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[–] 31 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I started tinkering with computers a bit before the 2000 and floppy drives were common at that time. Well, there is a right and a wrong way to plug the power cable, and the wrong way emits smoke.

I now have assembled enough PCs to know what I'm doing, but I had to learn.

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  • [–] 30 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    The industrial design has improved enormously since then, as well. The days of using the same connector for different voltages, or connectors which can be rotated are gone. Everything has a keyed connector or similar pokayoke that means it only fits to the correct place, and only one way around. CPUs don't suicide if you forget to attach their system cooler, they just throttle. Much better, and obvious in retrospect that it should always have been that way.

    Apart from the front panel connectors on a motherboard, of course. Those fiddly little bastards can get straight to hell.

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Apart from the front panel connectors on a motherboard, of course. Those fiddly little bastards can get straight to hell.

    I’m so excited to understand what this means! (Just did my first ever build… or rebuild I guess using a case from 2012)

    I mean I’m not excited excited, because yeah fiddly little bastards.. single pin connectors on that scale should be illegal.

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  • You know, I made a bit of a hobby out of Arduinos and Raspberry Pis, which use similar connectors, so those never bothered me. The ones that always make me cringe are those USB 3.0 ones with the heavy inflexible cables, the big stiff plastic plug, and the delicate little pins. I cringe every time I plug one of those in.

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