Analog is becoming more digital

    I just turned out to be quite surprised by connecting Skullcandy headphones, which are very analog in appearance, to my Dell Latitude E6440.




    Headphones that connect with a 3.5mm three-pin jack have always been an exclusively analog thing. Only three wiring: left channel, right channel and ground. Yes, at some point in time, “iPhones” and their headsets appeared, which could already switch tracks on the phone and adjust the volume. But this was not standardized, and these additional functions for headsets from some manufacturers did not work on competitors' devices.

    Here I am dealing with ordinary headphones, without a microphone, without control buttons. And despite the fact that they use the usual 3.5mm mini-jack, the laptop recognized the manufacturer of the headphones and their type:



    Apparently there is a chip in the headphones, which is connected to two jack contacts and a differential digital signal is transmitted through them, together with an analog one. And in the sound cards of laptops there is a function which, according to a certain standard protocol, this chip polls.
    The question is, why? Just to display the name of the manufacturer and class of headphones? What does this affect? When did this become the standard?
    For queries such as "How laptop recognize my headphones vendor" could not find anything intelligible.
    Forgive me these questions in topic format, but it seems very entertaining.
    If information appears in the comments that sheds light on this issue, I would gladly re-issue the topic.

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