From: vulture@imperial.ac.uk (Thomas Sippel - Dau)
Subject: Re: WARNING: USR vs ADB
Reply-To: cmaae47@imperial.ac.uk
Organization: Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 17:23:26 GMT

In article <2244@indep1.UUCP>, clifto@indep1.UUCP (Cliff Sharp) writes:
- In article <keating.720981717@galena13> keating@rtsg.mot.com (Edward Keating) writes:
- >Perhaps Apple should have used a mini-DIN connector instead??
- 
-     Yes, but they tend to be arrogant and do what they damn please.Remember,
- if they buy 100 zillion of those connectors they get quantity discounts.They
- tend to try to tell the world how to do things, and this is just another of
- their debacles.

Unfortunately it is not as easy to find the evil enemy in this case as it is
in many other "standards" discussion. USR could not have "stayed away" from the
ADB connector since their connector precedes Apple's, and modems are not really
offered for a particular machine. The original poster did not even state that
the USR was to be connected to the powerbook that was so rudely terminated by
that modem's power supply. It could well have been a plug picked up from the
usual rat's nest of cables that covers the desk of that everybody trying to 
connect computers.

I fear the blame has to go to the governments, which have, partly through 
engineers' associations, partly through monopolies, partly through direct 
intervention, enforced fairly rigid standards for such things as power plugs, 
telephone connectors, antenna connectors - that's why they are different in every
country. Where this has not at all been done is in low voltage power supplies,
which consequently have different connectors for every type of appliance, there
is just no standard.

It could easily have been done, even if the outcome would have been a family 
of plugs, with different pin position for different voltages and different
sizes for higher loads. Add a requirement that each voltage must be closely 
regulated and allow null to full load, defined by a blow or trip fuse in a 
standardised fuse holder, and we could have cheap reliable and interchangeable 
power supplies. 

Too expensive I hear somebody scream ? Well, can you afford the current chaos ?
Too late ? Certainly not, there will be lots of low voltage appliances to come.
In the last two years, I got 2 modems, 1 portable computer, 1 portable CD
player, a set of two battery powered speakers for it, a protable ethernet 
adapter, and a couple of free floating power supplies because I do not want to
carry the power supplies for the equipment with it all the time. No, it did 
not manage to double the number of low-voltage supplies I have, and No, 
virtually none are interchangeable (apart from the modems which were from the
same manufacturer, and the extra ones which were bought to be compatible with
their doubles).

So write to your (congress droid, MP, ...) that what this nation (fill in your
country here) needs is a worldwide regulation for low voltage power supply 
connectors. That should keep them off the streets for years ...

                                        Thomas

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