit variation would be usb 3.2 gen 3
2:52
right no because the usb 3.2 spec just involves
2:58
adding more lanes to the connection so
3:01
the 20 gigabit version is usb 3.2 gen2
3:05
by two with the buy two indicating that there
3:09
are two data lanes instead of just one
3:12
the usb so the usb forum whose marketing
3:15
department clearly isn't much better at naming things than the engineers has
3:19
then gone and recommended the names super speed
3:23
super speed usb 10 gigabit per second
3:27
and super speed usb 20 gigabit per second to differentiate the products on
3:32
store shelves
3:36
now to be fair to the usb forum the method behind their madness seems to
3:42
be to have the naming scheme reflect how many lanes can be used in each revision
3:47
and i do get that when they transitioned from usb 2.0 to 3.0 part of the
3:52
rationale for a big number change was
3:55
that there were physical differences with the connectors which is not the
3:59
case for the various usb 3 revisions
4:03
the problem though is that gen is
4:06
generation it means time
4:10
you can't just rename a generation a
4:13
later generation that's not how it works my my great grandpa doesn't become my
4:18
dad later furthermore usb 3.0 was backwards
4:24
compatible with usb 2.0 connectors anyway and more importantly than all of
4:29
this is that consumers don't care about
4:33
things like the configuration of data lanes and
4:37
exactly how the pins and the traces on their motherboard are laid out they just
4:42
want to know if if the gadget they're buying is going to work with their gear
4:46
and how fast it's going to be i mean pci express has this sort of thing figured
4:51
out now to be clear there are some very complicated sub-elements of the PCIe
4:56
specification like like hot plug support that are optional on certain revisions
5:01
and then required on others etc etc etc but from a consumer standpoint when
5:06
there's a speed boost the version number goes up by one and that's
5:12
basically it and even though the various revisions of pci express are all
5:17
backwards and forwards compatible with each other the folks in charge haven't
5:21
felt the need to mess around with silly rebranding to make the point that it all
5:26
works together it's all called pci express it's all called usb
5:29
tada but alas this is the system we have so
5:34
if you're going to be in the market for a usb gadget anytime soon i would
5:38
recommend paying really close attention to this chart that we created for your
5:42
convenience or better yet print it out and keep a copy in your wallet like i do
5:48
so that you too can be the life of the party whenever the subject changes to
5:52
something lame like
5:55
this all right so that's it if you'll excuse
5:58
me now i need to go have a word with Intel about how they decide on names for
6:02
their processors as well be right back
6:08
and i'm back ah no matter what your routine is our sponsor for today's
6:13
episode dollar shave club has everything you need to look feel and even smell
6:18
your best they've got shower products they've got oral care products they've
6:22
got hair products skin products butt white products and obviously
6:26
shaving products and they deliver them straight to your door basically if you
6:30
have a body they've got you covered and right now they've got a great offer
6:34
where you can get their shave shower or oral starter set each for only five
6:39
bucks the shave starter set comes with the executive razor and a three ounce
6:43
tube of their dr carver shave butter the oral starter set comes with their
6:46
weighty toothbrush and a trial size version of their toothpaste and the
6:49
shower starter set comes with three trial size versions of their amber
6:53
lavender body cleanser citrus and hawaiian ginger face cleanser and sage
6:56
and black pepper shampoo so join the club with one of their starter sets for
7:00
just five bucks and then after that the restock box ships regular sized products
7:04
at regular price head over to
7:07
dollarshaveclub.comtechquickie to join today we're gonna have that linked below
7:11
so thanks for watching guys like dislike check out our other videos comment with
7:15
video suggestions especially if you have a suggestion for another rant you'd like to see and don't
7:19
forget to subscribe and follow so you don't miss out on your suggestion
7:23
like how counter productive would that be you've invested all this time in
7:26
writing a youtube comment and then you might never see the fruit of your labor
7:32
tragic