cross-posted from: https://lemmy.cringecollective.io/post/75583
why isn't it ok? why????
Meme "the number of people who think this is an abomination" over a photo of a USB-A to USB-A cable, "but think this is perfectly acceptable" over a photo of a USB-C to USB-C cable, "makes me sick."
I've never seen a USB-A to A cable in the wild, except recently, where I finally unpacked my SATA/IDE USB adapter from Ugreen.
They used to be moderately common in the before times, like 2.5 inch IDE HDD times.
For added horror those often where Y cables, too.
My USB KVM switch uses them
Most cheap usb switchers will use them on the computer-switch side. I have a few models that I was testing out so I have a small pile of these. They’re great for cutting in half and using as a small usb power supply cable to breadboard projects, along with the horde of 5w Apple chargers I have in a bin.
They are commonly used with USB keystone connectors. For some reason most of them have A connectors on both sides.
I've had old Ugreen devices with a similar setup. Notably a KVM that fried my keyboard bc they failed to follow USB spec.
A-to-A cables are, in general, a hardware design smell. It's best to avoid devices that don't care enough to follow the spec.