You're telling me we could have had reversible USB cables all along?
What the hell, guys, why haven't we had reversible USB cables on our peripherals for years? I mean, I get that with USB Type-C it no longer matters which way around you plug in your cable—unless you're some absolute monster, that is—but we could have had that all along with the classic, 'normal' USB plugs. Or did everyone else already know this, and my astonishment at finding this Lightning cable-looking bastard in the box of a new keyboard is just me being waaay behind the times?
I've been checking out a bunch of new keyboards recently, such as the glorious little Mountain Everest 60 and the almost glorious NZXT Function MiniTKL, but neither have had my jaw hit the floor so hard as when pulling the Kemove K68 Butterfly out of its box.
It's a moderately weird, curvy shape, and I can't get the lighting to hit my favoured hot pink aesthetic just yet, but the board hasn't been released, so I'll forgive it some software-based funkiness for now. That's not the stunner, though.
It's the bundled USB Type-A to Type-C cable that has really shocked me. I mean, it doesn't care which way around I plug it into my machine and that blows my mind. I've since found some others online, which look nowhere near as cool, housed as they are in the same rectangular metal shroud. This one is instead out and proud, and I love it for that.
Yet that still begs the question of why the hell have we been labouring under the yoke of non-reversible USB cables for so damned long when there's been an alternative right under our noses?
The original reason for not making the first USB plugs reversible is one of cost. Ajay Bhatt, the leader of the team at Intel who created the Universal Serial Bus, has gone on record to talk about "the biggest annoyance" being the reversibility, but that it was necessary because it would have otherwise required twice as many wires, and twice as many circuits, doubling the cost.
Best wireless gaming mouse: ideal cable-free rodents
Best wireless gaming keyboard: no wires, no worries
Best wireless gaming headset: top untethered audio
Given that it was a protocol designed to counter the typically Apple expense of sticking Firewire onto a motherboard, cost was the biggest reason for the eventual success of USB as a thing.
But I'm not buying that now, when a wee company selling gaming keyboards via Kickstarter can bundle one with a new keeb. So, screw these outdated, restrictive USB Type-A plugs, I want my legacy cables to get with the times.