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 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 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 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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