Attention Mac laptop users: It might be time to update your magsafe charger. Seriously, WTF:

https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/02/14/apple-issues-firmware-update-for-magsafe-3-charging-cable

Apple issues firmware update for MagSafe 3 charging cable

Apple recently issued a firmware update for the two-meter USB-C to MagSafe 3 charging cable, but it's unknown what it updates or fixes.

AppleInsider
@briankrebs @cstross I don’t understand the incredulity. There are a lot of cables that have hardware in them. AV cables for instance. IIRC crossover ethernet cables do as well.

@lolzac @briankrebs @cstross I've never terminated a single ethernet cable with anything more complicated than grounding & shielding wrappers around electrical connections.

Crossover vs straight-through is just a pinout difference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI/TIA-568#T568A_and_T568B_termination

ANSI/TIA-568 - Wikipedia

@lispi314 @briankrebs @cstross I must be mixing it up with some OS level shenanigans then.

@lolzac @briankrebs @cstross Possibly.

Most smarts in AV cables that I can recall also involve little more than relays (although those do sometimes involve conversion to & from optical to support longer runs).

@lispi314 @briankrebs @cstross When I had two Macs I had a single ethernet cable that I would use to connect the Macs and also connect to the printer when I needed it.

@lolzac @briankrebs @cstross Yeah, back in the old days (but not that old, #ethernet was around before RJ45 & 4 twisted-pair ethernet) you'd have needed different cables depending on whether you connecting uplinks/downlinks or peers.

Thankfully eventually we collectively realized that was /incredibly/ obnoxious so we fixed that problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-dependent_interface#Auto_MDI-X

Medium-dependent interface - Wikipedia