Name: USB-C 到底是什麼？ (為何大家都被迫使用它？) (What Exactly is USB-C? (And Why Everyone Was Forced to Use It))
Uploaded: 2026-01-16T04:39:06.000Z
Duration: 6 min 30 s

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That one kitchen drawer stuffed with a tangled nightmare of cables you're too afraid to throw away.

就是那個塞滿糾結線材、讓你不敢丟掉的廚房抽屜。

You've got the wide, flat ones for your old printer, the chunky square ones for that digital camera you haven't used since 2011, and

你有舊印表機用的那種寬扁線，2011 年就沒用過的數位相機用的那種方塊粗線，還有

about five different versions of a phone charger.

大約五種不同版本的手機充電線。

For 20 years, connecting our gadgets was a confusing, frustrating mess.

二十年來，連接我們的電子產品一直是一團混亂又令人沮喪的狀況。

But then, almost overnight, everything changed.

但接著，幾乎是一夕之間，一切都改變了。

One small oval shaped connector appeared and started killing off the competition.

一個小小的橢圓形連接器出現了，開始淘汰其他競爭者。

It took over our laptops, our headphones, our gaming consoles, and

它佔領了我們的筆記型電腦、耳機、遊戲機，還有

finally, after a massive geopolitical fight, even the iPhone.

最後，經過一場巨大的地緣政治鬥爭，連 iPhone 也一樣。

I'm talking, of course, about USB C. But what makes this tiny plug so special?

我說的當然就是 USB C。但這個小小的接頭到底有什麼特別之處呢？

難道它真的只是用來充電而已嗎？

Or is there something much more powerful hiding inside those pins?

還是說，在那幾個接點裡，隱藏著更強大的力量？

Today, we're unraveling the surprising history of the one port to rule them all, right here in simple things, surprising histories.

今天，我們就要在「簡單事物，驚奇歷史」裡，來揭開這個統一所有連接埠的傳奇故事。

To understand why USB C is a miracle, we have to remember the dark ages of the 1990s.

想要了解 USB C 為什麼是個奇蹟，我們得先回想一下 1990 年代的黑暗時期。

Back then, if you looked at the back of a computer, it looked like a Sci Fi villain's control panel.

那時候，如果你看看電腦的背面，那畫面就像是科幻反派的控制面板。

You had a serial port for the mouse, a parallel port for the printer, a game port for your joystick, and

你有連接滑鼠的序列埠、連接印表機的平行埠、連接搖桿的遊戲埠，還有

這些連接埠沒有一個是相容的，而且

they all required you to restart your computer just to get them to work.

每個都需要你重新啟動電腦才能讓它們正常運作。

Then came the Universal Serial Bus, or usb.

然後出現了通用序列匯流排，也就是 USB。

而且有一段時間，這真的很棒。

That's the one, you know, the one you can never plug in right the first time.

就是那個，你知道的，那個你第一次永遠插不對的接頭。

But as our gadgets got smaller, that big rectangle didn't fit.

但隨著我們的裝置越來越小，那個大長方形就不適合了。

They shrank it down to mini usb, then micro usb.

他們把它縮小成 mini USB，然後是 micro USB。

But then printers still used the square type B, and

但接著印表機還是用了方形的 Type-B，而

hard drives used this weird double plug thing called micro B.

硬碟用了這種奇怪的雙頭接頭，叫做 micro B。

By 2013, the dream of a universal cable was dead.

到 2013 年，通用傳輸線的夢想破滅了。

The tech giants Apple, Intel, Microsoft and HP knew they had to fix it.

科技巨頭 Apple、Intel、Microsoft 和 HP 知道他們必須解決這個問題。

They went back to the drawing board to build something permanent.

他們回到原點，想打造一個永久性的解決方案。

In 2014, the USB Implementers Forum unveiled the solution.

2014 年，USB Implementers Forum 發表瞭解決方案。

USB Type C. first glance, it just looks like a smaller micro usb.

USB Type C。乍看之下，它只是一個小一點的 micro USB。

It's the old USB cables had just four power ground and two for data.

舊的 USB 傳輸線只有四個電源接地線和兩條資料線。

That's it, USB C. It crams 24 pins into that tiny oval.

就這樣，USB C 在那個小小的橢圓形裡塞進了 24 個接點。

最厲害的地方是，它是對稱的。

The pins are mirrored on the top and bottom.

You can plug it in blindfolded and the cable instantly detects which way it's facing and reroutes the electricity electronically.

你就算矇著眼睛插，線材也能立刻偵測方向，然後自動重新導電。

But those 24 pins aren't just for convenience.

不過，這 24 個接點不只是為了方便。

They unlocked a superpower called alternate mode.

它們解鎖了一個叫做「Alternate Mode」的超能力。

Suddenly, a USB cable wasn't just for moving files.

突然之間，USB 線不再只是用來傳輸檔案。

Those extra pins could turn the cable into an HDMI cord to blast 4K video to a monitor.

那些額外的接點可以讓線材變成 HDMI 線，把 4K 影像傳輸到螢幕上。

And most importantly, they could carry massive amounts of electricity.

最重要的是，它們能傳輸大量的電力。

This is the killer feature of USB C. Power Delivery or or PD.

這就是 USB C 的殺手級功能。Power Delivery，或是 PD。

They pushed out about 2.5 watts, just enough to slowly charge a phone.

它們大約輸出 2.5 瓦，只夠慢慢地給手機充電。

If you tried to charge a laptop with an old USB cable, nothing would happen.

如果你試圖用舊的 USB 線為筆記型電腦充電，什麼都不會發生。

USB C changed the physics it can negotiate with your device.

USB C 改變了物理定律，它可以和你的裝置協商。

The charger talks to the phone and asks, hey, how much power can you handle?

充電器會跟手機溝通，問說，嘿，你最多能承受多少電力？

If it's a pair of headphones, it sends a trickle.

如果是耳機，它就只傳一點點電。

If it's a high end laptop, modern USB C cables can blast up to 240 watts of power.

如果是高階筆記型電腦，現代的 USB C 線材最高可以傳輸高達 240 瓦的電力。

That is an insane amount of energy for such a tiny plug.

對於這麼小的接頭來說，這簡直是驚人的能量。

This is why your modern laptop doesn't have that heavy brick charger with the round tip anymore.

這就是為什麼你的現代筆記型電腦不再有那個帶圓頭的笨重變壓器了。

It just uses the same port as your phone.

它跟你的手機用的是同一個連接埠。

But wait, if USB C was so perfect, why did the most popular phone in the world, the iPhone, refuse to use it for nearly a decade?

但等等，如果 USB C 這麼完美，為什麼世界上最受歡迎的手機 iPhone 將近十年來都拒絕使用它？

Apple actually invented USB C. They were the first to put it on a laptop in 2015.

Apple 其實是 USB C 的發明者，他們是第一個在 2015 年將它用於筆記型電腦。

But for their phones, they stuck to their proprietary lightning port.

但在手機方面，他們堅持使用自己專有的 Lightning 連接埠。

By owning the lightning standard, Apple could regulate who made accessories.

透過擁有 Lightning 標準，Apple 可以規範誰能製造配件。

But the European Union had a different e waste.

但歐盟有不同的電子垃圾問題。

Every year, 11,000 tons of old chargers were being thrown away in Europe alone, because every time you bought a new phone, you needed a new cable.

每年光是在歐洲，就有 11,000 噸的舊充電器被丟棄，因為每次你買新手機，就得買新線。

所以歐盟就通過了一項歷史性的法案。

By the end of 2024, all portable electronics sold in Europe had to use USB C.

到了 2024 年底，所有在歐洲販售的可攜式電子產品都必須使用 USB C。

Apple couldn't afford to lose the European market.

Apple 賠不起失去歐洲市場的代價。

So with the iPhone 15, the Lightning port died, and USB C finally became truly universal.

所以隨著 iPhone 15 的推出，Lightning 連接埠就此告別，USB C 也終於真正普及。

Because USB C does so much, not all cables are equal.

因為 USB C 功能很多，所以並非所有線材都一樣。

You can buy a cheap gas station cable that fits the hole but charges slowly and can't transfer video.

你可能會買到便宜的加油站線材，雖然插得進去，但充電慢，也無法傳輸影片。

But despite that confusion, we have finally arrived at a world where you can travel with a laptop, a tablet, a phone, and

不過，儘管有這些困擾，我們終於來到了一個可以帶著筆記型電腦、平板、手機，

headphones and bring just one single cable to charge them all.

還有耳機，只需要一條線就能全部充飽電的世界。

And frankly, after 20 years of digging through that drawer of doom, you that is a simple thing worth celebrating.

說真的，在翻遍那個「萬惡抽屜」20 年後，這對我來說是件值得慶祝的簡單小事。

If you enjoyed unraveling this history with me, hit that like button.

如果你喜歡跟我一起探索這段歷史，請按讚。

And tell me in the comments, what is the oldest, weirdest cable you still have in your junk drawer?

在留言區告訴我，你家裡還有哪些最老、最奇怪的線材？

Thanks for watching Simple Things, Surprising Histories, and I'll see you in the next story.

謝謝收看《Simple Things, Surprising Histories》，我們下個故事見。

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USB-C 到底是什麼？ (為何大家都被迫使用它？) (What Exactly is USB-C? (And Why Everyone Was Forced to Use It))

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