nfirvine.comwiki

In my line of work as a computer technician, I encounter lots of different connectors. However, it seems that the most common connectors are the ones that are designed the stupidest.

Let's start with our old friend, plain old USB, the slotty type. It is a good example of...

I've just given up with plugging USB connectors in blindly: I always have to look at it, look at the femaale connector on the computer and match them up. This is especially painful in a dark environment, or one where I can't actually turn to see the female end. The old PS/2 connector has the same problem, except instead of having two sides, it actually has infinity, being circular (DIN9 and S-Video also fall into this category). The firewire connector is a great example of how to avoid Rule 1: the internal connection has a direction, and so does the sleeve. And actually, USB B connectors (the type you find on printers usually) obey Rule 1 too. For a technology where hotswapping is half the point, they certainly screwed it up on the physical front.

Cat 5 and phone cables have this awesome plastic clip on them that keeps the male connector in the female socket unless depressed. Except it sticks out like a fish hook and snags like a pro when you pull it through a hole or a tangled rat's nest of wires, and being made of brittle plastic, it loves to snap off like a pro too, making the cable all but useless. So:

Connectors with screws on the sides (I'm looking at you, VGA and DVI!) also suffer from this problem, and also provide a segue to our next rule:

There are several standard PC cables that have screws to keep it in place, namely VGA, DVI, serial, and parallel cables. None of these really matter if they disconnected during operation (depending on what you've got connected to serial/parallel). Sure, it's a minor hassle if your monitor turns off, but plug it back in, and you're right back where you started. Power cables on the other hand are held in merely by friction and happy thoughts. And while it's not such a problem today, some motherboards freeze the OS or explode if a PS/2 connected falls out.