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USB inventor explains why the connector was not designed to be reversible (www.pcgamer.com)

submitted 1 year ago by ooli@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] doubletwist@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And never, ever, did anyone complain about getting the orientation wrong with DIN connectors.

Hah! Hardly. I have plenty of memories of endlessly rotating mouse and keyboard connectors as I reached behind a computer trying to insert it blindly, and somehow having to try half a dozen times before it finally found just the right orientation.

There's also the issue on the older, large DIN connectors of pins getting bent or broken.

We moved on from those things for darn good reason, and I for one have no interest in going back.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I never bent a pin and as said, you can just turn them and at some point they'll align.

The main downfall of DIN was foreign hifi companies standardising on cinch and SCART and German hifi manufacturers then switching over. You'll still see them in niche applications, though, probably the most common is MIDI.

[–] locuester@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, mic cables are still standardized on this

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

Nah that's XLR. More sturdy, they lock, and usually carry balanced signals. It's a pro audio thing and I've never seen it used for digital signals, DIN back in the day was in used for consumer stuff just as cinch is now. You probably also couldn't send as much phantom power over DIN.

Both 3-pin XLR and 3-pin DIN are mono, but in DIN's case that's input/output, not balanced audio. From a consumer perspective that's very nice: Connecting a cassette player/recorder to the amp only uses a single 5-pin DIN cable.