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Comment by nine_k | Hacker News Reader

Still we live with power sockets and lamp sockets that hark back to Edison times, more than a century ago, and live relatively happily. Backwards compatibility with millions (and hundreds of millions) of existing devices is a powerful force.

While I'm in favor of USB-C connector eventually replacing USB-A connector completely, I think it's best done gradually, with new devices still offering the occasional USB-A socket for quite some time. Remember how slowly PS/2 ports disappeared from PCs which also featured USB sockets next to them, or how PCI and PCIe coexisted for many years on PC motherboards.

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New mobos still have PS/2, especially the higher-end ones.

Edit: don't believe me? https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/Z790-AORUS-TACHYON-rev-...

    1 x PS/2 keyboard port
    1 x PS/2 mouse port

And long may it last, there is no way to truly replicate a ps/2 port/header with adapters etc

Hopefully if they ever go away for good someone makes a pcie ps/2 card with proper interrupts (if that is even possible behind abstractions like MSI) rather than converting ps/2 to usb

IIRC PS/2 ports are actually an extreme overclocking feature as they are more likely to continue to function at borderline stable clocks.

Yeah but I'd still argue PC manufacturers have it backwards. Offering 1 or 2 USB-C ports and 4 USB-A ports is the wrong ratio. The Mac Pro has it right: 2 USB-A ports in the front, one inside for software keys, and 8 Thunderbolt 4 ports for truly insane speeds impossible to achieve with an A plug.

The reason may be the cost. Four insane-speed ports, especially with DisplayPort routed to all of them, take more resources, more expensive chips, and trickier PCB routing.

My Thinkpad T14 has one USB-C port which works best for charging (also handles Ethernet and slow-speed stuff), and another that works best with an external 4K display. All else is USB-A. But I bought it for $500 used. A used Mac Pro 2019 is like $2500, to say nothing about a new one.

To my knowledge there haven’t been any recent leaps and bounds advances in electrical socket technology where a bunch of 200 year old houses are the only thing holding us back.

Early on maybe 8 or nine years ago I would have made a similar argument as you are now, but it’s been quite awhile even mice and keyboards come standard with usbc now.

I can imagine a much nicer power socket, symmetrical, more safe, always grounded, smaller than the Euro socket. But it has no chance to take over the world, which is dominated by either the Edison's or Siemens's (I suppose) early designs.

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