• USB connection vs. 4 pin-micro usb for keyboard or mouse?

    From Fritz Wuehler@fritz@spamexpire-202510.rodent.frell.theremailer.net to alt.windows7.general on Mon Oct 6 16:34:35 2025
    From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

    My mouse and keyboard are connected with regular flat USB cables. What difference in speed or whatever would there be if I used one of those
    round usb cables? I do see I have a connection on my rear panel for
    the round ones. Those connectors are labled for keyboard and mouse.

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  • From Schugo@schugo@schugo.de to alt.windows7.general on Mon Oct 6 17:20:15 2025
    From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

    On 06.10.2025 16:34, Fritz Wuehler wrote:
    My mouse and keyboard are connected with regular flat USB cables. What difference in speed or whatever would there be if I used one of those
    round usb cables? I do see I have a connection on my rear panel for
    the round ones. Those connectors are labled for keyboard and mouse.

    Goto Hell fucking troll!

    *PLONK*

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  • From Paul@nospam@needed.invalid to alt.windows7.general on Mon Oct 6 17:30:36 2025
    From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

    On Mon, 10/6/2025 10:34 AM, Fritz Wuehler wrote:
    My mouse and keyboard are connected with regular flat USB cables. What difference in speed or whatever would there be if I used one of those
    round usb cables? I do see I have a connection on my rear panel for
    the round ones. Those connectors are labled for keyboard and mouse.


    No difference.

    The round connectors are PS/2 and they only accept PS/2 protocol.
    That's NRZ at low baud rate, similar to a serial port in terms
    of the data rates seen.

    USB keyboard is USB1.1, and maybe soon will have to be USB2
    due to the lack of backward compatibility of the super-high-speed
    flavors of USB. The USB1,1 protocol carries packets, each packet
    would have a "key up" or "key down" character code.

    If you have a 19200 DPI mouse for gaming, the round PS/2 is
    unlikely to work perfectly in that case, and a USB port would
    be better. But most HID run at low rates, and either connector
    type (assuming the mouse/kbd supports it) would work. A 19200 DPI
    mouse would naturally be a USB device, as they're not going to
    support a PS/2 protocol where the mouse didn't work right due
    to the datarate.

    If the HID device you bought came with a short (passive) adapter,
    that means your device supports both protocols. If I slip the green
    adapter onto my Logitech mouse (adapter came in the mouse package),
    it runs PS/2, and if I remove the green adapter, it runs USB1.1 protocol.
    The mouse then, it "autodetects" the protocol. Few mice do this.
    I didn't buy the mouse because of that, it was just in the box.

    But few shipping devices today do both USB/PS2 any more, so don't
    even consider that case as being valid today. Anything
    worth buying today has USB on it. Slipping the green or purple
    adapter on stuff today (like buying the adapter needed off the
    Internet), that's just not going to work. Don't waste your
    money. But because my Logitech mouse *came* with the adapter,
    that's how I know the passive adapter works with that particular mouse.

    Paul
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  • From J. P. Gilliver@G6JPG@255soft.uk to alt.windows7.general on Tue Oct 7 03:00:05 2025
    From Newsgroup: alt.windows7.general

    On 2025/10/6 15:34:35, Fritz Wuehler wrote:
    My mouse and keyboard are connected with regular flat USB cables. What > difference in speed or whatever would there be if I used one of those
    round usb cables? I do see I have a connection on my rear panel for
    the round ones. Those connectors are labled for keyboard and mouse.

    The round connectors are PS/2, not USB. It is slower than some flavours
    of USB, but for most people, more than fast enough for keyboard and
    mouse; if your motherboard has PS/2 connections, it probably is old
    enough that it doesn't have many USB ones, so use them if you can to
    free two USB connectors (since the PS/2 connectors can't be used for
    anything else so you may as well use them if you can). You will need a
    mouse and keyboard that can do PS/2 though, and there are going to be
    only few of those around now: just because you find an adapter, doesn't
    mean they will do it, unless the adapter actually came with the keyboard
    or mouse. (If the keyboard or mouse came with the round connector on its
    cable, that will be fine. Though if you only have _one_ PS/2 connector
    on your motherboard, it may be only for one out of keyboard or mouse -
    if it has both green and purple colouring, it is for both, but you'd
    need a Y-cable.
    Note also that PS/2 is not plug-and-play: PS/2 peripherals have to be
    connected at boot for the computer to recognise them.
    --
    J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
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