Unfortunately I do not know its IEEE designation.

As an Apple proprietary connector, I do not believe it has one.

Thunderbolt isn't Apple proprietary, they're just the only ones using it so far. IIRC it was developed by IBM as LightPeak. Doesn't seem to have an IEEE number yet though.

I do not feel so stupid now. Thanks



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Here is something else to watch out for with PayPal - I think I posted this elsewhere but I’ll post it here too.

1 - person buys an item or items from me and pays via PayPal
2 - person also buys something with same card from somewhere else.
3 - person then disputes payment in step 2 with credit card company
4 - credit card company then considers every transaction that day as potentially fraudulent and issues charge backs on every transaction
5 - I get hit for a) the chargeback (ie what was spent for the item sold in step 1) plus b) £20 as a chargeback fee

PayPal say they can do nothing about the £20 - it’s a cost to them which they pass on. They are disputing the chargeback as they say that the transaction was not fraudulent, so they are on my side on this. However, I have to wait 75 days to be in with a chance of getting the money back. I don’t, however, get the £20 back.

Lightning is very different from Thunderbolt (AKA Light Peak) and Wikipedia describes it as Apple propitiatory. Of course I realise they're not the definitive source of all truth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_%28connector%29

I have actually seen it used on a non-apple device recently, although I forget which one. It surprised me greatly.

You are neither stupid nor ignorant. I was just saying it was a daft name for Apple to use, because as our responses to your post demonstrate it is liable to cause confusion!

Indeed. As does having introduced two connectors within a roughly similar period that have conceptually similar names.. Apparently (cough)

I was aware of the Thunderbolt cable for hard drive connections and the Lightning cable for smaller devices but did not know of any IEEE designations. I assumed that these were Apple's designation for a new format.

Presumably Apples next connector will be Very Very Frightening or am I getting the wrong end of the stick here?

Very good. I didn't even realise there was a lightning, I thought it was another word for thunderbolt, or that I'd got the name of thunderbolt wrong!

Lightning is the new connector on the iPhone 5 and associated iPods/iPads launched around the same time and replaces the older 30 pin dock connector (incidentally rendering all existing dock connector accessories incompatible without an adaptor). I must confess that I did wonder if Lightning was a variant of Thunderbolt but they appear to be different.

It's all above my head anyway, I'm still ppc!