[wellylug] TradeMe Linux jobs
Bruce Hoult
bruce at hoult.org
Sun Jun 29 17:26:36 NZST 2008
On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 4:33 PM, nic <nic at tymar.com> wrote:
> The different viewpoints are quite well highlighted in Joel Spolsky's 'Martian Headsets'
> article (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/03/17.html)
Joel missed a chance there with the 3.5mm stereo connector.
Someone was telling me the other day that if you had a video iPod and
wanted to connect it to your TV then you could buy a special cable
from Apple or else .. ta da ... you could buy a standard camcorder
3.5mm to 4xRCA cable and connect the RCA plugs to the wrong colour
sockets on your TV. (yellow to white, white to red, red to yellow).
And that this was a dastardly plan by Apple to make you buy their
overpriced cables.
Well, no, actually.
Apple was constrained by making the plug compatible with standard
stereo headphones, which have the left (white) channel on the tip,
right (red) next to it, and then ground. They split the longer ground
connector into two and put video (yellow) next to the plug.
Sony (or whoever is was) seemed to feel no such need to be compatible
with anything else, and made them left, video, ground, right. Which
explains the permutation necessary with the video iPod, if you use a
generic camcorder cable.
Interestingly, the Zune can also be used with that cable, but it
inexplicably swaps left and right. (only on video playback? or for
regular audio as well)
Thankfully both iPod and Zune have the ground connector on the same
pin as generic camcorder, otherwise it simply would not work at all.
A host of other MP3 players (Archos, Gigabeat (! Zune), Zen Vision use
yet another arrangement, with ground next to the body of the plug, and
are therefore totally incompatible with anyone else's cables.
> As an Idealist, I take comfort from George Bernard Shaw's quote about progress:
> """
> The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him... The unreasonable
> man adapts surrounding conditions to himself... All progress depends on the unreasonable man.
> """
With which I agree 100%.
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