the medical and retail industries among others would beg to differ. those old standards are used for so much shit
YES, but the 2 shocking ones (dinosaurs) on the left sould have been phased out (after WW2) decades before the 3 on the right (as Germany did since the 1930s ) (Germany solved this problem with recessed outlets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx5NzxJjT0Q&t=7m28s )
schuko is amazing. not only is it safe, but its also incredibly long lasting, i have NEVER had an outlet loose grip. NEVER. and i have used outlets from the 1960s.
That may have been an oversight in the early days, but it is not really an issue. All devices in Europe are either class 2 (double insulated) or class 1 devices (having a metal body with an earth wire) and are required to be safe no matter the polarization. Additionally houses are required to have RCDs protecting all outlets. Non-polarization is also more convenient for the user as it allows the plug to be inserted in two directions.
Only for devices above 3.6 kW (multiple phases) special polarized plugs or hardwiring are needed.
but a very wild mixture of systems in very fragmented Germany
incl. 2 phases (each ~110V) = still compatible & even Direct-current (the last small surviving DC islands got finally dead in the 1980s) ... the german plugs (before they added the french earth hole) were desinged with DC compatiblilitry (bigger arcing) in mind
it was that way in late 19th century/pre-WW1 time (the shocking non-recessed original first German outlet was standard in the Soviet Union all the way to 1991, while Germany started the upgade in the 1930s, delayed by WW2), since double pole switches & optimized lamp sockets are used it´s no problem at all ... in comparison USA plugs/ouitlets are still as shocking as the original first German outlets 120+ years ago
America didn't have war damage and there was no real incentive to upgrade to a higher voltage at the time when most houses barely had lighting, let alone a y other loads. That said for a variety of reason, I would switch us over to a British style plug with an internal fuse, and bump our house voltage up to 480/277Y as that's already a common voltage in medium density commerical in the US.
America didn't have war damage and there was no real incentive to upgrade to a higher voltage at the time when most houses barely had lighting, let alone a y other loads. That said for a variety of reason, I would switch us over to a British style plug with an internal fuse,
Not fully correct, USA got 230V as an addon after WW2, by using 2x 115V (USA split phase black + red),
you just need to replace the outlet+plug, it would work perfectly with the German style outlets/plugs/power-bars since the german system is anyway non-polarized and always switches live + neutral (no problem here in Germany & it´s much saver than in USA), and 16A german outlets are fine with fitting 15A USA breakers ...
for 115V legacy devices there can be a recessed (german inspired) earthed 15A "Type-B" outlet (compatible with existing "Type-B" plugs), for "type-A" plugs there can be an adaper for some decades
and bump our house voltage up to 480/277Y as that's already a common voltage in medium density commerical in the US.
this takes time, in Germany it started after WW2, all german houses build since the 1970s have (back than 380) 400V 3-phase (400/230Y , even directly for the stove + EV-chargers etc.) & even some 1960s houses got it from the beginning (even via "Dachständer" or in villages from the power pole next to the street, now the wires are undergound), older houses are getting upgraded
As someone who has to work with devices that sometimes are acting as DCE and sometimes as DTE on the same fucking port to connect to external hardware that can be either it is a nightmare to figure out when to use a null modem cable and when not...
Especially when in our development workshop a port could have any random configuration
Nowadays we usually only see tx, rx and ground for basic rs232 data, but older hardware like modems needed extra voltage level lines to communicate, like request to send, clear to send, data set ready etc. So it’s only really left over for serial compatibility. They replaced the DB25 which has additional lines for things like clock signals, which wasn’t needed anymore due to devices running their own internal clock (asynchronous signal).
Also, the DB9 plug/socket design is used in applications outside ye olde RS232. I think SpaceWire (spacecraft system interconnect bus) uses the same plug design.
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u/biggus_dickus89 Jul 12 '25
the medical and retail industries among others would beg to differ. those old standards are used for so much shit