USB 3.2 Specification Published

[Zan Lynx]

All USB 3.2 will do is alienate low-end devices even more than 3.1 already has. It's supposed to be universal. It should be readily accessible to all devices; there should not be caveats to compatibility.

It is universal. All of the higher speed ports work fine with slower devices. And fast devices work fine with slower ports. Unless it can't get enough power. That's a problem. That can be solved with a powered hub usually.

[starshipeleven]

What do you mean?

Already said many times over.
I mean that you can find an actual USB 3.0 port wired as a Type-C connector that still runs as USB 3.0 but will look "new and fast" to the average consumer.

Then you can have a Type-C port that supports also Displayport (or other display modes) or thunderbolt, or both, or neither. How you can know? You don't as hardware specs rarely mention it directly or at all (most just state Type-C or usb 3.1), you try and see.

And now this too. USB 3.2 does not change the connector, so the only way to see what the fuck that connector uses is looking up the device's spec sheet.

And power changes without changing the connector is another dumb choice.

Cables, goddamn the cables. The advanced versions of Type-C need special (more expensive) cables with the same identical port, so you may have 2 working devices and the wrong cable (that still looks mostly the same as others) and that shit ain't working.

I work in IT support, I know my clients. When this goes live (for now the devices with such ports are few and very expensive) it will be a Windows8-grade clusterfuck with confused and angry consumers.

Was it so friggin hard to make different connectors for the ports that supported the alternate modes (displayport/thunderbolt)?

USB has been so great because it was simple and easy to understand/use.

[starshipeleven]

... He needs a bigger one.

I actually have a point, while all you can do here is showing you're butthurt. And since you seem to like images, I've got one for you.

[Zan Lynx]

Was it so friggin hard to make different connectors for the ports that supported the alternate modes (displayport/thunderbolt)?

Yes it was so friggin' hard because the impulse for alternate modes is small and thin laptops. These were already overloading mini-DP ports as Thunderbolt/DP. I find it great that they're replacing that with USB-C because now I can plug anything into it and use it for power too.

The laptops doing this don't have room for HDMI / DP / Thunderbolt / USB 2.0 / USB-C ports each as a separate thing.

[schmidtbag]

It is universal. All of the higher speed ports work fine with slower devices. And fast devices work fine with slower ports. Unless it can't get enough power. That's a problem. That can be solved with a powered hub usually.

But that's exactly it - power distribution is a major problem. People should not have to resort to a hub.

Meanwhile, if you have a device that actually utilizes 20Gbps, how is it supposed to perform up-to-spec on lower-end devices? How is that backward-compatible? If they keep making changes every few years, forward compatibility becomes a problem. Since manufacturers want to get the largest amount of sales, they're not going to make a device that depends on the latest version of USB if it will only exist on a handful of devices for the next several years. As a result, there will be very few USB 3.2+ devices, just as there are very few 3.1, and any devices that may depend on the 10Gbps+ of power or the extra wattage will be very device-specific. In other words, not universal.

I'm ok with the idea of type C, since it isn't hard to have a converter for that. USB 3.0 was also a natural evolution of USB, where there was a demand for more bandwidth. And sure, there are some USB 3.0 devices that aren't backward-compatible, but, USB 3.0 is cheap and (by today's standards) not very demanding. You can find it on some of the cheapest parts available, so it is pretty much universal by modern standards.

Keep in mind, I have nothing against the idea of a port with extra high bandwidth and high wattage output, but that's what Thunderbolt should have been. USB seems to be trying to obsolete TB and I don't really understand why. I am perfectly fine with USB being a little underwhelming if it means anything I buy will be fully compatible with it.

[starshipeleven]

We don't need any USB 3.0 or 3.1 ports. Make ALL the ports USB 3.2 and a few USB 2.0 ports for keyboards and headphones. That will eliminate user confusion.

Yeah good luck with that, we aren't even anywhere near the death of USB 2.0 ports. The main reason is simple, USB 2.0 ports need 2 data lines, USB 3.x need like 6 or 8 (don't remember, just look at contacts in the port). This is a non-trivial change in board design, especially because USB 3.x is also more sensible to disturbances (and also generates its own fair share of disturbances, just google "USB 3.0 and wifi issues", yeah it fucks up wifi if it's not properly shielded)

I'd say remove all the USB 2.0 ports but then people will waste high bandwidth ports on a 1.5 Mbps device.

USB Hubs are not hard to find, and it's still better to have 4 high speed ports than 1 high speed and 3 crap speed ports.

[starshipeleven]

The laptops doing this don't have room for HDMI / DP / Thunderbolt / USB 2.0 / USB-C ports each as a separate thing.

No. I was talking about alternate-mode-capable Type-C ports being different from non-alternate-mode-capable Type-C ports.

Like making a USB Type-C-Alternate that is a bit longer or something, just to not be physically compatible.

As it is, I can get anything from USB 2.0 ports (yes, I've seen that) up to USB 3.2 in a Type-C connector, this is completely retarded, there is no way to tell what the hell is that port without specs or testing.

[starshipeleven]

Keep in mind, I have nothing against the idea of a port with extra high bandwidth and high wattage output, but that's what Thunderbolt should have been. USB seems to be trying to obsolete TB and I don't really understand why.

Thunderbolt as a separate port is dead, Thunderbolt 3 is an USB 3.x Type-C alternate mode, so it's all on USB now.

[sdack]

... Was it so friggin hard to make different connectors for the ports that supported the alternate modes (displayport/thunderbolt)?

USB has been so great because it was simple and easy to understand/use.

Your average customer is happy when things work after they plug them in. Connectivity and compatibility is still more important than speed. Making more different ports would only undo all USB has achieved, which is to get rid of RS232, PS/2, IEEE 1284 and SCSI ports. It has enabled manufacturers to build smaller devices with fewer, smaller connectors. If you think the customers don't love it, but they would want more types of ports and with it more types of cables then you've missed an important trend in the IT.

Here, remind yourself of what it used to look like:

[plonoma]

At least they are not calling it USB 3.1 Gen 3.
I suppose DisplayPort, HDMI alternate modes and next-gen SSD's will be able to use this extra speed.
Once USB-C controllers with USB 3.2, DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.1 come out, it will make for a very convenient connector for users.
One connector (with Alt Modes) to rule, no, bind, no, connect them all.