£4.49 + free postage
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-PS-2-Keyb ... 407wt_1397

£5 + £1.65 postage
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-Male-PS-2 ... 4cfddcd88c

£6.49 + free postage
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-Male-PS-2 ... 504wt_1397

Sorry if this is stupid, but is there anything special to the Blue Cubes?

Not really but both I and Clickykeyboards recommend them since they are proven compatible 99% of the time <waits for Soarer to point out 1% exception>.

To sacrifice NKRO is too great a sacrifice

A IBM Model M has 2KRO ..
You don't need more when typing .
Ever tried typing by pressing 8 keys at the same time ?
The bluecube is often needed when using a real keyboard ('M') on crappy computers that don't have a PS/2-port.

PS/2 connection does not determine the crappiness of a computer system.
The user could, though...

hamza_tm wrote:To sacrifice NKRO is too great a sacrifice

Sacrificial lambs only game with one hoof.

Merijn wrote:Sorry if this is stupid, but is there anything special to the Blue Cubes?

@Merijn - Yes, the Blue Cube is quite special - it works with my Model Ms as well as my Model F AT on a Lenovo T61 laptop computer. The generic ones I tried before had issues. I purchased the more expensive Ziotec adapter later, hoping it would allow me to connect both the Model F AT and DT225 through one USB port. It allows me to use the PS/2 DT225 but strangely not the keyboard, which is now connected to the computer via a Blue Cube.

I use one of these with my Model M and it’s worked without any issues. I’ve never run into any issues with KRO, but I don’t use EMACS, so I can’t really see a situation where I’d need more than 2KRO.

DeathAdder wrote:PS/2 connection does not determine the crappiness of a computer system.
The user could, though...

So ..
A dedicated Hardware Interrupt Request, that happens INSTANTANEOUSLY !!
is less crappy than USB-polling ???

Anyway, if you have ever typed on a mechanical typewriter ..
You KNOW why 2NKRO is all you need when NOT gaming !
The fact that you even need a bluecube should tell you something about how inferior
USB really is !

PS : NKRO-demand, for TYPING, makes about as much sense as
'Silver Speaker 'Cables' ' !

Erm...windows is never instantaneous about anything!

I never said PS/2 is inferior to USB.

I just said calling a computer system crap because it lacks PS/2 connection is BS.
I do believe you know a computer system is more than just an accumulation of input connection sockets

ripster wrote:Erm...windows is never instantaneous about anything!

Did I ever claim it was ??
One thing you CAN be sure of is that if you use a USB-keyboard the input IS less than 'instantaneously' .
USB-polling does NOT beat Hardware Interrupt Requests . And any MoBo omitting PS/2 IS CRAP .
Sorry, but dumping dedicated hardware-connections is a down-grade IMHO ..

DeathAdder wrote:I never said PS/2 is inferior to USB.
I just said calling a computer system crap because it lacks PS/2 connection is BS.
I do believe you know a computer system is more than just an accumulation of input connection sockets

the way I see it ..
A computer-system is absolute NOTHING without the HID

Oh dear, more misunderstandings about what exactly USB polling is. I went through this in detail with tp4tissue on GH... and then a rollback lost all the good bits

To summarise...

Sure, with USB there's a host controller that does polling. But if the device sends data in a poll, the host controller then uses a hardware interrupt to notify the main CPU. This really isn't much different to the way the 8042 chip manages the PS/2 connection - the hardware interrupt so lauded by PS/2 proponents comes from the 8042 chip.

The real issue is whether the USB polling is fast enough to compete with the serial PS/2. In most cases it isn't, because only 1000Hz polling is comparable in speed, and hardly any keyboards use 1000Hz polling.

That said, tests by namelos showed that the delay on the connection (using either PS/2 or USB) is relatively small compared to the time it takes the keyboard to output an event (scanning, debouncing, queueing etc).