from the problems-for-existing-infrastructure dept.
The HDMI connector has shrunk to mini, then micro. USB has shrunk to mini, then micro. The wired Ethernet connector has stayed the same since 1988. On the Raspberry PI, it's the largest of the standardized connectors. Is the time ripe to for a smaller version? What would be a good complement to the clunky 8P8C port? It should not be easily dislodged, but the 8P8C locking mechanism can be really fragile. And forget "RJ45" it's a telephone system connector. Not a networking connector for computers.
This size sometimes becomes a problem when designing really small or flat devices. Sometimes one can (ab)use other connectors that has a similar impedance. One could however take a hint from how VGA cabling works. Where the source, cable and destination are all 75 ohm. But the common VGA connector DE-15 is 30 ohm (ouch!) so it's reflection galore.. Thus it's possible to cut some corners. With a smaller connector the highest speeds of 40 Gbit/s should perhaps not be expected. The point is to enable a really thin but still sturdy and versatile connector.
(DB13W3 is really the only properly designed connector besides BNC for a 75 ohm VGA connection)
One solution that is used is the RJ.5, another is the micro SFP.
The current status of copper media Ethernet is 10GBASE-T that were released in 2006 and allows for a 100 meter length using Cat.6a. 40GBASE-T is to be released in spring 2016 to allow a 30 m length over a Cat.8 cable.
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Monday March 21 2016, @06:17PM
You can wire to board and bypass all normal connectors. Not ideal, but just as (non)standard.
Fiber has much smaller connectors, but can't carry power.
Maybe there just hasn't been that much demand for micro-ethernet connector?
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday March 21 2016, @06:20PM
Maybe there just hasn't been that much demand for micro-ethernet connector?
In a world filled with network-card dongles I find that hard to believe.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday March 21 2016, @06:54PM
Think of the dongle as an adapter and there you are.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Monday March 21 2016, @06:27PM
Try to design something really *thin* for putting on wall and the 8P8C connector will stick out as SORE bumb. One can (ab)use other connectors in a non-standard way but that only works until some technical illiterate people comes around. So a common standardized connector with standard wiring that isn't possible to plugin into anything that might break things would be useful.
Replacing the connector on all equipment where such needs aren't present should not be done.
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Friday March 25 2016, @04:49AM
Try to design something really *thin* for putting on wall
Funny thing, I'm actually trying to do *just that*!! And it will definitely need a standard RJ45 connector because it is network appliance. But yes, there is only 2 ways of doing this and keeping connector hidden.
Anyway, in HVAC business, lots of wires are directly wired to board. No connectors. This can also be done with ethernet connector - just look at the female RJ45 sockets for wall outlets. For example,
http://img.alibaba.com/photo/617993751/rj45_keystone_jack_rj45_female_connector_Cat5e_UTP_toolless_8P8C_.jpg [alibaba.com]
you can have wire-to-board with same type of connector as the wire-to-jack on this connector.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bitstream on Saturday March 26 2016, @06:40PM
The ability to quickly and effortlessly unplug or replacing patch cables requires a real connector. Despite being tool-less you still have the task to push each of those wires into the right place , not that user friendly.
Actually DisplayPort has the same characteristic impedance of 100 Ω so perhaps the connectors can be (ab)used? The big question is what happens when your Ethernet-Displayport meets Displayport-Displayport. Don't forget PoE either, but otoh. It's supposed to stay powered off until the right signature has been detected.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by frojack on Monday March 21 2016, @09:32PM
Part of the problem here is that 8P8C is designed for in the field terminating of installed cabling. As someone who has done a fair bit of this, I can tell you its about as small as it can get and still be manually connected in the the field to rather stiff house wiring. And its a real go-blind job, putting cable ends on while standing or sitting in the most cramped or uncomfortable places with tools ill suited for their purpose. Without a cable tester you got zero chance of correctly completing any wiring job beyond a couple of runs.
Yet you can't replace this connector till you do something with infrastructure wiring.
First, you don't need 8 wires most of the time. We were called in to check a large store's wiring plant after years of use and a couple remodels, and we found exactly one cable that was running on the fail-over set.
virtually all failover usage is due to abuse at the 8P8C, so the idea you need to carry 8 wires everywhere for redundancy is suspect from the get go. Cables don 't fail in the middle. Just cut off the connector and put on another.
Further, the house wiring is done with a wire gage that is way more heavy than the job requires. (Its sized for the wire pulling task, not the signal carrying task) But it is installed everywhere so it is not going anywhere anytime soon. And neither is the 8P8C).
Future house wire plants will probably be fiber, (which can be made a snap to terminate).
But a flat ribbon of only 4 conductors (twisted over its length) which can simply be inserted and crimped without all the pair splitting and sequencing is clearly the way to go. (Think telephone desk-set flat wire size - only smaller). Such a wire could be used with a MUCH smaller connector than what we use today. And it would be much simpler to field install.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Informative) by draconx on Monday March 21 2016, @10:21PM
This hasn't really been true for a long time, since almost all equipment is gigabit now. While 100BASE-TX (by far the most widely-used flavour of "fast" 100Mbit ethernet) uses only 2 wire pairs, 1000BASE-T uses all four wire pairs, and will not work unless all 8 wires are connected correctly. Same with 10GBASE-T.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @06:21PM
Short answer: No.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @06:32PM
Remember! We're millenials and we don't understand anything that happened before we were born!
If we didn't invent it, it doesn't matter!
If my macintosh wireless airport stuff works, who cares!
You sound old! Who needs wires! This is not your grandfather's internet!
Then I was like: "Do you want to know how I know you sound old?"
Time to go ride my Segway.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bitstream on Monday March 21 2016, @06:48PM
Cashless, wireless and clueless. Who needs it? ;-)
If there's any disturbance in the electromagnetic force then these hipsters will be so fucked :p
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday March 21 2016, @07:50PM
You know that disturbances in the electromagnetic force are exactly what wireless communication is based on?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bitstream on Monday March 21 2016, @08:16PM
Big disturbances make the ability to accomplish small disturbances go away permanently.. :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @10:38PM
Well not exactly. Shannon's Theorem tells us that digital communication is always possible regardless of the noise level of a channel, establishing upper bounds on the error-free data rate (a function of the noise level).
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Tuesday March 22 2016, @05:10AM
The law of bricking tells me that no bits passes after such event ;-)
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday March 21 2016, @08:54PM
Remember! We're millenials and we don't understand anything that happened before we were born!
Yes, it's only millennials who don't understand the RF interference issues with Cat 9 cabling.
(Score: 2) by WillR on Monday March 21 2016, @07:26PM
(Score: 3, Informative) by dltaylor on Monday March 21 2016, @07:47PM
USB is NOT a useful replacement for anything that has unsolicited inputs. USB is a tolerable replacement for Firewire and E-SATA (either of which could have been upgraded), and it's pretty good for external video, but networking over USB burns too much CPU polling the interface for packets and in the end-point-type multiplexing.
Ethernet chips and SoC components are a mature and well-understood technology that is both efficient and reliable.
(Score: 5, Informative) by WillR on Monday March 21 2016, @08:28PM
It can carry USB, Ethernet, DisplayPort, HDMI, and 4 lanes of PCIe depending on what's plugged into it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Monday March 21 2016, @10:05PM
Firewire is a huge security problem and I'm thankful that it never really caught on.
I remember one time plugging in a firewire peripheral to one computer and having it show up on a completely different computer because I'd linked the two of them together. And while that's great for debugging a completely stuck kernel, it's a huge security risk because it means that a cracked firmware can now access everything, not just small portions of the computer, but literally every part of the memory.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @10:29PM
While Firewire never really caught on, the issues you describe are not unique to Firewire. For example, thunderbolt has exactly the same security implications (connected devices have full access to the PC's memory). It's even worse here because it's quite normal for people to connect untrusted devices (e.g., someone else's projector) to thunderbolt ports.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bitstream on Monday March 21 2016, @08:30PM
Considering that chips like the ones from FTDI specify absolute maximum voltage for "VCCIO IO" to -0.3 to +4.0 V and DC Input Voltage – USBDP and USBDM as -0.5 to +3.63. They might get slightly upset if feed some 48V DC PoE Ethernet cable.. ;-)
Even standard Ethernet don't mind pushing -2 V or 3.3 V not counting any inductive effects of a 100 meter cable.
But perhaps "fuck them, read the port sign or suffer the smoke of bricked device" is a better and more instant learning curve way to do things. ;-)
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday March 21 2016, @09:47PM
PoE is disaster waiting to happen anyway.
There is always that ONE GUY (its always a guy) who wants to hang a Camera or an Access point somewhere on the edge of your network who just does it, over your embedded cable plant, without permission or documentation, and without bothering to flag the cable ends.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Tuesday March 22 2016, @05:00AM
Your point being? cable fire?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @08:45PM
Betteridge rides again.
If you have an Ethernet cable lying about, look inside the connector (they're usually clear) at the wires. Perhaps you see some space between them? Hold it up to the light to confirm. Is it what you'd call a lot of space? To me it looks pretty snug. When wire is made, there's got to be some variation in its thickness. Leaving a slight gap to account for that strikes me as a good idea. Stacking wires like a VGA connector with its three rows won't facilitate the "really thin" connector the original poster wants, but rather would enable a narrower—and more difficult to assemble—connector. If you have a VGA connector and an Ethernet cable, hold the Ethernet cable up to the VGA connector. See how they're approximately the same height?
Making the wires thinner is of course a possibility and would be helpful in the quest for a tiny connector. Thin wires have disadvantages including decreased strength and greater resistance. I'm not an electrical engineer, but I would imagine that, at some point, a real engineer gave the Ethernet physical specifications a once-over. Maybe there are better conductors and better insulators available now? Silver, if I'm not mistaken, has better conductivity than copper. PTFE is a better insulator than polyethylene, is it not? Certainly there's room for improvement.
The thing I dislike about RJ-45 connectors is not that they were designed for telephone networks, but that the plastic tab is easily broken. However, a broken connector can be easily and inexpensively replaced, if one possesses a tool for cutting and crimping. Related to this, a person who owns such a tool can readily fabricate Ethernet cables of any desired length, rather than purchasing pre-built cables in the lengths chosen by the manufacturer.
(posting while drunk, so please excuse my spelling, punctuation, grammar, organization, or logic flaws)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @06:29PM
Note that the current standard also works for 10Gbit/s using category-6 cabling (and connectors) with total length up to 30 metres.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2016, @12:39AM
Work for up to 20 or 30 meter 10G runs as well. I rediscovered that while helping an office plan out a future capable in-office network.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @06:38PM
this man [mirror.co.uk]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by iamjacksusername on Monday March 21 2016, @06:45PM
If it is such a problem for you, please use Ethernet over Displayport. And the next manufacturer that creates yet-another-standard connector that invalidates my existing stockpile of adapters and cables should be drowned in a pool of Mini USB phone chargers and DMS-59 adapter cables.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @07:24PM
what the fuck is wrong with you people? mini and micro? really? I had to throw away a phone because of the idiotic micro usb connection.
CONNECTORS ARE SUPPOSED TO LAST FOR MANY DIFFERENT CONNECT/DISCONNECT OPERATIONS. THEY HAVE TO BE BIG.
you can be a twit on facebook over wi-fi if the cables are bothering you, there's no need to destroy my equipment just because you like things small.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @07:33PM
die! die! die! what the fuck is wrong with you people?
I'll put you down as leaning against the proposal.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by draconx on Monday March 21 2016, @07:59PM
Non-sequitur. There are small connectors which are reliable (many thousands of connections, e.g., most micro-USB connectors despite your bad experience). There are also large connectors which are unreliable (e.g., most PCI connectors are only rated for a few tens of insertion/removals).
The primary (only?) advantage of the 8P8C connector is that cables can be cut and connectors easily attached using simple hand tools. This is common in networking since cables are usually sold in huge spools and then pulled through walls.
For all connector types, there is crap for sale, probably for significantly cheaper than the good stuff. Manufacturers care a lot about cost, so they will likely pick the cheapest option if they expect it to last longer than the warranty period.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2016, @12:07AM
They are a bunch of entitled millennials who have no idea of the hows/whys, nor any concept of using any piece of equipment longer than the 4-6 months it takes the big apple to release the next new cool thing.
When one's world view is that the stuff from 6 months ago is dead to them once the big apple releases the next thing, there's no need for a standard connector, that is cheap, easy to put on the end of a bulk wire, and that just works (for way more insertions than most of the big apple's new thinner connectors). Backwards compatibility - what is that?.
That, and they've consumed way too much of the big apples kool-aid that everything thinner must always be better.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday March 22 2016, @01:03AM
In fact I just bought an used laptop. With all that badly designed custom buttons, and with all that ports that made old laptops good peripheral hubs.
New laptops are thin and last more? Cool, but my laptop stays home, and mostly in the same room, as I suspect most do, now that mobile computing has all kinds of better devices to lug around.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2016, @02:15AM
That's oddly specifically focused. If anything, the "entitled" (man, I get tired of seeing consumer demand for something new get mislabeled as "entitlement") millennial would likely want a magically and perpetually faster wireless connection that is easier to use, faster, and somehow doesn't suffer from the issues that wireless does. Connections that are WIRED are kind of for the "old guys", I think.
However limited your own imagination might be, there ARE situations where things being made smaller might make sense. Hypothetically speaking, long as you can crimp a cable and it's still backwards compatible with existing T568 standards for purposes of the other endpoint, who the fuck cares?
Far as op goes, I'm a little curious as to what his rage about his micro usb cable was that caused him to throw away the phone, rather than doing whatever was needed to fix it. I mean, my micro usb connected phone has lasted for years now. I still know people who have phones that can't run anything newer than android 2.x and their phones are still going strong in spite of being connected/disconnected daily. If it was the cable, it sounds like someone should have told him that you can buy new cables trivially. If it was the phone, sounds like he had a lemon. Small connectors are not as much to blame there as companies who use crapass materials. If nothing else, you geriatrics must have let slip from your mind the dark ages just prior to microusb when every goddamned phone had an proprietary phone connection.
As an aside about the millennials, I used to rip on them myself until I thought about it more, and now I can't help but pity them. I mean, they didn't magically make themselves this way. There's only a small set of possibilities to make them what they are: Either you fucked them up when you raised them, you raised the generation that fucked them up, or you're genetically irrelevant (like myself) because you have no kids, and didn't contribute anything toward making them more or less what they are.
I mean, there COULD be intelligent arugments made as to why this was a bad thing. You hit zero of any of those though. You just sound angry, irrational, and grumpy.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Bot on Tuesday March 22 2016, @12:50AM
this, a 1024 times this!
I do not want to be equipped with small connectors and become the laughingstock of older bots.
I thought that microSD card was the epitome of faggotry, but no, someone must come with new clever ideas. FAGGOTS.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Monday March 21 2016, @07:45PM
Who except hipsters needs ultra-thin devices?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by forkazoo on Monday March 21 2016, @08:52PM
In a datacenter, switch port density can actually be an issue. When you need a top of rack switch that can handle a fully populated rack, you wind up with a chunk of space in the rack dedicated to the switch that could be used for more blades. In a large deployment you can easily wind up deploying a whole rack worth of switches. It would also be nice to have Ethernet standard on all thin laptops again, even if you have some sort of hatred for things like the new MacBook Air. A lot of users have them and like them, and will forget to give back the USB adapter that you lend them.
The counterpoint is that any "Copper Ethernet 5.0" connector... (I was going to call if "Ethernet 2.0", but before modern UTP form factor we had coax. And there were at least two common kinds of coax Ethernet in Thick- and Thin- net. And after UTP we have had stuff like Twinax and SFP stuff for fiber. So, I guess we are up to at *least* 5.0 for common copper Ethernet connector styles.) ... should be readily field-assembleable. Ethernet is popular in large part because you can wire a building or data center with a cheap cable cut to length on-site from a big spool. Wiring up some micro-SFP connector sounds like a pain to deal with using my clumsy meat clubs. I mean, I don't exactly have tiny dainty little Trump hands. As long as you can make a cheap and simple mechanical crimping tool for your new Ethernet flavor, it has a chance.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday March 21 2016, @09:03PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday March 22 2016, @10:24AM
My laptop certainly is thick enough that it conveniently fits a full size Ethernet connector, and I certainly would consider it mobile. While I sometimes wished it would be lighter, I never ever wished it would be thinner.
I never wished for a network cable of any size on my phone.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday March 22 2016, @05:00AM
I also enjoy lugging around a 10 pound laptop when 3 lbs ones with the same specs (at roughly the same cost to the company) exist while upper management gets MacBooks, people in NYC get ultrathin Lenovos, and we have first-gen Core processor Dell cinderblocks with keyboards and touchpads literally disintegrating on us.
Of course, then I wonder if that says more about me, the company I work for, or their negotiating skills WRT their purchasing agreements.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday March 22 2016, @10:21AM
You seem to believe that thicker necessary means more weight. It alternatively may mean better cooling through a larger internal air space, which has not much weight.
Ever wondered why HiFi amplifiers are big although their components only need a fraction of the space?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Aiwendil on Tuesday March 22 2016, @10:54AM
I actually have wondered about that.. is it because their customers care about noiselevels or is it because a good hifi-amp outlasts a fan by about a decade or is it because they are built by electrical engineers that knows that if you need active cooling then something is underdimensioned for the job?
I consider all three to be good reasons to avoid fans (and avoid things with fans) but I am curious as to what is the actual reason for it in hifi-amps...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by linkdude64 on Monday March 21 2016, @08:25PM
but the main difference I see between current ethernet connectors and USB/HDMI/Displayport/etc is the latching mechanism RJ45s have.
Not that it never breaks, but I can't imagine how many man-hours of work the integration of that small latch has saved over the years. If any of you have worked in an old and used data center, you've seen the jungles of cable spaghetti. A micro-usb cable under the weight of dozens and dozens of other cables would slip right out, I imagine. After all, it's designed for quick and easy disconnection, and I imagine a smooth, rounded, and symmetrical male end connector would exacerbate that issue over time.
Take these few connectors as case studies:
The DVI male connector - It's huge, it's bulky, it is not designed to be quickly removed, and its screw-held connection is extremely reliable.
RJ45 connector - It's medium sized, it can be quickly removed, its latch-held connection is very reliable, but occasionally does need reseating
USB male connector - very small, if you sneeze on it, it's removed, and its female ports get wiggly and wear out before the cables do half the time because they're so tiny yet our hands and mechanical actions of plugging and unplugging stay the same.
To my eyes, the RJ45 connector is EXACTLY where it needs to be.
The reason our laptops and tablets are so thin, yet hold together so well is ultimately because of adhesives which replaced latches, which replaced screws, which are mechanical.
Adhesives are not an option for network connections. So we're left with latches, which need to be big to be both strong AND cheap (plastic) yes they could be small and strong (titanium) but it doesn't matter how reliable and strong your latch is, if the female connector is tiny and its solder cracks every time you connect it.
tl;dr leave it alone
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @08:36PM
Note that the original displayport connector has a thumb-operated latching mechanism very similar to the modular plug.
Micro-USB should properly have two spring-loaded latches on the flat side of the plug. With good connectors this system actually seems to work really well. I have noticed on cheap cables that the latches often do not engage properly, so they don't really work.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Tuesday March 22 2016, @06:22AM
I've always pulled my micro-usb cables straight out. I've seen the small bumps, maybe they help, maybe they don't, but it's nowhere near the very distinctive *CLICK* you feel and hear with an RJ45. There is room for improvement, but when parts are tiny like that, they're delicate, it's just inevitable. The only thing that would offset the delicacy is either extremely high-precision engineering or very valuable construction materials. Neither of which we need in cables that we want everywhere.
But who knows, maybe the bandwidth of the next gen of cables will leap-frog and we'll not see tinier and tinier cables, but fewer and fewer cables of the like we already have.
(Score: 2) by unzombied on Monday March 21 2016, @08:31PM
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Monday March 21 2016, @09:23PM
Not all devices need 40GBASE-T ..
(Score: 2) by unzombied on Monday March 21 2016, @10:04PM
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday March 21 2016, @11:08PM
I'm struggling to see your point here. Heard of Micro-USB and USB Type-C?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Tuesday March 22 2016, @05:05AM
Manufacturers sometimes use the popular standard to grab sales..
In many cases USB v1.1 does fine. The kludges using RS-232 async, Centronics parallel port, Keyboard dongles etc.. to connect various medium speed devices was a mess.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @08:31PM
God the rest of the world as normalized and shared. Hell you can get HMDI with Ethernet. Ethernet over USB have been here too. The only change left is is USB switch vs. a hub. The tech is there just assemble.
So USB3 drives are now NAS. USB printers and scanners are now networked.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Monday March 21 2016, @08:37PM
First - people wire buildings up with ethernet (USB C and Thunderbolt, not so much). Such people don't buy their cables ready-made from Monster at $50 per metre, they buy a big reel of cable and a bag of connectors. That involves being able to cut cables to length and crimp on plugs while crawling through roof-spaces etc. That's not gonna work so well with a super-fiddly micro-connector.
Second, so what if the connector is too thick for your razor-edged ultrabook? 95% of users of thin & light laptops, small-form-factor systems and mobiles wouldn't know an ethernet cable if they found one in their breakfast cereal. These systems are already, increasingly, dropping ethernet ports. Apple ditched them on its laptops several years ago and the world failed to end. For the 5% of us who still want our wired ethernet, thank you, there are cheap, small USB3-to-ethernet dongles, Thunderbolt docks and (for the future) USB-C docks with ethernet ports: its generally only at your desk that you want ethernet but, if you do need it on the road, carrying a dongle won't break your back (and, anyway, they can have your brick-thick 'desktop replacement' laptop with the optical drive, non-glued-in-battery, replaceable hard-drive, VGA port and full-travel keyboard when they pry it from your cold, dead fingers - right?)
OK, so the existing plug has a silly plastic catch that snaps off if you look at it in a funny way (or fit a 'boot' that solves the problem by making the catch impossible to release), but that could be fixed without changing the socket - but the fact that it hasn't been fixed suggests people just don't want to pay more for their plugs.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Monday March 21 2016, @08:39PM
The plug has been replaced by wifi in many hipster-friendly applications. It's technician-serviceable and It Just Works so there's little need to replace it. The only place where space really matters is in the network closet. [monoprice.com]
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Touché) by TrumpetPower! on Monday March 21 2016, @08:51PM
A replacement standard is going to be of interest exclusively for the subset of hardwired servers small enough to fit in a shirt pocket. You know the type? WiFi isn't fast enough and you're constantly moving it around and plugging and unplugging it?
Yes, that's right -- the one maintained by the invisible pixie faeries on their magic carpet shuttle to Neverland....
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @10:01PM
Obviously to deprecate the hardware you already own. Need to keep buying stuff, otherwise our wonderful western economy goes to the shitter...
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday March 21 2016, @09:29PM
I've been hoping for this to happen for a long time. The last connector to make a size shrink is Ethernet. RJ.5 is the only candidate that looks cost effective to make but it appears to be proprietary to TE meaning a licensing nightmare. TE isn't going to give that design away for nothing when there is the potential for billions to be made through licensing.
If anyone decides to make a smaller connector it must meet the following criteria (technical aspects aside such as impedance and bandwidth):
- Mechanicaly durable. The pins should be protected and the housing sturdy enough to resist crushing, tugging and side loads.
- Simple one piece connector housing that can be molded in one shot.
- Easily inserted contacts for lower manufacturing costs. (RJ45 is dead simple to make: mold connector, press in pins)
- Integrated connector retention mechanism like the RJ45 latch. Bonus if it is snag resistant.
- Easily hand crimped by low cost tools in the field.
- Compatible with existing CAT5/6/7 cabling.
- Alignment of wire pairs without the obsolete and incredibly annoying EIA 568A/B setup. The only reason that exists is because they designed ethernet around existing telephone wiring standards to ease the adoption of ethernet by having it operate over the same wiring infrastructure used for phone systems. It only still exists for compatibility. A new Ethernet connector does not need to follow any such standard because ironically, telephone now runs over ethernet. This would make field crimping much easier and less error prone for colorblind people like me who cross the fucking green and brown pairs from time to time. So you just pop in the pairs and it would be a bonus if they were in a 2x4 grid to make it more compact and easy to install.
If you can't meet those criteria, it's going to fail. RJ.5 coves a great deal of what I said above but adds some complexity such as light pipes for the activity LED's and an optional pull tab. Another issue is I see no mention of field installable connectors or wall (aka keystone) jacks, only PCB jacks and cable assemblies. micro SFP is a nonstarter for endpoints like laptops/desktops/etc as it isn't small enough and is not field install friendly.
(Score: 2) by shrewdsheep on Monday March 21 2016, @09:41PM
Ethernet is not only there to connect some pocket devices but needs to be laid out to wire up stuff in houses. Being serviceable easily when cabling is a big advantage. There could of course be two standards: micro-ethernet and standard. However, standard would have to stay and mirco seems superfluous given wifi as pointed out above.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Monday March 21 2016, @10:16PM
If you want it flat then move the latching pin to one side and cut away about two thirds of the thickness.. this would make it flatter, slightly wider, still allow for simple casting and also "clamshells"..
However, this would only make sense for consumerdevices (industrial are just find with oddballs when the standard connectors doesn't suffice for some reason), which also could be used to argue against latching in the male part and for that matter any durability or shielding (and at this point you might as well just use usb instead)
But if we are going to redefine the whole thing, why not just go with toslink/spdif (or mini-toslink) instead? This will give you small ports and electrical isolation..
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday March 21 2016, @11:57PM
Actually, that's a nice idea (moving latch to side). I was on the absolutely "no" side of this because I end up doing my own ethernet wiring more often than I'd like, and I'm already blind enough that getting the wires in the plug is hard enough. But you are totally correct, the latch could be on the side, or both sides, and it could have some ridge or non-rectangular face shape to make orientation easy.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday March 21 2016, @10:25PM
any adapter introduces four additional points of failure (plug/internal wiring/internal wiring/socket)
Any plug/socket combination has a limited life.
Ahything smaller than rj-45 needs some form of handle for human-sized fingers, making some of the arguments here moot.
Also, any new plug/socket needs to be designed to only plug one way. I will not be alone in having seen USB plugs jammed in upside down.
Is it "non-standards compliant" to wire a cable from the tiny board to a plug a few inches outside the case?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday March 22 2016, @07:36AM
Ahything smaller than rj-45
Did you not read the summary? It's not an RJ45, it's an 8P8C, you ignorant buffoon! Get out of my sight. I have no time for ignoramii such as yourself.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday March 22 2016, @07:43AM
No. It is not rj45; but anything *smaller than* one of those things, the size of an rj-45, needs some way for human fingers to get hold of it.
Also, the plural of ignoramus is ignoramuses.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Informative) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday March 22 2016, @08:10AM
Also, the plural of ignoramus is ignoramuses.
That's the joke.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday March 22 2016, @09:17AM
Sorry - went straight over my (mii?) head.
:-)
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22 2016, @12:22AM
A Fiber-optic router fed by a fiber-optic run from the pole. Route the house with fiber-optic. New PCs would have fiber-optic ports, or older ones a fiber-optic to USB connector. Or, just go all wireless.
(Score: 2) by goodie on Tuesday March 22 2016, @12:27AM
The HDMI connector has shrunk to mini, then micro. USB has shrunk to mini, then micro.
Yeah, you know how much I've been bitching and kicking about this? Every device I own requires a different cable. I have to buy doubles and converters and adapters etc. just so that I can freakin' plug my monitor into two different laptops and a desktop. Absolutely ridiculous. I don't think that there is such a need except in some specific cases (e.g., cell phones). For computing, regular-size USB is fine thank you. I don't think that the Pi needs much more miniaturization at this point. If it does maybe a specialized version should exist but whatever, as far as I am concerned, you can have multiple versions as long as there is an overall standard size. One variant maybe. 2 (micro and mini) is just plain stupid to me. Maybe there are technical reasons for this but I do not know of them and as a consumer, find it stupid.
The wired Ethernet connector has stayed the same since 1988. On the Raspberry PI, it's the largest of the standardized connectors.
Not a very good argument in my opinion. It means I was able to fish out any Ethernet cable from my box of cables and plug it in and be done. Not like when I tried to plug in my monitor... And don't even get me going about the laptop docking stations with multiple displays (1 HDCP and 1 HDMI WTF?). Anyway, it's testament to its fitness as a standard size.
(Score: 2) by Squidious on Tuesday March 22 2016, @01:04AM
I've disposed of a LOT of electronics because those tiny sockets on the device went crufty. I've never had to dispose of a network card for that reason. I've repaired some network cable connectors easy peasy. These old eyes aren't getting any better with age, eff that teeny tiny stuff.
The terrorists have won, game, set, match. They've scared the people into electing authoritarian regimes.
(Score: 2) by goody on Tuesday March 22 2016, @03:43AM
It's called a fiber LC connector. If you really need a smaller connector, go fiber. Otherwise, leave copper RJ-45 connector alone.
(Score: 1) by https on Tuesday March 22 2016, @05:49AM
RJ-45 was not originally for telephone systems, but telecom systems. From ye olde wiki [wikipedia.org],
Not that RJ-45 doesn't have an issue or two, but that objection isn't on the list.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 06 2016, @09:41PM
Did you know Slashdot just posted an article last week about people who point out technicalities like you just did are scientifically proven to be assholes?