In article <cistron.Pine.NEB.4.58.0309181101380.8936@server.duh.org>, Todd Vierling <tv@duh.org> wrote:

On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 up@3.am wrote:

: Without a question: PS/2 style keyboard and mouse connectors. Impossible : to tell from each other,

And this part is somewhat funny, too, because the PS/2 connector layout is capable of having both devices share the same bus (there's two unconnected pins, which some laptops use to provide alternate CLK/DATA signals).

If PS/2 mice used the unconnected pins rather than the same CLK/DATA pins as the keyboard, all machines could simply have two connectors using all six pins and you'd be able to plug either device into either socket.

Actually a PC can detect if a mouse or keyboard is plugged in and behave appropiately - there were PCs (I forget which) on which it didn't matter what port you used for kbd or mouse, it all just worked. In fact 2 kbds is quite possible as well. So that is basically a software problem. Mike.