I'm tired of having half a dozen USB cables in my for-immediate-use pile for the ridiculous number of USB connector standards. (And by "I" I mean "SWMBO".)

Does anyone know of a universal cable that includes, at least, Type B, Mini B, Micro B, and Fuji B on one side and Type A on the other? (USB connector reference) It would be awesome if it also included Firewire connectors, but that's not a huge deal. I'd also prefer one that wasn't just a random collection of adapters, as I'm likely to lose them.

On a separate subject, why the hell do we have to have so many different USB plugs? There were the original A and B, then Fuji and Kodak apparently decided to make smaller proprietary versions, then there was Mini A and Mini B, then they deprecated Mini A (but not Mini B) and released Micro A and Micro B, plus a Micro AB receptacle. That's eight different plugs and nine different receptacles.

And why do we need the whole A/B thing at all? It kinda makes sense to point out that a USB connection needs a single host, and you can't plug two computers or two hard drives together, but then with the Micro series, they released a receptacle that can accept either A or B, throwing that notion to the wind.

Argh. It's just ridiculous.

This but it is really expensive.

I can see somebody complaining that this multi-ended USB cable made their laptop, MP3 player, phone, fan, hotplate and keyboard light blow up when they connected it to them all at the same time.

Yeah, you can get it far cheaper, but it doesn't have Micro B.

Someone on Amazon did complain that when they hooked up the Firewire on one side to the USB on the other side that it didn't work.

My only suggestion is to use adapters and maybe tie the adapters to a single cord. Monoprice has a bunch of different adapters, though I'm not sure if they will all be compatible with a single cord - you may have to chain a couple of adapters together.

I only have devices that use B and mini-b thankfully. At least as far as USB goes.

What irks me more is that, even with all of this plug connector technology, they're still making USB plug standards which have polarized connectors. They could so easily have designed it so that it didn't matter which direction you connected it. Yet, here we are well into the 21st century, and I'm still having trouble seeing which way to plug the damn things into the back of my computer without a flashlight.

It is easier, cheaper and smaller to have polarised connectors. Just handling the power part means you either have to add extra contacts in the connector or add extra circuitry to the device and host.

I'm with Bitt on this one!

It's strictly the mechanical interface that's the problem.