Is PS/2 or USB Better for Keyboards and Mice?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2018-05-06
·
918 words · ~4 min read
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one of the nice things about modern Computing is the move towards one port
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for seemingly everything and yes I know that audio
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monitors and Ethernet are major exceptions but since the introduction of
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USB in 1996 we have come a long way from the
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days when it seemed like every single device had its own specialized Port but
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even so there's one crucial situation
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where some folks still haven't fully embraced USB I'm talking keyboards and
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mice while the vast majority of these
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input devices sold do connect via USB
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there's actually still a different connection that some people still use
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the venerable PS2 Port so why do some people still prefer
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these round green and purple 90
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Throwbacks well although both PS2 and
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USB seem to do the same thing connect a
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keyboard or Mouse to your computer there are a number of significant differences
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in how they work that make them still seem relevant even on high-end
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motherboards you see a USB keyboard or
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Mouse connection works by pulling your
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device so in the computer equivalent of
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Are We There Yet many times per second
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your computer essentially asks your keyboard or Mouse hey what you doing
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what you doing what you doing and the keyboard or Mouse will then respond by
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saying for example nothing moving to the
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left having my D key pushed down or
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strangling my owner PS2 devices on the other
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hand work by sending interrupts to the
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system so instead of waiting around for
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the computer to ask about its current state the PS2 protocol allows your
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keyboard or Mouse to actively interrupt
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whatever your CPU is doing to tell the computer what's happening and this might
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sound potentially inefficient but because modern CPUs run at millions or
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even billions of cycles per second you'd
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never notice a Slowdown so it's for this reason that some enthus iasts claim that
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PS2 has less perceptible latency which
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should theoretically make response times quicker in games and PS2 also supports
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true en key rollover meaning that the system will register as many keys as you
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can push down at once there are USB
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keyboards that also advertise this functionality but this is usually done
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by emulating multiple keyboards which can limit how many additional input
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devices you can connect by requiring special software or by suffering from
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compatibility issues at boot time
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because PS2 is a dedicated interface just for keyboards and mice PS2 devices
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don't have weird issues where your computer doesn't recognize them properly
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in the BIOS or before Windows loads drivers as can happen occasionally with
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USB gadgets wow well that's a lot of
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benefits Long Live PS2 right well hold
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on in reality the virtually certain to
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work level of compatibility is about its only real world benefit for most people
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even many competitive Gamers have apped that whatever enhanced responsiveness
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they get from PS2 is basically imperceptible with factors like key
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switch type being much more important for a Competitive Edge and PS2 has other
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limitations as well it wasn't designed to be electrically hot swappable and on
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older Hardware trying to swap out a keyboard or Mouse can make it not work
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until you reboot or even worse actually
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damage your equipment and not only that
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since they weren't meant to be unplugged and plugged back in frequently it is
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easy to bend or even break the little pins at the end of the cable so in short
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PS2 connectors take up more space and simply aren't as tough
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as their USB counterparts so unless you
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have a very specific need for PS2 it
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technicians still love them there's really no reason to fear missing out on
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anything if you just go with a USB keyboard assuming of course that you
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don't have a classic Model m keyboard that uses it or you know maybe just a a
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major old school IO fetish for like
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