• fin@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    I actually use a keyboard with that connector with a converter ( to USB ). It works pretty well.

    Fyi, I’m using a very old happy hacking keyboard my father gave me

    Here’s the picture of the keyboard I found on the Internet:

  • greyfox@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    We asked our Dell sales guy this question years ago now, when they had been removed one year and quickly added back the next year.

    They are there mostly for government builds, and other places with high security requirements. Usually the requirement is that they need to prevent any unauthorized USB devices from being plugged in. With the PS2 m&k ports they can disable the USB ports entirely in the BIOS.

    • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
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      1 month ago

      That makes sense! The convenience of USB means that this single point of entry is now a critical security risk.

  • Jocker@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    Hahaa… laughed at this, checked my computer only to see my keyboard is using this… It didn’t at all bothered me all these years, so… Long live

  • FenrirIII@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Went to Disney recently and had a lot of time to wait in line. I found a ton of old tech recycled into decorations in their Star Wars area. I got to explain circuits, hard disks, and old connectors to my kids.

    • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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      1 month ago

      I know this is a shitpost, but what’s interesting is that even though USB doesn’t directly interrupt the CPU it’s still faster. USB is able to get the entire packet sent before PS2 even sends one. It’s very interesting. So if you ever see anyone unironically saying there is less latency call them out!

    • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Are PS/2 ports still operating on hardware interrupts these days? I would expect these to be emulated as USB devices at this point, depending on whatever I/O chipset is in play.

      The bit about USB asking the CPU is kinda true? My understanding is that it’s a packet protocol of sorts, so it’s really just writing post-it notes for each button press and leaves them on the CPU’s whiteboard for later.

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        1 month ago

        Yes, it’s true the the USB protocol has to “wait” but it gets the message sent so much faster that it doesn’t matter. Still interesting stuff though!

    • Xenny@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Yeah but try pressing more than 4 keys at once on the PS2 keyboard and get back to me

    • Toes♀@ani.social
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      1 month ago

      A bunch of those points about ps2 are no longer accurate, it’s emulated on modern computers.

    • trainden@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 month ago

      USB: Many designs and revisions, none of them perfect

      Nah, USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 SuperSpeed is the best! And it took me only 30 minutes of reading articles and wiki pages to get that information! although I’m not sure what USB4 Gen 3×1 is, but it’s only x1 so can’t be that good, right?

      • The_Decryptor@aussie.zone
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        1 month ago

        although I’m not sure what USB4 Gen 3×1 is, but it’s only x1 so can’t be that good, right?

        It’s the initialisation mode of USB 40Gbps, luckily not something users will have to deal with

    • Pirasp@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Not necessarily, modern having keyboards can operate at upwards of 1khz polling speed. The main difference is, that usb needs polling in the first place, whereas ps/2 is interrupt based.

      That essentially means that ps/2 tells the computer “hey a key was just pressed” instantly and usb waits to be asked whether a key was pressed or not. If the latter is done often enough the difference becomes negligible.

      • monsterpiece42@reddthat.com
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        1 month ago

        Higher than that, I have a keyboard with 8000hz polling and a mouse with 4000hz polling. Anything over maybe 2k at most is hard to perceive, at least for me

        • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          I think a high polling rate matters more with N-key rollover (lots of successive keypress messages in one bunch), which in turn matters for some gaming scenarios.

      • FiskFisk33@startrek.website
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        1 month ago

        but the protocol is slow. with high speed usb and fast polling rates, even though ps/2 starts sending instantly, usb will often have had time to poll and send its whole packet before ps/2 has finished sending.

    • drathvedro@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Not necessarily. Even though PS/2 operates with a superior protocol, latency-wise, the clock speed is atrocious, resulting in an effective polling rate of about 1500hz, give or take. We could account that it doesn’t need to wait for request to send keystrokes like USB keyboard do, effectively doubling it even more, but then we’d have to account for whatever delay Super I/O chips introduce and I’m not qualified to talk about that. But, if your keyboard is not from a dollar store shelf then it probably runs on at least 1000hz, at which point we are talking about sub-millisecond differences which would be quite hard to notice. 4000hz keyboard definitely beats PS/2 though.

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    1 month ago

    If there is a fault in the PS2 device it literally breaks the rest of the computer.

    A little more than 15 years ago I had to fix my PS2 keyboard because it crashed everything. Not even a BSOD, just colors.

      • x00z@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        No. It was when I was younger and I smacked the keyboard at some point. The whole computer crashed with random pixels all over the screen. I tried rebooting many times. I came to the conclusion the cable inside of the keyboard must have been slightly disconnected and pushed it further back into it, and my PC worked again.

        Computers are really resilient to permanent damage to be honest. I once dropped a screw into a running computer and it short-circuited with sparks and all. I was still able to boot it, but it was extremely slow. After a few reboots it was back to normal.

        • Zoot@reddthat.com
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          1 month ago

          Your story reminded me of when I set my pc on fire!

          No idea how or what happened but the PSU shot sparks, lit up and tried setting the house on fire. Amazingly everything worked right after replacing the PSU, but the Mobo was the next thing to blow up.

          So while they are indeed resilient af, you’re likely not coming out unscathed if sparks fly.

          • x00z@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            PSUs aren’t too hard to fix by yourself if you know your electronics.

            Except maybe that one PSU I got for free that had safety stuff bypassed.

            But yeah, a fire might be a pushing the limits.

    • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      If there is a fault in the PS2 device it literally breaks the rest of the computer.

      That must be OS dependent

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    1 month ago

    I’m glad to have it. I have to keep my old PS/2 keyboard plugged into that slot so I can get into the BIOS. My USB keyboard isn’t recognized until it’s too late to interrupt the boot process.

    • hunter@sh.itjust.works
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      I had the same problem until I learned motherboards tend to prioritize the top usb slots or specific ones for the boot process. Switching to those fixed it for me. Any such luck?

      • leadore@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        I did try that but unfortunately it didn’t work on my system. There is also an option for the systemctl reboot command that I haven’t tried yet but plan to next time I need to get into the BIOS. IIRC it’s --firmware-setup. It’s supposed to reboot you into the BIOS, but whether it works or not depends on if your hardware supports it.

        • riodoro1@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          I think if your bios doesn’t recognize USB peripherals it’s not gonna be UEFI compatible.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      1 month ago

      I had to mess with an old laptop the other month, and the built in keyboard didn’t activate until after the deadline for getting into the BIOS.

      But plug in a USB keyboard, and away it goes.

      Like, who designs this shit?

      • VitabytesDev@feddit.nl
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        1 month ago

        I recently bought a motherboard with a N100 processor, that had two 3.0 USB Ports, two 3.1 USB Ports, an HDMI and a DisplayPort. Because of that I was surprised to learn that it had also two PS/2 ports for a keyboard and a mouse.

    • GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      My mechanical keyboard came with a USB-to-PS/2 adapter, and I use that instead of the USB one. Feels good