"Plugging anything in required caution; a hasty, blind reach behind the tower to reconnect the keyboard could easily bend the fragile pins inside the round PS/2 connector, leading to delicate surgery with the tip of a pencil."
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PS/2 connectors were actually not bad in terms of durability... The big plastic key in the centre prevented you from jamming it in with the wrong orientation and then twisting, which would have bent pins for sure. Finding the correct orientation was an issue however.
PS/2 connectors can still be found on many brand new motherboards, which is a boon for those of us still using Model-M's.
I like to joke about what sort of idiot designs a round connector that is keyed, the worst of both worlds. Now, a round keyed connector is not necessarily a bad thing, the round shell can be very strong, but the ps/2 mini-din went too far. the shell was too small and the key not assertive enough. It was a bad connector.
The worst I have seen was an old ati all-in-wonder I had where the video input ports were on a dongle with a ps/2-like minidin but high density, with about 10 pins. It only took two insertion operations before I resolved to do everything in my power to never unplug it again. getting all those thin pins aligned was basically impossible.
I actually had to fact-check myself because I remember that infernal connector having about 20 or 30 pins, But I looked it up and it "only" had 10.
The worst connector IMO is the HDMI connector. I run the mediatec at an university and the amount of well-shielded cable I have to throw into the bin each semester because yet snother perdon levered off that plug is mindboggling.
On top of that, HDMI tries to be to much and do too much
On that topic, the 8pin modular ethernet plug has a number of downsides, but it has one huge upside that completely redeems it in my books.
It is super easy to field terminate ethernet. I wish all connector ends were as easy to replace. I have this vague boil-the-ocean type idea where we could replace usb with poe ethernet.
> Disclaimer: I wrote this on a basic text editor which has spell and grammar check, presumably powered by some sort of AI/LLM tech. The ramblings, and run-on sentences, are all mine.
I think I want this at the bottom of the article, “Words are my own; spell checking and grammar tools probably had AI.”
12 comments
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PS/2 connectors were actually not bad in terms of durability... The big plastic key in the centre prevented you from jamming it in with the wrong orientation and then twisting, which would have bent pins for sure. Finding the correct orientation was an issue however.
PS/2 connectors can still be found on many brand new motherboards, which is a boon for those of us still using Model-M's.
The worst I have seen was an old ati all-in-wonder I had where the video input ports were on a dongle with a ps/2-like minidin but high density, with about 10 pins. It only took two insertion operations before I resolved to do everything in my power to never unplug it again. getting all those thin pins aligned was basically impossible.
I actually had to fact-check myself because I remember that infernal connector having about 20 or 30 pins, But I looked it up and it "only" had 10.
On top of that, HDMI tries to be to much and do too much
It is super easy to field terminate ethernet. I wish all connector ends were as easy to replace. I have this vague boil-the-ocean type idea where we could replace usb with poe ethernet.
> Disclaimer: I wrote this on a basic text editor which has spell and grammar check, presumably powered by some sort of AI/LLM tech. The ramblings, and run-on sentences, are all mine.
I think I want this at the bottom of the article, “Words are my own; spell checking and grammar tools probably had AI.”