Next level, make the center one USB-C.
90degrees turned
Nah, otherwise you can’t accidentally make your motherboard shutdown for surge protection
This might actually be the opposite of evil: if you try to insert the USB cable the wrong way, you don’t need to rotate it, you can just try the next port. Seems more convenient to me.
Until…
…there’s only one port left.
I was thinking similarly about the amount of medical equipment I have seen where something like this was done because it shipped with a right angle WiFi adapter that covered the upper ports or something like that and changing the port was easier than recertification with a different dongle.
Exhibit B
As someone who has worked a lifetime in IT, I cannot tell you how unbelievably common this is.
If not USB why USB-shaped?
This can be fixed
Nah, make it worse! The BIOS randomly selects between zero and three ports and ignores them for a random amount of time. It always rerolls when you reboot or when the timer runs out. They are all real and do work, but you never know which ones (if any) or how long.
Did you design my last motherboard?
We found Satan.
And they’re also too close together and the screws may be an obstacle to certain dongles, although that shouldn’t be a problem for industrial PCs
This could actually be some creative engineering. If you want to split power/fuses along two different circuits, this could be a way to differentiate. I have a tv with 3 HDMI ports but only one of them is CEC…🤷
That looks like a Mettler Toledo titrator
Yeah, you deserve hell
Just keeping them on their toes.
Counter-argument. If you had three usb cables to plug in, each one would take 2-3 rotations to get it right anwyay.