New Doesn't Mean Better

[Collective Foal]

Things that caught my attention lately. If you look at my family's old HP from 2003, you'll see the mouse and keyboard have their own special adapters. I'm pretty sure every keyboard and mouse had these back then. Then, everything got converted to USB. Well now, instead of having two more USB ports to use for my Webcam and Wacom Tablet, I have to pick which I want to use and take the time to unplug the cam, move my wireless card to the back, and plug the tablet in the front, as two of my USB ports are absorbed by my KB and Mouse. It would be much more convenient to keep the old format so I can use the USB ports for my optional peripherals, not the ones that I need to do anything and everything.

 

[Obsidian]

I'm not sure if they work for wireless peripherals, but I know you can get adapters for converting USB mice/keyboards to the old PS/2 connection. They might help your situation. Or you could always get a USB hub to add more USB ports to your system.

 

[Ross Scott]

Well besides it being easier to just manufacture more USB ports rather than USB ports AND PS/2 connectors, part of the reason those were phased out is because there's more power going through a PS/2 connector and in rare cases could actually damage the motherboard if ever unplugged while active (though I haven't really heard of those situations since the 90s). Actually the PS/2 does offer a minor advantage for keyboards as it means more keys can be pressed at once (look up "n key rollover") if you want to know more about that.

 

[BTGBullseye]

Well besides it being easier to just manufacture more USB ports rather than USB ports AND PS/2 connectors, part of the reason those were phased out is because there's more power going through a PS/2 connector and in rare cases could actually damage the motherboard if ever unplugged while active (though I haven't really heard of those situations since the 90s). Actually the PS/2 does offer a minor advantage for keyboards as it means more keys can be pressed at once (look up "n key rollover") if you want to know more about that.

There are actually a few n-key rollover USB-only keyboards out there now... One is made by Ducky.

 

[Presence]

Well besides it being easier to just manufacture more USB ports rather than USB ports AND PS/2 connectors, part of the reason those were phased out is because there's more power going through a PS/2 connector and in rare cases could actually damage the motherboard if ever unplugged while active (though I haven't really heard of those situations since the 90s). Actually the PS/2 does offer a minor advantage for keyboards as it means more keys can be pressed at once (look up "n key rollover") if you want to know more about that.

I've personally seen a ps/2 device short motherboards. About six years ago I took a job as a low grade repair technician. One of our ps/2 keyboards burned out no less than two computers brought in for repair, and some systems wouldn't boot with that particular keyboard plugged in. This was all happening from cold boots too. Problem was, about 80% of computers worked fine with it, so it took a while to conclude that it was the keyboard that was responsible. I'm not an electrical engineer, so I can only guess that some motherboards had better diodes or something.

Anyway, just buy a usb hub. Or usb addon card. Or get a keyboard+mouse combo that only uses 1 port for the transmitter. You want to talk about older hardware being better, try finding a good cheap capture card for atari 2600 footage. You'll start having lots of fun discovering that many capture cards have impossible to disable ultra low grade compression and don't mention this clearly in the specs.

 

[BTGBullseye]

I've personally seen a ps/2 device short motherboards. About six years ago I took a job as a low grade repair technician. One of our ps/2 keyboards burned out no less than two computers brought in for repair, and some systems wouldn't boot with that particular keyboard plugged in. This was all happening from cold boots too. Problem was, about 80% of computers worked fine with it, so it took a while to conclude that it was the keyboard that was responsible. I'm not an electrical engineer, so I can only guess that some motherboards had better diodes or something.

I've seen several of those... Mice shortings too...

Then again, I've also seen USB ports that got fried because of low-grade USB1.0 thimbdrives, and would shut off the entire system if you touched any of the metal of the port with anything in any way. (my brother's PC lasted an extra 3 years after this, and I killed two of my own systems with it)

You want to talk about older hardware being better, try finding a good cheap capture card for atari 2600 footage. You'll start having lots of fun discovering that many capture cards have impossible to disable ultra low grade compression and don't mention this clearly in the specs.

Yeah, they like compression nowadays, and us "old fogies" don't like it. (I'm 26 BTW)