organizing my USB cable box:
1. USB C (A-to-C & C-to-C)
2. USB A to B
3. USB A to mini B
4. USB A to micro B
5. weird shit that shouldn't exist
6. wait this is firewire

group 5 is the majority, natch

I just destroyed three of the USB A to mini-B cables because apparently this cable is designed with the GND and VCC on the top or bottom depending on how the manufacturer was feeling that day, so consistently cutting it is slightly impossible

@foone usb 1.0 A type to something vaguely resembling mini DIN, but not quite. For a device that is either long gone or lost in a box somewhere …

fun stuff in group 5:
1. two different varieties of USB-to-magnetic-charging
2. male micro-b to lightning (why)
3. HTC Magic/Dream Miini-USB + Audio
4. multiple different varieties of dual-orientation USB that predate USB-C, including one cable that's double-sided USB-A to double-sided USB-micro

I have to keep the cable for a phone from 2009, what if I need it?

@foone

looks up from chewing on cords

uh

hi

@albinanigans MY CORDS!

@foone Did you keep the phone, too?

@vaporeon_ of course

@foone 7: USB-A to barrel plug

Did this myself a short while ago, testing for power only cables at the same time. Half of my A to mini B were power only

@exmotoh no, but all the cables I keep have been tested so they're not TOO terribly wrong.

but yeah they still sometimes don't work

@FurryBeta oh yeah I have a couple different varieties of those

@foone
You'll never need it. Except when you throw it away. Then you'll need it the next day.

@maddy yeah last year I went through my USB box with a USB tester and chopped and tossed a lot of cables

@foone@digipres.club I miss my trackball now. ​​

@julie oh yeah, that was a fun thing to include on the phone. I'm disappointed we don't still have that on phones.

man android has gotten a lot more boring in the hardware area

@foone 6a. Fire Wire

(Not mine, scrolled by it somewhere yesterday)

@foone male micro-B to lightning? I have in the past constructed precisely this via an dongle to connect a Zoom audio recorder directly to the iPhone for it to work as the phone’s audio interface when shooting video

@foone Let's try to find the 240W cable in box 1...

@foone @julie I miss my FM tuner. And why not ATSC while we are at it

@foone "let's make 3 piles, things that are USB, things that aren't USB, and things that aren't cables. Start with that possum."

@foone Doh, the USB charging cable for Philips shavers is not compatible with the good old LEGO 4.5V ecosystem.
https://www.philips.be/c-p/CP1788_01/oneblade-usb-kabel

@foone ofc because the last around you went crazy with that USB checker Board IIRC

@foone I finally just bought a few USB C to Micro USB adapters and attached them to the cable so I don't lose them. At least removes one category of cables.

@JessTheUnstill @foone Had the same struggle. I switched to magnetic connecting cables that have plugs for C as well as for micro. So I just added plugs to all devices and now only need the same charging cable for everything :)

10/10 can recommend. Even works with PD

@foone behold the field in which I grow my USB fuckery.

@foone pardon me, do you have any USB-A to stereo headphone?

@geert oh good lord

@th nice! I don't think so

@th Mono?!?

Edit: I see you edited it.

@hennichodernich oops. you're right! now the question is what does it use the extra pin for? it's just a five volt supply for the soldering iron

@th @hennichodernich

I've encountered a few RS232 DB9 and USB to 2,5 and 3,5mm jack over the years, normally to program radio scanners and portable VHF/UHF radios, although they contain circuitry either in the DB9 or USB plug to convert the signals to TTL serial.

I quite often use those with a "Kenwood/Baofeng/Retevis" jack plug assembly for programming PMR446 sets without display when the CTCSS / DSC tones need to fit in with those in use on an existing radio scheme (Baofeng PMR446 generally have no CTCSS/DCS out of the box, and Retevis use the same tones across all their models so you need to program a Baofeng if you want to communicate with Retevis users, all the staff at the trampoline parks round here use Retevis)

@vfrmedia @th @hennichodernich The in some circles popular Motorola C123 uses 2,5 for serial and flashing too. It’s a cheap phone, so no budget in the bom for any fancy connector or even USB.
https://osmocom.org/projects/baseband/wiki/MotorolaC123

@foone Type 5 all the way! Everything from those weird USB 3 hard drive enclosure cables to the pre-micro-USB "we made up our own mini USB standard, and nobody will ever find this cable again if you get rid of it". It's not that I'm a cable hoarder...

What drives me nuts now is USB-C cable versions. I'm getting close to wanting a tester and then color coding everything based on what it supports and can/can't do. "ooh, this is 60 watt, 480mbps, that one is 100 watt, this is a 10 gig cable" Sigh.

@foone I must post my collection of Forbidden Connectors

@foone Have you subdivided your cables by power rating?

I've also had to subdivide my usb-C devices into those that support power delivery and those that go "huh" and can only work if the other end is an ancient power-delivery protocol unaware USB-A socket.

(I get to have even more fun as I've got USB-4 devices and Thunderbolt 3/4 devices.)

My USB cable organizer is starting to look worse and more complicated then my old RS232 widget and cable toolkit.

@foone in my #5 group I have an A to micro B cable where the micro B side is secretly TTL serial

@bmartin427 devious! that's the kind of thing that should be well marked

@foone I guess you forgot Usb A to Usb A
Those were pretty common back in the day for many ...
Electronic stuff...
🦤

@dat @foone i need a micro-A to micro-b or c cable to charge my phone off my ebike