I can’t think of the proper words so I apologize for how untechnical this is: If you look inside the connector you’ll see a thin line jutting out. That’s the actual thing that USB-C connects with. You can’t make that round. The reason the outer part of the plug is an “oval” is just to make plugging it in easier. It could be a rectangle and still work.
I mean, you could. You’d need three times as many contacts in the receptacle as pins in the plug. Each pin would have to be able to touch exactly 1 or 2 contacts simultaneously. Each receptacle contact would need to programmatically assign itself to perform the role expected for the particular pin it is touching at any given moment.
Pin 1 would start off touching Contact A. As you rotate it, it would connect to A and B. Keep rotating it, it drops A and touches B alone. Then BC. Then C. Then CD. Then D. Then DE, and so on.
Assuming by “jutting pieces” you mean the pins, yeah, I could see that being difficult ultimately to manufacture into the 3.5mm jack configuration.
But translating each pin to a “band” (sorry I’m not very technical myself) on a jack with the form factor of a 3.5mm pin should be doable. You’d probably need 5 or 10 bands since (as I understand it) USBs use a 5 pin connection (again, as I understand it, most devices mirror the 5 pins on each side, but some more advanced/specialized USBs utilized the USB-C connector as 10 pins, hence the possible desire for a 10 band jack).
Again, I could see that being difficult to manufacture, but not impossible, and especially if it became a standard package. Might need a bigger jack than 3.5mm though.
Seems serious to me. Is there an obvious reason it’d be a joke / is not to be taken seriously?
I expect theres some technical limitation that wouldn’t be obvious to a layman, but I’d love to learn if you can point to resources.
I can’t think of the proper words so I apologize for how untechnical this is: If you look inside the connector you’ll see a thin line jutting out. That’s the actual thing that USB-C connects with. You can’t make that round. The reason the outer part of the plug is an “oval” is just to make plugging it in easier. It could be a rectangle and still work.
I mean, you could. You’d need three times as many contacts in the receptacle as pins in the plug. Each pin would have to be able to touch exactly 1 or 2 contacts simultaneously. Each receptacle contact would need to programmatically assign itself to perform the role expected for the particular pin it is touching at any given moment.
Pin 1 would start off touching Contact A. As you rotate it, it would connect to A and B. Keep rotating it, it drops A and touches B alone. Then BC. Then C. Then CD. Then D. Then DE, and so on.
Assuming by “jutting pieces” you mean the pins, yeah, I could see that being difficult ultimately to manufacture into the 3.5mm jack configuration.
But translating each pin to a “band” (sorry I’m not very technical myself) on a jack with the form factor of a 3.5mm pin should be doable. You’d probably need 5 or 10 bands since (as I understand it) USBs use a 5 pin connection (again, as I understand it, most devices mirror the 5 pins on each side, but some more advanced/specialized USBs utilized the USB-C connector as 10 pins, hence the possible desire for a 10 band jack).
Again, I could see that being difficult to manufacture, but not impossible, and especially if it became a standard package. Might need a bigger jack than 3.5mm though.
USB C has a (soon to be) max power delivery of 240 watts. Shorting that onto a data pin would be catastrophic.
You can kinda work around that, but honestly the easiest way is to just not present the opportunity.
That seems like a particularly poignant concern. Lol, so I’m hearing “possible, but but difficult and undesirable”