5 May
2012
5 May
'12
1:29 p.m.
> I haev to agree with you. Somebody who
can't plug the cable from a thing
> with keys on it into a socket marked 'keyboard' (or with a little picture
> of a keyboard nest to it) probably shouldn't own a computer :-)
On Fri, 4
May 2012, Toby Thain wrote:
They have the SAME connector,
Well, YOUR PS/2 ones might.
My keyboard had the same connector as the cassette.
Which one of my machines had that same connector for the video, POWER!!
and cassette?
TRS-80 Mod1l I, I guess.
Which of my machines has the same connector (even same gneder) for the
serial and (TTL level) parallel ports? Hint, the conenctor is not a DB25
(and nor is it a card edge or a header plug).
THAT was a bad move!
> so from a usability pov it invites
> mistakes. Sometimes, even non-technical people use computers. I've
> noticed that they often don't identify sockets before attempting plugs.
I hate to say this, but such people deserve all they get, including the
magic smoke leaking out.But plugigng PS/2 devies int othe wrong sockets
does no damage.
Yes, I've seen people try to FORCE a 7 pin DIN into a 5 pin DIN - "square
peg into round hole"?
I've seen a DEC field servoid force one of those '3 coaxes in a DA shell'
conenctor (whatever it's called) on upside-down, thus swapping the red
and blue signals...
And proliferating physically incompatible
connectors seems to make less
sense than simply standardising a simple interface.
"easier to add entire additional microcontrollers to each (that didn't
previously need them) than to try to get people to only plug them in where
they fit"
Serial mouse, printer, keyboard, video shouldn't have posed any problems.
Although I do rmember a VERY short period of time when MICROS~1 peddled a
"BUS" mouse that used a female DE9 on its interface board!
How long should it take a "college instructor" to destroy the connectors
on a PC/JR?