Problems
One peculiarity of ADB was that it in spite of being electrically unsafe for hot-swapping on all but a few machines, it had all of the basic capabilities needed for hot-swapping implemented in its software and support hardware.
It is important to stress that on practically all original ADB systems it is not safe to plug in or unplug a device once the system is powered on (unlike modern day busses designed with hot-swap in mind). This could cause the opening of a soldered-in fuse on the motherboard. If brought to an authorised dealer this could result in a motherboard swap at a significant expense. A simple alternative was to obtain a fuse at a nominal cost and wire it in parallel across the open motherboard fuse (not even requiring soldering if done appropriately).
The mini-DIN connector was only rated for 400 insertions and it was easy to bend a pin if not inserted with caution; in addition, the socket could become loose, resulting in intermittent function.
Presaging the disappearance of the second port on newer FireWire devices, some ADB devices lacked a pass-through connector, making it impossible to daisy-chain more than one such device at a time without obscure splitter units. Keyboards, software dongles, graphics tablets, game pads and joysticks typically had pass-through connectors, while few mice or trackballs had them.
While Mini-DIN connectors cannot be plugged in the "wrong way", it is possible to have trouble finding the right way without looking inside the circular connector's shroud. Apple attempted to help by using U-shaped soft plastic grips around the connectors to key both plugs and sockets so the flat side has a specific relation to the shell keyway, but this feature was ignored by some 3rd-party manufacturers. Additionally, there are four ways to orient the receiving socket on a device such as a keyboard; various Apple keyboards have used at least three of these possible orientations.
Read more about this topic: Apple Desktop Bus
Famous quotes containing the word problems:
“Wittgenstein imagined that the philosopher was like a therapist whose task was to put problems finally to rest, and to cure us of being bewitched by them. So we are told to stop, to shut off lines of inquiry, not to find things puzzling nor to seek explanations. This is intellectual suicide.”
—Simon Blackburn (b. 1944)
“If when a businessman speaks of minority employment, or air pollution, or poverty, he speaks in the language of a certified public accountant analyzing a corporate balance sheet, who is to know that he understands the human problems behind the statistical ones? If the businessman would stop talking like a computer printout or a page from the corporate annual report, other people would stop thinking he had a cash register for a heart. It is as simple as that—but that isn’t simple.”
—Louis B. Lundborg (1906–1981)
“The mother’s and father’s attitudes toward the child correspond to the child’s own needs.... Mother has the function of making him secure in life, father has the function of teaching him, guiding him to cope with those problems with which the particular society the child has been born into confronts him.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)