The mechanical design of the USB "A" connector

I'll assume this is a serious question.

It's the other way around.

The USB spec was defined, then cables, flash drives, and all other USB accessories were designed to meet the electrical and mechanical specs that had been defined.

Sure, there were inputs from electronic manufacturers as to what the USB specs should be, but the specs came first, then the products. (Or at best, simultaneously the products.)

Bob Pownall

snipped-for-privacy@netscape.net (Bob Pownall) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com:

It certainly is.

The mechanical design of the "A" connector, big and flat, lends itself so well to supporting flash memory sticks that it might have been planned that way.

If it had been something wimpy like the miniB or the Firewire connector, things would have gone much differently.

True. If the USB "A" connector had been something like the miniB connector, flash drives probably wouldn't exist, at least not at this point, and in their current sizes and popularity.

On the other hand, it's not a very big stretch to imagine a conversation at some point during the standards discussion that went something like "OK, let's consider mechanical stability. How much weight do we want it to be able to support? How much length do we want it to be able to support? What kinds of existing products would we like to see supported with the new USB interface?"

I doubt the designers of the USB interface had flash drives in mind when they came up with the specification (although it's certainly possible, I just don't think it likely), but they probably had enough experience with computer interfaces (parallel, serial, PS/2, SCSI, etc) to anticipate unanticipated devices (if that makes any sense) being designed for use with the interface.

That's good engineering design - having enough flexibility designed in to handle things you never even dreamed of, and still at a reasonable cost.

Bob