What benefit is there to have to place the cable into a slot a specific way up? Surely after so much frustration experienced by many from one version of a cable, a cable designed to be inserted any way around should have been standard?
In: Technology
The wires have to be in the right order in order for stuff to work properly, usb c and lightning cheat by having two connections one per side, but the simplest way to just have a connector that only first in one way, this also makes the connectors easier to build, especially with a lot of pins
> What benefit is there to have to place the cable into a slot a specific way up?
The benefit is that you get your pins in the right orientation to make proper contact. Making the cable reversible requires a cable interface which is smart enough to dynamically route things like power and signal in the proper way. Doing that requires smarts that at the time were judged too costly to require in any device using the USB standard.
Notice that these days they are moving to a reversible design because that cost is no longer a limitation.
A reversible cable has to have twice as many wires in the connector. This makes the connector more expensive and harder to install, and more confusing to find your way around it for tinkering. The *vast* majority (really, nearly every) of 2+ pin connectors in the world are insertable in one orientation only. The ones you listed are the rule, not the exception.
Plugs that only go in one way are cheaper and more durable because they only need contacts on one side.
For HDMI it makes sense because these are not expected to be plugged and unplugged frequently.
Newer devices use USB-C, which is reversible.
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