Is PS/2 or USB Better for Keyboards and Mice?

Should you still be using those old PS/2 ports for your keyboards and mice?

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[mrmerhtin]

no keyboard detected press any key to continue

[ThatLonelyFox]

The virgin usb keyboard:
> Has to wait his turn to get the cpu's attention
> Politely asks the cpu to accept the new input
> General purpose port, has to identify himself as a keyboard before the system know what to do with him
> Gets blocked when a virus kills all access to usb devices
> Hot sawappable and is okay with that
> Gets confused when you hit too many keys

The chad PS/2 keyboard:
> Always works, doesn't stop until power goes down
> Literally interrupts the cpu, tells it to work on its input before anything else
> Has his own dedicated port, system know who he is before even the bios is loaded
> Literally impossible to kill besides unplugging it
> Not hot swappable, when unplugged it crashes the whole system like a true alpha peripheral
> Couldn't care less how many keys you press, has full native n-key rollover

[zedm]

PS/2 is obviously superior as you don't have to flip it 13 times to figure out which way it plugs in.

[mrcrackerist]

feel like its time for a new version of the PS/2 maybe PS/3?

[myvyny]

Another advantage of PS/2 that seems nobody mentioned is the fact that dedicated ports also free up space for another USB devices you want to connect.

[LexiconOne]

For extreme overclockers, the USB controller will stop working at very low temperatures which is inconvenient for liquid nitrogen or helium overclocking. PS/2 on the other hand will work nonetheless allowing you to change the overclocking settings. This is why many high end overclocking motherboard still includes PS/2 ports.

[coryulrich]

Holy crap! That's my stock photo for the ps2 adapter in the video thumbnail!

[tsoer]

The PS/2 ports also have higher interrupt priority than the USB ports.
This means it is possible for the PC to become so braindead that it will not accept any input from the USB device, . This means that even though the ctrl+alt+delete key combo would normally generate an unmaskable interrupt and crash the system, in certain cases of bad brain death the computer will refuse to respond to the keyboard and not do as told.
With a PS/2 keyboard, you don't have this problem and ctrl+alt+delete will reliably crash the system as intended.

[cam_machi]

PS/2 connections are also BAE for troubleshooting. Like Linus stated, PS/2 can be recognized as soon as the computer is powered on unlike USB where the USB-Controller has to be loaded.

But yes, it is also annoying not being able to hot swap...

[tz]

"Having my D pushed down" - Linus 2017

[Osy]

Hey, you should use that high speed camera to measure PS/2 vs USB latency.

[EVILLASER]

Yo, I have a decent reason for using a PS/2 port: saving USB ports if you're low on them.

[Bellthegaomon]

Most of those downsides wouldn't affect me as i never unplug my mouse or keyboard unless they are having an issue.

[rehiir]

2:13
The legend says that the mouse is still waiting for a response from the CPU

[tylerdietz]

Me: so my pc has 3 usb ports and 1 ps2 por-

My Friend: So it can play ps2 games?

Me: Well yes, but actually kind of

[hihowareyou]

I play old games on a nuclear reactor so i don't need to worry about latency

[larrylentini]

Ps2 mice and keyboards have saved my butt many times when Windows 10 decided it didn't want to recognize their USB counterparts anymore.

[lucasmzreal]

The good about PS/2 is that you don't use the USB, so if you have not so much USB Ports, you use the PS/2 the problem is: Don't have in Laptop's.
And laptops, are where the USB problem starts.

[someone-btsx]

This Linus guy is awesome, he should make a channel named Linus tech tips

[jeremygeorgia]

It used to make a difference, when processors were slower, and so many things used USB & competed for its bandwidth. I gave up on PS\2, when it stopped offering a performance advantage & actually seemed to hinder performance. The baud rate is limited on PS\2.