Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
> >         Never knew what the benefit of a USB keyboard was...
>
>   Try hot-swapping a PS/2 keyboard and you'll see the benefit.

The actual benefits are more in that...:

(1) You don't have gazillions of different connectors.

Imagine that in addition to FireWire and eSATA for external bulk memory devices,
network connector for network (of course), DVI and HDMI for display, and
what-have-you-not, you still needed the good old PS/2 for the keyboard, another
(don't mix them up!) for the mouse, parallel port for the printer and EEPROM
flasher and dongles and what-have-you-not, the Gameport for joysticks and MIDI,
and last not least RS232 for the modem and diverse like chip-card readers and
stuff alike.

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?


(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:

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=393741

(Yes, they did similar with PS/2, most notably for joysticks with gazillions of
buttons and switches; but would two of such products from different vendors be
compatible with one another?)


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

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