Would high speed optical work for connections that require regular unplugging? h... | Hacker News

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		Someone on Nov 24, 2023 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: Apple's Pro Display XDR takes Thunderbolt 3 to its... Would high speed optical work for connections that require regular unplugging? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOSLINK and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADAT_Lightpipe are limited to about a megabyte/second, if I’m doing my math right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MADI#Sampling_frequency gets higher, at around 12 megabytes/second. That still is at least a factor of 100 away from this cable. I think that’s because it isn’t easy to make a plug that works reliably for a gigabytes per second fiber cable.

lwkl on Nov 24, 2023 [–]

You would need a new connector because dust can break the signal and a cable that needs a dust cap sounds like a horrible consumer product.

mensetmanusman on Nov 25, 2023 | [–]

3M is on the bleeding edge here: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/data-center-us/applications/inte...

used in ai data centers, probably years away from consumer adoption...

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