I found it at the dollar store.

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    Don’t think of it as a tiny cable, think of it as a gender bender. You can put on the end of some female cable.

    You’re more likely to see dongles like this at fixed installations. Like somebody puts a USB port into a wall, like a speaker’s podium, or a presentation stand. So one side is fixed, depending on what you want to hook up to it, you might need to have a gender bender.

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        USB is bi-directional. So it really doesn’t care about the plug gender. Some other protocols are directional, then the plug gender is very important, so adapters for directional protocols tend to be more expensive, it may even require external power.

        Once USB on the go was invented it cease to matter at all.

      • jet@hackertalks.com
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        As long as the double ended dildo provided low impedance electrical through ways, and distinct electrical paths for at least four conduits, with minimal capacitive cross talk… then yes

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          I like you and your style. Do not let a stupid dirty joke get in the way of proper electrical and data connections. It tells me where your priorities are and I respect that.

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          I prefer to only have the two power contacts connected if you’re going to do it with a device you don’t know; use protection people.

      • BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works
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        double ended dildo

        Isn’t that just a gender bender for women? Now we just need a double ended fleshlight for equality… And no I’m not going to google that!

  • x4740N@lemmy.world
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    If you think about it, this is the USB equivalent of a double ended dildo

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      Or turn 2 extension cords into a long one.

      But a serious answer is that these are sometimes sold in a kit of adapters that would let you change the head. Most kits like used a normal cord as the base cord, but some used USB extension cords as the base cord. So this is meant to be a replacement part, not useful in its own right.

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          They are good for wifi/bt/radio usb receivers used for keyboard/mouse/gamepads…so they can be in a better place like higher or further.

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              Yeah… honestly somehow I missed the female-female part 😂 I thought it was male-female.

              Well then it’s used in combination with a male male for sure otherwise yeah O don’t see any use unless there is some weird device with male input.

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    Such A-to-A adaptors and cables always have been prohibited by the USB spec, but people built them anyway. A common usecase for “illegal” A-A cables i remember was connecting PCIe cards (especially GPUs and mining cards) externally to riser sockets.

  • Z4rK@lemmy.world
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    I’ve used them for extension, as it allows you to attach a second, regular USB cable to it.

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      Yeah, these kinds of little gendered connectors seem pointless until you absolutely need them for something specific then they’re priceless.

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      Well, what do you mean by “regular”? The cable would need to be female on at least one end, which I usually see in… USB extension cables.

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      Not that you probably need to know this, but for some other stranger: there’s a max functional length to USB cables. At work I remember pulling my hair out troubleshooting a printer until we swapped cables for something shorter.

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        And that max length goes down with each coupling.

        We have smart boards in most classrooms, but in an entire wing of my department the smart board doesn’t work. Reason? When we built the wing, 8 or 10 years ago, the installers fitted their own low grade plugs on the USB connection for the boards, before figuring out that they snipped the cables too short. Instead of running new cabling the installers then introduced another extension.

        Nobody cared to check it out before accepting delivery and my complaints went unheard by management, until it was too late to RMA it.

      • DaPorkchop_@lemmy.ml
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        That said, there are “active” USB extension cables which draw current from the power lines and use it to boost the signal along the data lines

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        Meanwhile I have 25ft cables running my large format vinyl printers lol

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          My large format vinyl printer uses Ethernet. TIL there are USB vinyl printers. What kind of printer do you have? Latex 260 here

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            We had a 53" US Cutter and it attached to the computer by USB. If we’re talking about the same thing.

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              He said printer though that’s what’s what threw me off. That’s a cutter. My bad I thought he was talking about a USB large format printer, I only replied because I’m looking for a slightly smaller printer for my smaller decals, and I’d be interested in a serial or USB printer.

              My PC is in the basement and I’ve got USB and serial going everywhere running different cutters, 3d printers, CNC, etc upstairs and down, also in the garage. Works great.

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    I dunno but it bothers me how much plastic wrapping that fucking thing apparently needs.

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    To connect two USB-A ports.

    Basically the same as a USB-A to USB-A cable, just really short.

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      USB-A to USB-A cables do not exist, the USB standard does not allow them, if you have a cable with two USB-A connectors then it’s not actually a certified USB cable. The same goes for USB extension cables and this adapter. Note how there isn’t a ‘USB certified’ logo on the package.

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        The cables exist; they just don’t follow the standard. I’ve used them when developing consumer electronics: the host controller on the device switches to device mode in the bootloader, allowing a host machine to connect and debug/flash the device.

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        USB-A to USB-A cables do not exist

        wtf are you talking about, of course they do.

        • jet@hackertalks.com
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          They meant cables in spec with the USB specification at the time usb-a was new.

          Now with usb-c, it’s kinda moot, as most cables are male to male anyway… of course that means we’re more likely to see USB-C female to female adopters now

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            USB-C female to female adapters also are out of spec. The USB standard does not allow for extensions. USB cables only have male connectors (with the exception of USB-OTG dongles).

            • evidences@lemmy.world
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              Or like saying usb-a to usb-c adapters don’t exist because they’re not part of the standard but we all have like six of those damn things even though we’ve never actually bought a single one.

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                  Are they? Everything I can find seems to say they aren’t.

                  I remember when the first usb-c Macbooks hit stores Apple didn’t have usb-a to c adapters for sale because they weren’t in spec, a lot of reviews mentioned that.

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            They cables and exist and they work. So being “specified” doesn’t mean jack shit.

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        USB-A to USB-A doesn’t exist

        *looks at old charger from an American device*

        HOLY SHIT A CRYPTID CALL SCP

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        USB-A to USB-A cables do exist.

        I have seen many (very cheap) peripherals use USB-A sockets. I figure those sockets must be a few cents cheaper than alternatives.

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            China stuff loves to slap logos on there that do not apply, so probably without having seen this particular abomination myself. Fake CE markings are super common though.

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        It’s not hard to imagine a product that would require one, though. It’s how every phone charging cable works, just with a different size male USB on one end.

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          It’s how every phone charging cable works, just with a different size male USB on one end.

          No, it’s exactly not how every phone charging cable works, at least not for non USB-C cables.

          Pre-USB-C cables are explicitly unidirectional. In USB there are ‘hosts’ (usually computers) and ‘devices’ (flashdrives, camera’s, mice, keyboards, etc.). The host side always has a female USB-A connector, a device either has a female USB-B connector (if it’s intended to be used with a cable), or a male USB-A (if it’s intended to be plugged in directly into a host, like a flash drive). A real, standard-conformant USB cable can only go from USB-A male to USB-B male (with the addition of USB-C, it can also go from A-to-C, from C-to-B, or C-to-C). Never A-to-A or B-to-B, extension cables (male to female) of any type, A, B or C, are not allowed either.

          USB was specifically designed like this so you can never connect a device to a device or a host to a host.

          On the host side, you pretty much only see full size USB-A ports. On the device side there are 3 common types of USB-B ports: standard size (you can for example see these on printers and scanners), mini-USB-B used a lot on older phones, and later micro-USB-B. On each side the male part is on the cable, the female part is on the host or device.

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          They do exist, despite the USB standards not allowing them

          A USB cable is a cable that conforms to the USB specification. If a cable does not conform to the USB specification then it isn’t an USB cable by definition

          I’m not saying a cable with 2 USB-A style connectors doesn’t exist, I’m just saying that it is not a USB cable. Just like a glass of Pepsi is not a glass of Coca-Cola even though it may look like one.

  • LazaroFilm@lemmy.world
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    I used to have a portable hard drive that had a usb-A/ e-sata hybrid connector and I had to use a USB A to A cable (or e-data) to use it.

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    Get 2 laptops, put them side by side with usb ports wide open and plug them bitches together. Likely will short with 5v being fed both sides.

    But in reality its a usb coupler (plugging together 2x usb extension cables). Not a great lot of use from them in my opinion. I’ve seen shit bodged together in low budget it offices using edge case crap like this.