
USB 4 set to roll out next year - ChuckMcM
https://www.engadget.com/2019/09/03/usb4-devices-next-year/
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andyljones
What's the enabling technology behind this? USB4's 40GBit/s is 8x USB3's
original 500MBit/s. USB3 was first launched in 2008. Processors have not
gotten 8x faster since 2008, so why haven't these kind of speeds shown up
sooner?

~~~
sprash
The C64 could communicate with peripherals with the same speed as it could
talk to RAM. "Technically" this would also be possible on x86_64 machines
right from the start. The "enabling technology" in this case is that
electrical RX/TX components can be manufactured in smaller feature size
without breaking the bank. USB is succesfull because it is cheap.

~~~
erik_seaberg
This. There are already complaints about the cost of USB 3.2 hardware, because
measurably charging a hunk of metal gets a lot harder at high frequencies.
They had to get more precise and then start borrowing tricks from SATA and
PCIe.

A 6502 could go up to 3 MHz, but I think the C=64 ran its 6510 near 1 MHz
because a clock divider was reserving _half_ the bus cycles for the video chip
(no dual-ported VRAM). With dies too small for cache, it didn't make sense to
make anything faster than fetching instructions from RAM or ROM. Even the
Cray-1 was only able to run at 80 MHz (12.5 ns/cycle) because they paid for
four banks of 50 ns RAM. And at those speeds, you could just glue straight
wires together into a ribbon cable and call it a day.

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ChuckMcM
I love the optimism in this article "its backward compatible, things will just
work." But I also wonder when we will stop "improving" things :-)

~~~
analognoise
You'll never take my audio (phone) jack from my cold dead hands: first used in
1877.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_connector_(audio)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_connector_\(audio\))

Some technologies are already perfect.

~~~
quietbritishjim
That's not a fair comparison: you're comparing the specific revision of USB
with the earliest revision of the audio jack. The first version of the audio
jack, in 1877, is the 1/4" mono jack. The version that you're thinking of is
the 3.5mm (just under 1/8") stereo jack. According to that Wikipedia article,
the 3.5mm mono jack is from the 1950s, and it doesn't say when the stereo
version is from. (Amazingly, the original 1/4" is still used, usually for
connecting up instruments rather than for headphones.)

~~~
xzel
He's not confusing them. They're both phone jacks (see the wiki he posted),
the 3.5mm and 1/8 alike. You're confusing the fact the 3.5mm is often in
phones (its the multiple usages of the word phone that's confusing here).

~~~
quietbritishjim
I understand they're both phone jacks, and I think my comment makes that
clear. But I mean, the context is that USB is having yet another version, so
their comment ("some technologies are already perfect") seemed to be that the
original 1887 jack is precisely the same revision of the phone jack he doesn't
want removed from his mobile phone.

I hadn't actually thought of the two meanings of "phone" in my comment, I
understood that "phone jack" refers to telephone switch boards. I just assumed
they were talking about removal from mobile phones because that's where those
jacks are notoriously being removed.

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kraig
I can't wait to see how they decide to version the different USB 4
generations.

~~~
rajasimon
You mean type-c?

~~~
esyir
He probably means USB4.1 2x2 type C, or something along those lines.

~~~
majewsky
> USB 4.1 Type C with HDMI Alternate Mode without DisplayPort Alternate Mode
> with Power Delivery

FTFY

