10mo ago

IT Help Desk

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"yes, but it may not be optimal."
- 2004: non-IT person loses the cable that came with their device, has to harass IT/their tech friend to even know what type of cable they are missing, goes to a store and pays a massive mark up for a cable that is not functionally better than a cheap one but the brick and mortar stores do not stock any cheap ones. Next year they will upgrade some component or another and need to buy an adapter for the cable that will also have heinous markup. A year after that they upgrade the component on the otherside of the cable and this time have to throw the cable and adapter in a box of loose cables.
  2024: non-IT person loses their device cable, shrugs and plugs in their phone charger cable... it works and is 4 times faster than the lost one, it will serve until the new one arrives they just ordered from a "top 11 usb -c cables to buy in 2024 list" they found on the first page of google, they could of got a better deal if they asked you but it's still a good enough cable and cost 1/4 of an aux cable in 2004. they still have a box of random cables in their cupboard but they didn't need to dig through it, they know what usb-c looks like from handling their phone 18 hours a day.
  
  could have*
- More like do nothing. Sure if everyone follows spec nothing will break from using the wrong usb-c cable in the wrong usb-c port but it's common to end in a situation were literally nothing happens.
  
  USB-c manages all those protocols when you plug it in.
  It will always pick the best one depending on the available hardware.
- Some commonly used adaptors aren't possible if they follow the spec.

ps2 ports were identical for keyboard/mouse so they had to color code them
only the mouse is shown here.
- The RCA and 3.5mm audio jacks are all the same as well, but color coded.
  
  Sometimes they were. And cables weren't, so if you didn't know any better you'd be plugging your headphones into Line Out. And good luck telling blue and green apart in low light while wedged between the desk and the wall.
- hisses protectively from atop a musty hoard of green USB to ps/2 adapters

*plugs USB into Ethernet port

I have an ingenious system for this: I put my 20 Usb c cables in a box and if I want to transfer data to one of my devices I try a couple of cables from the magic box until it works.
- This man is too dangerous to be left alive.
- I just don't bother transferring data over a cable anymore

If the shape matches
What about 3.5mm jack
- looks down
  
  sad trombone noises
- plugs in 2.5mm jack

Not sure whose fault it is but the ports on the AMD-based framework laptops are a mess. The framework 16 has four different specs across its six USB-C port and the framework 13 has three different specs across four ports. Meanwhile their intel-based laptops have four identical ports with USB4, USB-PD and Display Port.
- I must be living under a rock because this is the first I've heard of USB 4. Is it just a speed bump or does it affect the type of data that can be transferred? In my experience I've had issues using a usb 2.0 flash drive to use a live image of a Linux iso in a 3.1 port
  
  It bumps the speed and officially supports Displayport and PCIe protocols being tunneled through.
  Also, as a tiny nit for seemingly no other reason than to piss us all off, they have decided the "correct" way to write it is "USB4" (no space). This is in contrast to every previous version of USB such as "USB 3" (space).
  
  It's basically ThunderBolt 3 without the licensing.

According to a different thread "USB 4" is in fact "USB4".
- I heard UB40 but we might have been in different threads
  
  Huh, I thought it was WD40

Don't forget USB On the Go protocols! shudders

Apple can’t catch a break. Either they didn’t do anything to help USB c come to market or they caused the massive pita that is the USB c spec.

thabk goodness 2004 avoided the activex and browser toolbar phase

My colleague was terrified that she lost her drive files for this exact reason. Had a USB-C cable, needed a Thunderbolt cable.

What about when the shape is similar? What does IT have to do then?
- Color
  
  You can find VGA in all sorts of colors.

2004:
User: "I moved my PC to another desk and now my monitor is off. The hard drive is making noises though. All the power cables are in haha. I made sure the connections were all nice and tight it's a bit strange."
IT: "Okay I want you to follow the video cable from the monitor to the hard drive. It should have a BLUE connector at the end.Can you see the label where it is plugged in?"
User: "..yes it says 'serial', I think?"
IT: "Aha. I'll drop around this afternoon with a spare monitor. That Trinitron monitor you've got will need to go away to be repaired."

46 comments