I've actually used a USB Type-A to Type-A cable before, it was for programming a development board for a class. I remember my friends and I calling it "the cursed cable".

That "Dangerous Cable" is often added to notebook cooling pads which has usb hub in them.

My TI-84 actually came with a mini-A to mini-B connector, and both my TI-84 and TI Nspire have the mini-AB port. Pretty cool

IIRC The Mini-AB Port is used on those TI-84 Plus Graphical Calculators we used in school, always wondered why it looked this odd

The "dangerous cables" can be found on some laptop cooler pads. Have fun ;)

The Micro-AB is on the DJI Mavic Air remote. It is used as an A port when the remote is connected to a phone and as a B port when charging

My first external HDD was using a standard type A to type A, I always wondered what would happen if I connected it between two PlayStation 2s or PCs

I had one of those "dangerous" type A to Type A cables, it was a small one that came with my cheap laptop fan lol, it was how the fan powers up apparently

The USB A to USB A cable is used on consumer devices, like my portable hard drive.

You forgot apples USB A connector with the little indentation inside (to allow only certain devices to be connected). Nothing a pair of pliers didn't fix back then :)

My Grandfather had so many weird USB wires. Which made it really annoying when I needed something for my Mp3 player

The type A - A cable you mentioned as dangerous, i have a couple of them laying around, those came along with my motherboard, since those was capable of having a secondary computer connected directly. It was a kinda neat feature since you could override all of the safety parameters there, so you could say that if was mostly used for those who was overclocking their commuters to the max

I have a couple of external USB3 hard drive enclosures which has an USB-A on them, and they came with a USB-A to USB-A cable.

My first Android tablet had a type A port on it, so I actually have a A to A cable at home I used when I flashed custom roms to it. It was the ViewSonic Viewpad 10s

The A to A cabel is used in the HTC vive.

*me who saw and used all the cables in this video:* I am 4 parallel universes ahead of you

Ouuu, haven’t seen you on my feed for a while! Welcome back, haha!

I actually have a couple of older cheap external hard drive enclosures that use the "dangerous" A to A cable. Why they used those instead of just having a B on the device is something I've often wondered about.

You forgot the "mini-b" 12-pin, used on some Olympus cameras.

The most different video type in tech world.

Correction; The "dangerous cable" with USB type A on both sides is used on a few keyboards. The Cooler Master Storm Quickfire XT (i have 2 of it and can verify it) comes with a braided USB type A.

Dell included one of those dangerous A to A cables with a computer I bought over a decade ago, but it had a light on it. The purpose of the cable was to transfer files over USB using software on an included disc. Now you know the use of one of them.

You will always try plugging USB A connector 3 times. Once right way but it won't go in, then you flip it and try again, and finally you flip it back and plug it in.

Oh yeah! The tech king uploaded again i have a video idea: A what's on my iPhone

The micro a is on the dji controller for the mavic pro series

If you want a really strange "standard" cable check out the pUSB. They are mainly used on PoS systems, but they come in 5, 12, 19, and 24 volts. They are locking and even color coded.

Originally, there was a different USB type B mini connector. The first type B mini had a more trapezoidal shape, but was electrically identical. I don't recall exactly why they changed it, but they identified some kind of mechanical weakness. It was replaced with the current design, so that the current plugs will fit in the original Type B mini sockets.

I remember making one of those "Dangerous cables", nothing happened though lol.

The A-A dangerous cable is a little bit more common than you think. I remember probably 15 years ago having an external hard drive that had 2 Type A on one side broken out, and another type A on the other side. I assume it was to try and get more power from the ports to power the drive. It was a weird Frankenstein consumer product

Texas Instruments graphing calculators with a USB port and a monochrome screen have a mini-AB port. The linking cable they use (to communicate between two calculators) is a mini-A to mini-B cable. People have also reverse-engineered the hardware and been able to get flash drives, keyboards, mouses, and whatnot running on it. Also, both my old phone and my mom's had a micro-AB (Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro & Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman). Also an old tablet we used to have (Medion Lifetab 9512) that ran Android 4.0.4.

I recently bought an HP Prime calculator and it has a micro-AB port. It also came with a regular A to micro-B cable AND a micro-A to micro-B one. I think the latter is intended for transferring files between calculators

you really love that picture at 2:27 don't you

I do own an A to A usb transfer cable. It has in-line power management and software side support for pc to pc data transfer.

The mini ab port and mini a is not actually deprecated. It is used by 1 company which is Texas Instruments. They put their mini AB port on all models of the TI 84 plus, silver edition, ce, silver edition c. The mini a is used for transferring calculator data from one to another.

These cables were kinda sorta common in the early days of USB, when, say, a camera manufacturer would say "let's just use this one" or "let's make our own" and standards weren't that big a thing yet. Also, I know A to A are used as just cheap 4-line cables for non-standard data transfer

More obscure cable videos please.

This channel is more about cables and connectors than anything else nowadays lol

The "mini-b" 8-pin is still found on some Nikon cameras today. It has USB as well as composite video out for cameras to connect to computers or TVs

Many years ago, I had a portable hard drive enclosure that uses a full-size Type-A port, so-called 'dangerous cable', I tried to connect 2 computers together with that cable, and expecting that the C drive will magically show up in each other's 'My Computer', but nothing happened haha

Hmm

Heavenly Father I pray that you keep the person reading this alive, safe, healthy and financially blessed Amen💪

Less so lately, but a few years ago, there were all sorts of proprietary connectors for charging and data ports. A lot of them would have 10, 20, 30 or more pins on one end, and a standard USB A connector on the other end. It seems like manufacturers did that for no other reason than to be able to charge $30.00 for a cable that cost $0.30 to manufacture. I’ve had pretty good success removing the proprietary ports on quite a few devices and replacing with micro USB ports. Not needing to keep track of or worry about replacing a broken proprietary cable makes life a lot easier now that I can just connect to them using micro USB cable to charge or transfer data.

Uh, USB data transfer cables have Type-A connectors on both ends as standard. Type-A to Type-A as a powered device connection is not 'dangerous', but was pretty standard before the insistence on making everything smaller. Also, I've got a Micro-AB port on my Dell Venue tablet. It's also probably worth mentioning the eSATA port/connector, as that is very similar in size and shape to USB-A and can quite commonly be found on older laptops as an eSATA/USB combo port because it is just so similar.

👍👍👍👍👍

I think first

The "Type E" connector is officially part of the USB standard, however, the USB Implementers Forum only refers to it by "USB 3.1 front-panel internal 20 pin connector" and further specifies its keying (A or B). When you google "USB3p1_Front_Panel_CabCon_Implment_Doc_Rev1p1", you'll find a PDF of the documentation by the USB-IF. And those cables with USB A on either end are really common with cheap external hard drive cases and USB hubs that are all over sites like Amazon. There is a HDD case by Sabrent, for example, that has over 35.000 reviews on Amazon.

I had that dangerous cable for a USB hard drive. My best guess for why it was used is that the type A port is smaller vertically than a normal type B, but the small type B (mini and micro) connectors were too weak?

Actually those cables that have type A on both sides (the dangerous ones) are kind of common (at least in my country) and are used by those boxes that converts internal 2.5" hard drive/ssd to external. This is probably because those type A connectors are more robust than any other type, and the standard B is too tall to fit.

I've used an extenal HDD, with a standard Type A connector, where the included cable had one standard typeA for the HDD and two, yes two standard type A connectors on the host end (it was like the second type A extends out from the first one like the letter "h"). The extra type A was supposedly not for data transfer but for additional power. Like if the HDD throttles as the host is unable to power the device, connect the extra connector to another usb port to draw more power.

I have the Mini USB cable that came with my TI-84 Plus Calculator, and I recently saw the Micro USB variant in a thrift store.

For the mini-AB, look at TI graphing calculators

There's also a 4-pin "Mini-B" known as a Fuji 4-pin. It was used by Fuji and Panasonic (the LS120 camera used it).

My TI-89-Titanium from Freshman year of college has a USB mini A/B receptacle in it! I used it for transferring programs to and from other calculators & my PC. You could also use it with Vernier data collection devices. The calculator also came with a 5" micro A/micro B cable for client/server transfers. Though the port is depreciated, you can still buy TI-89s new from various retailers.

4:38 all Sony mobile devices (phones, tablets, laptops etc.) from between 2009 and 2016 have micro-A connectors. Connector is also competible with micro-B cables, acting as client device when micro-B cable is connected.

Sony's MDR-1ADAC headphones use a Micro-A port and Micro-A cables to attach to a variety of proprietary audio devices. Sony added a round pin next to the male Micro-A connector for stability and orientation.

I use A to A cables for some portable hard drives, surgically a Sabrent enclosure for 2.5" SSDs with a type A port and an A to A cable in the box. Works great!

I'm surprised you didn't mention Apple's Lightning connector. It would have to be the most common non-standard USB connector. (Also, I have a Micro-A connector on the controller for my Mavic Air drone - it took me a while to figure out what it was).

Many A to A cables are used for extended periphials, we have many to connect a computer to a smart TV so the touch screen TV can be used as a Mouse.

The usbA to usbA cable is used sometimes for old usb hubs with detachable cables, i have a couple

I have a Zalman NC2000 notebook cooler. A Type-A to Type-A USB cable is used to connect the cooler to a laptop USB port or a USB wall charger. The cable was included with the notebook cooler. It is the only time that I have seen this cable configuration. I really enjoy your videos...accurate, informative, and relevant.

The ti nspire cx has the mini a/b plug and cable, it was unidirectional and allowed for data transfer.

Back in around 2006 or 2007, I had a SUPER cheap digital camera/webcam combo thing that shipped with usb-a to usb-a. Probably the only time i saw a usb-a on an electronic that wasn't a host device.

We used to use A-to-A cables for uploading programs to robotics boards back when I was in high school. We also occasionally had smaller kids come in for experience classes, and every time our instructor made very sure these cables were locked away the day before... Kids would have connected a PC to itself and fried the motherboard FOR SURE.

Back in the days there were type A to type A cables that supposed to connect two computers. It internally works by having 2 usb to serial adapters connected together, it has a small box in the middle. My father has one somewhere

With USB 3(.1 I think?) A to A connectors were made to be acceptable because all USB 3.1 devices have "On the Go" support, as I recall.

Usb A to A cables (9:40) are often used to flash firmware to devices, especially routers (Huawei). They are also user for GPU mining between the motherboard and the GPU

first thing to come to mind with the mini AB port and A -> B cable is the ti84+ silver/black with the usb port on top. used for a faster link cable.

there are 5 types of USB One of them are proprietary: 1. USB A 1.0, 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 3.1 certificate 2. USB B (PRINTERS) or micro type-B 5 pin (smartphone androids) 3. APPLE / SAMSUNG 30 PIN Connector Tablet plug. 4. USB Type-C 3.0 3.1 , 3.2 certificate 5.USB Mini type-B 5 pin (mp3 chargers) or micro type-B 10 pin (external hard drive plugs) also, lightning for apple iOS and Thunderbolt for macbook and some intel PCs

USB OTG is the best. It completely destroys the A B distinction they originally intended, and I absolutely love that it exists.

9:23 I have one of those, I actually use it to connect an external HDD case with my computer, so yeah they sell it for consumers lol

My Lenovo Thinkpad L13 yoga has the “type E” as a part of a docking connector on the left side of the laptop. The connector is used for the original PXE boot compatible RJ45 dongle. It would make sense as most RJ45 dongles connect via usb. BTW the docking connector is a standard usb-c and usb “type E” side by side combo jack, but the jacks can be used individually.

10:15 newer TI calculators actually include micro b to micro b as a link cable

The dangerous type A to type A connector is usually bundled with many 3.5 external hard drive enclosures which you can buy from Amazon and eBay.

I have a "dangerous" USB A to A cable. It came with a SATA/IDE to USB adapter for hard drives. Weird that they didn't just use Micro-B 3.0 or C, but I'd guess Micro B is too flimsy and Type-C is too expensive.

I remember the danger cable "a to a" being used when USB 0.9 came out (the original released specification). It was supposed to be for DOS/Win3.11/Win NT. The original intention was for main boards to lose all slots (no ISA, PCI, IDE, serial, parallel, etc). If you wanted a new hard drive, you'd plug one end of the danger cable into the main board and the other end into the hard drive. If you wanted to plug in a monitor, you'd plug a danger cable into the main board and the other end would be a slot panel or screwed into a knock out plug and the monitor would have USB. The monitor was supposed to have the video card integrated inside the monitor. As you can imagine these things were never built. I have an old laptop that has a USB version 0.9 available to the outside like a regular USB port now. I can get it to work under DOS and Win95 with a lot of work with the DUSE driver in config.sys. Windows 98 second edition needs no DOS driver. The port can only seem to recognize a mouse or keyboard. Nothing else seems to work.

I’ve seen external hard drives with ‘dangerous’ A to A cables

The A-to-A cable is used on a few printers, where you can use the port to either connect to a PC or plug a stick with pictures in. Apparently this solution is cheaper than a second USB-B port..

I have a few USB-A to Micro USB cables that are reversible. You can plug them in either way on either end. It saves time trying to figure out if it's right side up.

I've seen Type-A to Type-A cables used as direct links between hosts when transferring/syncing user profiles between computers. This did require proprietary software and the supplied cable was probably custom.

My parents had few of the type A to type A cables when I was younger. Never thought it dangerous or rare. We had a couple video cameras that used them to connect to our PC. They were cheap cameras for sure but just had a female type A port used to transfer videos to PC

Some USB 3.0 devices (mainly external HDDs) use Type-A connections. They are usually shipped with a Type-A/Type-A USB cable.

I had one of this USB-A to USB-A cables because my old Digital Camara had a USB-A port. And I pluged both sides in computers at one time, nothing happened ^^

About the Type-A to Type-A cable, can confirm i've used it on a commercial device, as i have an external HDD box that uses that kind of port and cable to connect with the computer.

I have a capture card that uses a Type-A to Type-A cable to connect to the computer. Don't really know why, but it was pretty cheap and easy to buy a longer cable for it off of Amazon

I have seen a USB A to USB A cable used in classrooms with the VEX engineering kits. One side plugs into computer, other into a "cortex".

9:56 I have a thermaltake Laptop cooler fan that actually has 2 USB-A Ports on it and an A to A cable so you can plug it in either of the 2 Ports and an additional USB Device. Also, about 15 Years ago we had a Set-Top-Box with HDD, that had an USB A port on the back so you could either plug in a USB Drive and copy the recordings on it or you could use a special USB- A to A cable to transfer them directly onto a PC.

USB Type-A to USB Type-A is used on the HTC Vive, and the Wireless adapter for the HTC Vive. And USB 3.0 Type-A to Type-A are heavily used on those GPU mining risers.

Type-A to Type-A is used for a lot of laptop cooler pads. Most companies I know use that cable. And I've seen most of those cables, but I do work in IT store so its no surprise.

Usb type-E is specced higher than the USB 3.0 header and the type-E connector is little bit smaller. Regarding the A-to-A cable; this is sometimes used for hard-drive enclosures.

USB A to A connectors were actively promoted by Windows from Vista onwards as "Easy Transfer Cables"- to transfer and migrate Windows between PC's. Of course, there was circuitry in the middle to stop each port frying the other, so less of a traditional cable, but still am interesting sidenote.

Those Type-A to Type-A cables are actually used by HTC in many of their Vive products. The Original Vive and Vive Pro use such a cable to connect the Link Box with the PC. The Vive Wireless Adapter also uses such a cable, to connect to the Original Vive and for connecting to the Power Bank. Thanks to HTC I have a couple of those cables laying around, but never used them for anything other their intended purpose.

I have an old Wacom Bamboo Fun which has, for some reason, a mini-AB port on it. (Doesn't serve any purpose, especially since even the cable given with it is a good old mini-A.) Another thing I have with a mini-AB is a calculator, a TI-83 Plus to be precise. While said port could be used to connect it to a PC, it could also be used to connect it to another Texas Instrument calculator with a USB port. (Its package even included a mini-A to mini-B cable, which I still have.) As for the A to A cable, I know of a consumer device that use one: My USB 3.0 switch, which use a cable with a USB-A 3.0 ports on both side to connect to the PC. (But no, I wouldn't use that cable with anything else.)

The micro ab port is in the controller for the DJI mavic pro 1 controller. You use it both to connect to your phone and to charge it. Or oven apply new firmware on a pc.

For the "Dangerous" A-to-A connector, my CoolerMaster Cherry Brown keyboard actually uses that one the KB itself has a type A port.

i was today years old when i found out the cable i had been looking (for years) for was actually a mini b 8 pin. many many thanks!!! :) :)

my old Nokia E71 used a micro-AB connector, and I did have an old USB cable set that used an A to A cable and a set of adaptors that connected to a type A cable end, haven't seen the like of it in decades.

> "UNIVERSAL Serial Bus" > proceeds to have proprietary editions and several different forms

Maybe the type A connector to A connector (9:15) is type of "null modem cable" and there is no power line, it's just for communication between computers.

I bought a USB-A to USB-A cable in order to connect an Nvidia Shield Tv (an Android tv box) to my pc and flash a custom rom on it a few years ago. So yeah, it does have real world use cases.

One thing you missed in the fun fact about plugging in a micro usb into the one side of the micro USB 3.0 is that the other side is actually a micro HDMI port. Also USB A to A used to be used mainly for connecting two computers (i.e. old to new) for transferring files, etc.; like Windows Easy Transfer or whatever it was for when you bought a new computer and transferred everything over.