David H. Burns wrote:

> Well, exasperated, I'm willing to admit it: Graphics programming in 
> Windows is complicated, too complicated to bother with it appears to me.

This is why I use OpenGL for graphics.

Regards,
John

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On 08/01/09 10:08, Warp wrote:
>    Not often with the keyboard, but I often swap my USB mouse between
> my desktop computer and my work laptop. An old PS/2 mouse couldn't be
> used like that (and not only because the laptop as no PS/2 port).

	I'm not understanding why.

	I've tried this on Linux on my office machine, and it worked just fine.

	The problem usually is that if you load X without the mouse plugged in, 
then you'll need to reload X to get the mouse working. However, if you 
loaded X with the mouse, and then switch the mouse in the same session, 
it works fine.

-- 
Kotter: "Have you ever considered becoming a vet?"
Epstein: "Uh...Uh no. My brother Sanchez was in the army. Didn't like it 
a bit."

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On 08/01/09 10:27, clipka wrote:
> PS/2 is just two connectors to get rid of, but what sense would it make to
> introduce a "universal" peripherals interface to replace a host of other
> connectors, but stick with the old ones for keyboard and mouse?

	So in other words, it's merely for manufacturer convenience?

> (2) You can have multiple keyboards at once, and/or keyboars with non-standard
> keys.
>
> Like, for instance, those nifty multimedia keys. Or one of these beasts, for
> that matter:
	
	USB is not needed to get those multimedia keys. My keyboard is PS/2 and 
it has them.

	I suppose if I think really hard, I'll come up with a need for more 
than one keyboard...

> (3) The keyboard can double-feature as a hub to connect other periphery to, like
> USB sticks for instance.

	True, but that usage seems rare. I can't recall seeing a keyboard that 
had this - although I don't doubt their existence.

-- 
Kotter: "Have you ever considered becoming a vet?"
Epstein: "Uh...Uh no. My brother Sanchez was in the army. Didn't like it 
a bit."

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Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
>         I'm not understanding why.

>         I've tried this on Linux on my office machine, and it worked just fine.

  If I unplug and re-plug my PS/2 keyboard, it won't work, neither in Linux
nor in Windows. I have to reboot.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 08/02/09 09:30, Warp wrote:
> Neeum Zawan<m.n### [at] ieeeorg>  wrote:
>>          I'm not understanding why.
>
>>          I've tried this on Linux on my office machine, and it worked just fine.
>
>    If I unplug and re-plug my PS/2 keyboard, it won't work, neither in Linux
> nor in Windows. I have to reboot.

	Just tried it right now (30s unplugged). Plugged it back in. Works 
fine. Could this be a kernel thing? Perhaps my kernel is more recent? 
dmesg doesn't show anything...

	OK. Weird. I just unplugged again and replugged it in within 2-3 
seconds, and the keyboard didn't work. I unplugged it and waited over 45 
seconds, and plugged it back in. It works now. No reboot, no reloading of X.

-- 
Kotter: "Have you ever considered becoming a vet?"
Epstein: "Uh...Uh no. My brother Sanchez was in the army. Didn't like it 
a bit."

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Neeum Zawan wrote:
>     So in other words, it's merely for manufacturer convenience?

Which leads to cheaper machines, yes. Especially laptops, where space around 
the edge is limited. Plus, I'm not sure how docking/undocking would interact 
with such.

>     USB is not needed to get those multimedia keys. My keyboard is PS/2 
> and it has them.

Correct.

>     I suppose if I think really hard, I'll come up with a need for more 
> than one keyboard...

Different keyboards with different sets of keys, like a music keyboard 
perhaps. (Not what was meant, but you see what I'm saying - specialized key 
layouts, etc).

And, of course, docked laptops.

>     True, but that usage seems rare. I can't recall seeing a keyboard 
> that had this - although I don't doubt their existence.

I had this built into a monitor once. Was weird. Never used it.

I'd surely use a USB thumbdrive port built into my keyboard.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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On 08/02/09 13:01, Darren New wrote:
> Which leads to cheaper machines, yes. Especially laptops, where space
> around the edge is limited. Plus, I'm not sure how docking/undocking
> would interact with such.

<snip>

> And, of course, docked laptops.

	As I never owned a laptop, I can see why I never saw much of a need for 
USB keyboards...

-- 
Kotter: "Have you ever considered becoming a vet?"
Epstein: "Uh...Uh no. My brother Sanchez was in the army. Didn't like it 
a bit."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Yes. PS/2 is the little DIN plug.  Anyone still have one of the full-size
> DIN plugs they used before that?

Me!

Only via an adapter though; don't want to swap my good old Cherry keyboard with
anything else. At least not until I come across something that's really worth
it.

(BTW, strictly speaking, PS/2 was an 80286-based PC series by IBM, which
happened to introduce those "mini-DIN" plugs, hence the colloquial name.)

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Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
> On 08/02/09 09:30, Warp wrote:
> > Neeum Zawan<m.n### [at] ieeeorg>  wrote:
> >>          I'm not understanding why.
> >
> >>          I've tried this on Linux on my office machine, and it worked just fine.
> >
> >    If I unplug and re-plug my PS/2 keyboard, it won't work, neither in Linux
> > nor in Windows. I have to reboot.

>         Just tried it right now (30s unplugged). Plugged it back in. Works 
> fine. Could this be a kernel thing? Perhaps my kernel is more recent? 
> dmesg doesn't show anything...

>         OK. Weird. I just unplugged again and replugged it in within 2-3 
> seconds, and the keyboard didn't work. I unplugged it and waited over 45 
> seconds, and plugged it back in. It works now. No reboot, no reloading of X.

  According to wikipedia PS/2 is not designed to be hot-swappable, and
whether it will work after a hot-swap depends on the hardware and software.
It even warns that on older PCs hot-swapping a PS/2 device might even damage
the circuits.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
>  Just tried it right now (30s unplugged). Plugged it back in. Works
> fine. Could this be a kernel thing? Perhaps my kernel is more recent?
> dmesg doesn't show anything...
>
>  OK. Weird. I just unplugged again and replugged it in within 2-3
> seconds, and the keyboard didn't work. I unplugged it and waited over 45
> seconds, and plugged it back in. It works now. No reboot, no reloading of X.

Maybe because the hardware wasn't designed to inform the software of a plug-in
event, so the OS (well, keyboard driver, to be precise) needs to poll at
regular intervals to detect the keyboard was absent, in order to re-initialize
the hardware?

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