Vintage
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I tried to explain these ports to a salesperson at micro center, and they have me the dull cow stare.
I was looking at some PC's at Best Buy and a salesman came up to try and give me the hard sell. I asked if I could buy the PC without Windows on it for a discount.
"How would you use your computer without Windows on it?"
"I'm going to install Linux"
"What's that?"
"It's an operating system"
Blank stare
"Like Windows or OS X..."
Blank Stare
Sigh "I already have a copy of Windows at home"
"Oh! Well I don't think you can do that, no."
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I loved the PCs that had Ctrl + up as a shortcut to flip the monitor orientation. I think it was a Dell thing?
My favourite prank was to flip the screen upside down then unplug the keyboard. Good luck saving your work fuck face
I wanna say there’s a Windows hotkey for that now.
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I tried to explain these ports to a salesperson at micro center, and they have me the dull cow stare.
To be honest, I think that was probably to appropriate response. Information about ps/2 is not really relevant to them or any customer that they are going to help
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I wanna say there’s a Windows hotkey for that now.
Maybe, but it's just not the same if you can plug your keyboard back in and fix it. CURSE YOU USB
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IBM sure made naming pretty confusing aren't they?
Not really? I mean it was a whole thing. OS/2, PS/2, I think maybe some PC/2? I can't remember. Anyway it was all branded together.
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That's... not typical though.
It was. Hardware was absolute trash in the early-mid 90s.
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I'm this old
Shit. I know what this is. Goddammit.
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I was always told that you shouldn't (dis)connect a keyboard when it was on because it could short circuit and fry something. This was before USB, of course.
Starting around the time of USB, they started designing plugs so that the parts of the plug that carried power were slightly longer than the parts that carried data so that as you plugged it in, the power connected before the data. That wasn't something that was done with old connectors. In those, everything was the same length, so everything connected at once.
OTOH, USB is a more complicated protocol than the old serial / keyboard protocols. I think generally systems were built well enough that you were unlikely to "fry" something by plugging in or unplugging something like a keyboard while it was running. Especially because the keyboards used low current and low voltage. And computers used big discrete resistors, capacitors, etc. back in those days. But, you could get some bad data on the keyboard line.
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Starting around the time of USB, they started designing plugs so that the parts of the plug that carried power were slightly longer than the parts that carried data so that as you plugged it in, the power connected before the data. That wasn't something that was done with old connectors. In those, everything was the same length, so everything connected at once.
OTOH, USB is a more complicated protocol than the old serial / keyboard protocols. I think generally systems were built well enough that you were unlikely to "fry" something by plugging in or unplugging something like a keyboard while it was running. Especially because the keyboards used low current and low voltage. And computers used big discrete resistors, capacitors, etc. back in those days. But, you could get some bad data on the keyboard line.
Interesting stuff about the plugs, thanks.
I did quickly fact-check myself after posting and my brief reading suggested that it was possible to break the port, motherboard, or the peripheral, but that it was rare and more likely to cause corruption and/or crashes.
E.g. some anecdata in https://superuser.com/questions/172420/is-it-safe-to-hot-swap-a-ps-2-keyboard and https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/50883/why-some-computer-peripherals-should-not-be-disconnected-without-turning-off-thi
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I remember manually programming the cylinders and heads on a hdd into the bios. Kids these days got it easy
I had a little book with the settings for almost every brand and model of hard drive that existed when published.
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I actually wanted a PS2 port because it works with interrupts rather than polling but they aren't really included anymore.
I feel like they don't make boards for people like me who want small boards with a super niche port.
When a MoDT Mini-ITX board comes out with a PS2 port I will buy that instantly
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Interesting stuff about the plugs, thanks.
I did quickly fact-check myself after posting and my brief reading suggested that it was possible to break the port, motherboard, or the peripheral, but that it was rare and more likely to cause corruption and/or crashes.
E.g. some anecdata in https://superuser.com/questions/172420/is-it-safe-to-hot-swap-a-ps-2-keyboard and https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/50883/why-some-computer-peripherals-should-not-be-disconnected-without-turning-off-thi
and more likely to cause corruption and/or crashes.
Yeah, that's the neat trick they basically solved by making the power connectors longer. If everything connects at the same time, you connect the data lines while power is still coming up, meaning there's a few milliseconds of data that you can't really trust. If the hardware and software on the other side is designed to "trust" the data from the keyboard, who knows what could happen. Probably not something that breaks the hardware, but definitely something that can result in unexpected data for the software.
But, just by adding a few millimeters to the power lines, you give a few milliseconds of power getting stable before data is attached, and that's enough for things to be nice and stable.
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We had flat ribbon. We used that exact unit for the atari. You screwed them into the back.
The typical ol' "garage" b&w tended to have them too, last tv i owned with one was this century
Thanks, this helps me feel younger.
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no search results relevant to this.
do you mean a card as in a pc hardware ISA / PCI device, or like a paper overlay card with reminders for button actions?
ok I must be losing my mind then. I could have sworn it required something like this: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/31qtoUfewyL.jpg I remember as a kid going to a babages and picking up a copy and a guy was like "does your computer have a keyboard card? otherwise it wont' work" and then I swore it was also stated on the box....but christ now I might have just been dreaming it.
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Are these not still in use?
I've not built a tower in a few years granted, but the last one I built had PS2 ports. Heck it even had VGA for the onboard graphics.
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I'm this old
The ol' RS232?
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still is
/i3gang
DEFINITELY optional
go go gadget commandline
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Not really? I mean it was a whole thing. OS/2, PS/2, I think maybe some PC/2? I can't remember. Anyway it was all branded together.
missed opportunity for the mainframes to be "system/2" and not "system/360"
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My brother in Christ, I also used this
And I'm 17
the computers at my first school still used ps/2 regularly when i went there and im 15.....
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i have a gaming pc built this decade that has both of those ports dude
