I found it at the dollar store.

    • Ook the Librarian
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      Or turn 2 extension cords into a long one.

      But a serious answer is that these are sometimes sold in a kit of adapters that would let you change the head. Most kits like used a normal cord as the base cord, but some used USB extension cords as the base cord. So this is meant to be a replacement part, not useful in its own right.

        • @XTornado@lemmy.ml
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          They are good for wifi/bt/radio usb receivers used for keyboard/mouse/gamepads…so they can be in a better place like higher or further.

            • @XTornado@lemmy.ml
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              Yeah… honestly somehow I missed the female-female part 😂 I thought it was male-female.

              Well then it’s used in combination with a male male for sure otherwise yeah O don’t see any use unless there is some weird device with male input.

  • @flakeshake@feddit.de
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    Such A-to-A adaptors and cables always have been prohibited by the USB spec, but people built them anyway. A common usecase for “illegal” A-A cables i remember was connecting PCIe cards (especially GPUs and mining cards) externally to riser sockets.

    • @accideath@lemmy.world
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      232 years ago

      I have an external 3,5“ HDD enclosure that needs a male to male USB 3.0 A cable to plug into a PC. Still wondering, why they didn’t use B…

      • @lud@lemm.ee
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        122 years ago

        That’s really odd. Why use a host connector when a client connector is intended for the purpose.

        Did they entirely miss the purpose of USB?

      • I_Miss_Daniel
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        22 years ago

        I have a similar caddy. Many years old now. The connection to the host computer is a USB-A female, so connecting it requires a male to male cable.

      • @evidences@lemmy.world
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        22 years ago

        I bought a breadboard power supply and the options to feed it power are a barrel jack and usb-a. Considering the size of the thing mini or micro would have made way more sense.

        • @IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz
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          12 years ago

          The ones I have go trough the onboard voltage regulator and you can use them to power USB-devices. I suppose they’ve skipped diodes and other protective components so it can feed back to the circuit, but I haven’t tested that.

  • @Z4rK@lemmy.world
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    522 years ago

    I’ve used them for extension, as it allows you to attach a second, regular USB cable to it.

    • iAmTheTot
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      142 years ago

      Well, what do you mean by “regular”? The cable would need to be female on at least one end, which I usually see in… USB extension cables.

    • @LesserAbe@lemmy.world
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      92 years ago

      Not that you probably need to know this, but for some other stranger: there’s a max functional length to USB cables. At work I remember pulling my hair out troubleshooting a printer until we swapped cables for something shorter.

      • And that max length goes down with each coupling.

        We have smart boards in most classrooms, but in an entire wing of my department the smart board doesn’t work. Reason? When we built the wing, 8 or 10 years ago, the installers fitted their own low grade plugs on the USB connection for the boards, before figuring out that they snipped the cables too short. Instead of running new cabling the installers then introduced another extension.

        Nobody cared to check it out before accepting delivery and my complaints went unheard by management, until it was too late to RMA it.

      • @DaPorkchop_@lemmy.ml
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        62 years ago

        That said, there are “active” USB extension cables which draw current from the power lines and use it to boost the signal along the data lines

      • Polar
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        22 years ago

        Meanwhile I have 25ft cables running my large format vinyl printers lol

        • @sysadmin420@lemmy.world
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          22 years ago

          My large format vinyl printer uses Ethernet. TIL there are USB vinyl printers. What kind of printer do you have? Latex 260 here

          • squiblet
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            12 years ago

            We had a 53" US Cutter and it attached to the computer by USB. If we’re talking about the same thing.

            • @sysadmin420@lemmy.world
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              He said printer though that’s what’s what threw me off. That’s a cutter. My bad I thought he was talking about a USB large format printer, I only replied because I’m looking for a slightly smaller printer for my smaller decals, and I’d be interested in a serial or USB printer.

              My PC is in the basement and I’ve got USB and serial going everywhere running different cutters, 3d printers, CNC, etc upstairs and down, also in the garage. Works great.

  • Kalash
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    2 years ago

    To connect two USB-A ports.

    Basically the same as a USB-A to USB-A cable, just really short.

    • @BorgDrone@lemmy.one
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      232 years ago

      USB-A to USB-A cables do not exist, the USB standard does not allow them, if you have a cable with two USB-A connectors then it’s not actually a certified USB cable. The same goes for USB extension cables and this adapter. Note how there isn’t a ‘USB certified’ logo on the package.

      • Kalash
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        162 years ago

        USB-A to USB-A cables do not exist

        wtf are you talking about, of course they do.

      • @SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
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        The cables exist; they just don’t follow the standard. I’ve used them when developing consumer electronics: the host controller on the device switches to device mode in the bootloader, allowing a host machine to connect and debug/flash the device.

      • @DrQuint@lemm.ee
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        2 years ago

        USB-A to USB-A doesn’t exist

        *looks at old charger from an American device*

        HOLY SHIT A CRYPTID CALL SCP

      • @guidedlight@lemmy.world
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        32 years ago

        USB-A to USB-A cables do exist.

        I have seen many (very cheap) peripherals use USB-A sockets. I figure those sockets must be a few cents cheaper than alternatives.

          • @ninjan@lemmy.mildgrim.com
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            32 years ago

            China stuff loves to slap logos on there that do not apply, so probably without having seen this particular abomination myself. Fake CE markings are super common though.

      • big_bangus
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        12 years ago

        They do exist, despite the USB standards not allowing them

        See: cheapo video capture card for work, other side is just HDMI-IN and OUT

        They shouldn’t exist but don’t mean they don’t when you get the cheapest little devices you can find

        • @BorgDrone@lemmy.one
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          They do exist, despite the USB standards not allowing them

          A USB cable is a cable that conforms to the USB specification. If a cable does not conform to the USB specification then it isn’t an USB cable by definition

          I’m not saying a cable with 2 USB-A style connectors doesn’t exist, I’m just saying that it is not a USB cable. Just like a glass of Pepsi is not a glass of Coca-Cola even though it may look like one.

      • squiblet
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        12 years ago

        It’s not hard to imagine a product that would require one, though. It’s how every phone charging cable works, just with a different size male USB on one end.

        • @BorgDrone@lemmy.one
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          It’s how every phone charging cable works, just with a different size male USB on one end.

          No, it’s exactly not how every phone charging cable works, at least not for non USB-C cables.

          Pre-USB-C cables are explicitly unidirectional. In USB there are ‘hosts’ (usually computers) and ‘devices’ (flashdrives, camera’s, mice, keyboards, etc.). The host side always has a female USB-A connector, a device either has a female USB-B connector (if it’s intended to be used with a cable), or a male USB-A (if it’s intended to be plugged in directly into a host, like a flash drive). A real, standard-conformant USB cable can only go from USB-A male to USB-B male (with the addition of USB-C, it can also go from A-to-C, from C-to-B, or C-to-C). Never A-to-A or B-to-B, extension cables (male to female) of any type, A, B or C, are not allowed either.

          USB was specifically designed like this so you can never connect a device to a device or a host to a host.

          On the host side, you pretty much only see full size USB-A ports. On the device side there are 3 common types of USB-B ports: standard size (you can for example see these on printers and scanners), mini-USB-B used a lot on older phones, and later micro-USB-B. On each side the male part is on the cable, the female part is on the host or device.

  • LazaroFilm
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    122 years ago

    I used to have a portable hard drive that had a usb-A/ e-sata hybrid connector and I had to use a USB A to A cable (or e-data) to use it.

  • Ravi
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    112 years ago

    It’s an Usb-A gender changer. It’s not that useful but you could use it to turn an otg adapter (female usb-a to male usb-c) into a regular usb-c cable. I’d rather buy a usb-c cable though.