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

one of the nice things about modern computing is the move towards one port for seemingly everything and yes I know that audio monitors and Ethernet are major exceptions but since the introduction of USB in 1996 we have come a long way from the days when it seemed like every single device had its own specialized port but even so there's one crucial situation where some folks still haven't fully embraced USB I'm talking keyboards and mice while the vast majority of these input devices sold do connect via USB there's actually still a different connection that some people still use the venerable ps2 port so why do some people still prefer these round green and purple 90s throw backs well although both ps2 and USB seem to do the same thing connect a keyboard or Mouse to your computer there are a number of significant differences in how they work that make them still seem relevant even on high-end motherboards you see a USB keyboard or Mouse connection works by pulling your device so in the computer equivalent of our me there yet many times per second your computer essentially asks your keyboard or mouse hey what you doing what you doing what's it doing and the keyboard or mouse will then respond by saying for example nothing moving to the left having my deeky pushed down or strangling my owner ps2 devices on the other hand work by sending interrupts to the system so instead of waiting around for the computer to ask about its current state the ps/2 protocol allows your keyboard or mouse to actively interrupt whatever your CPU is doing to tell the computer what's happening and this might sound potentially inefficient but because modern CPUs run at millions or even billions of cycles per second you'd never notice a slowdown so it's for this reason that some enthusiasts claim that ps2 has less perceptible latency which should theoretically make response times quicker in games and ps2 also supports true and key rollover meaning that the system will register as many keys as you can push down at once there are USB keyboards that also advertise this functionality but this is usually done by emulating multiple keyboards which can limit how many additional input devices you can connect by requiring special software or by suffering from compatibility issues at boot time because ps2 is a dedicated interface just for keyboards and mice ps2 devices don't have weird issues where your computer doesn't recognize them properly in the BIOS or before windows loads drivers as can happen occasionally with the USB gadgets Wow well that's a lot of benefits long live ps2 right well hold on in reality the virtually certain to work level of compatibility is about it's only real-world benefit for most people even many competitive gamers have a pint that whatever enhanced responsiveness they get from ps2 is basically imperceptible with factors like key switch type being much more important for a competitive edge and ps2 has other limitations as well it wasn't designed to be electrically hot swappable and on older hardware trying to swap out a keyboard mouse can make it not work until you reboot or even worse actually damage your equipment and not only that since they weren't meant to be unplugged and plugged back in frequently it is easy to bend or even break the little pins at the end of the cable so in short ps2 connectors take up more space and simply aren't as tough as their USB counterparts so unless you have a very specific need for ps2 IT technicians still love them there's really no reason to fear missing out on anything if you just go with a USB keyboard assuming of course that you don't have a classic model M keyboard that uses it or you know maybe just a major old-school IO fetish for like those mmm giant printer ports that we all know and tolerate tunnel bear VPN lets you tunnel to 20 different countries allowing you to browse the internet and use online services as though you're in a different country but Linus VPNs are hard to use port configurations and blab no it's actually super simple tunnel bear is available for iOS Android PC and Mac they even have a Chrome extension and you basically just press one button and when you press the button a couple things happen your connection gets encrypted with AES 256-bit encryption which makes it harder for your ISP to track what you're doing online and your public IP address gets switched so you show up as though you're in a different country allowing you to bypass pesky geo restrictions that limit the video content that you can watch or the news articles that you can read for example tunnel bear has a top rated privacy policy and they do not log your activity so try it out for free with 500 Meg's of data with no credit card required at the link below tunnel bear comm slash Linus so thanks for watching guys like dislike check out our other channels leave a comment with suggestions and subscribe make sure you subscribe if you don't subscribe then Bears will come tunnel into your house and tell you to use tunnel bear and also to subscribe to tech quickie

Channel: Techquickie

Views: 2,936,131

Rating: 4.8777409 out of 5

Keywords: ps/2, usb, keyboard, mouse, motherboard, i/o, green, purple, interrupt, polling, cpu, processor, input, hid, n-key, rollover, keyswitch, hot swap, gaming, pc

Id: AWkvzycD5PE

Length: 6min 24sec (384 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 01 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Dawnguards]

Basically usb is not better unless you hotswap keyboards everyday.. And ps/2 keyboards register n-keys Gotcha!