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USB 3.2 is Going to Make the Current USB Branding Even Worse

posted by martyb on Wednesday February 27 2019, @04:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the clear-as-mud dept.

"exec" writes:

People already get the names wrong, so the USB group has doubled down on bad naming.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/02/usb-3-2-is-going-to-make-the-current-usb-branding-even-worse/

USB 3.0 was straightforward enough. A USB 3.0 connection ran at 5Gb/s, and slower connections were USB 2 or even USB 1.1. The new 5Gb/s data rate was branded "SuperSpeed USB," following USB 2's 480Mb/s "High Speed" and USB 1.1's 12Mb/s "Full Speed."

But then USB 3.1 came along and muddied the waters. Its big new feature was doubling the data rate to 10Gb/s. The logical thing would have been to identify existing 5Gb/s devices as "USB 3.0" and new 10Gb/s devices as "USB 3.1." But that's not what the USB-IF did. For reasons that remain hard to understand, the decision was made to retroactively rebrand USB 3.0: 5Gb/s 3.0 connections became "USB 3.1 Gen 1," with the 10Gb/s connections being "USB 3.1 Gen 2." The consumer branding is "SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps."

What this branding meant is that many manufacturers say that a device supports "USB 3.1" even if it's only a "USB 3.1 Gen 1" device running at 5Gb/s. Meanwhile, other manufacturers do the sensible thing: they use "USB 3.0" to denote 5Gb/s devices and reserve "USB 3.1" for 10Gb/s parts.

USB 3.2 doubles down on this confusion. 5Gb/s devices are now "USB 3.2 Gen 1." 10Gb/s devices become "USB 3.2 Gen 2." And 20Gb/s devices will be... "USB 3.2 Gen 2×2." Because they work by running two 10Gb/s connections along different pairs of wires simultaneously, and it's just obvious from arithmetic that you'd number the generations "1, 2, 2×2." Perhaps they're named for powers of two, starting with zero? The consumer branding is a more reasonable "SuperSpeed USB 20Gbps."

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @11:24AM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @11:24AM (#807535)

    Just wait until they get to the number "9". Both Windows and MacOS skipped over it for a reason ...

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  • (Score: 2) by bart9h on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:06PM (1 child)

    by bart9h (767) on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:06PM (#807546)

    number nine ....
    number nine. ...
    number nine.. ..
    number nine... .

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @01:29PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @01:29PM (#807581)

      That didn't take long. TYVM :-)

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:13PM (3 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:13PM (#807626) Journal

    Just wait until they get to the number "9". Both Windows and MacOS skipped over it for a reason ...

    Um . . . there WAS a Mac OS 9. It was the final beloved version of the Classic Mac OS. After it came the abomination popularly known as OS X with an obsession on cats.

    Spend less time fixating on skipping over nine and spend more time obsessing on the number 10, but label it X.

    Mac OS X will be the last one.

    Windows 10 will be the last one. Microsoft: please change the name to Windows OS X.

    Linux 10 anyone? anyone?

    --
    The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:14PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:14PM (#807627) Journal

      One more thing . . . Android is now up to 9. So Google didn't skip 9. How about Android OS X?

      --
      The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @07:11PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @07:11PM (#807749)

      lazy minded, retarded fucks already call ubuntu 18.04 ubuntu 18, ffs!

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 28 2019, @03:13PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 28 2019, @03:13PM (#808141) Journal

        So I can deduce:

        Ubuntu 18 means 18.04

        Ubuntu 18 OS X means 18.10

        --
        The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.