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I don't think these machines achieved much popularity in China either, as standard PCs were far more common and compatible with the existing software base. the
by userbinator 4mo ago
I don't think these machines achieved much popularity in China either, as standard PCs were far more common and compatible with the existing software base.
the keyboard and trackpad are internally PS/2.
Interesting that the PC influence is still there, although I'm pretty sure a MIPS doesn't have them on port 60h/64h, or indeed any I/O ports. I remember having a similar moment of surprise when I played around with an ARM VM and discovered it had a "VGA-compatible" GPU emulating an old ISA-class chip.
- justin66 4mo agoA decade’s worth of SGI machines combined MIPS processors with PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports.
- walrus01 4mo agoTo be fair to that there wasn't really any other viable mass-market interface that the keyboard manufacturers in China/Taiwan could standardize on. The PS/2 keyboard interface was backwards compatible with an AT keyboard through the user of a passive physical pin adapter. And USB didn't exist yet.
- justin66 4mo agoOddly enough, the SGI Fuel (also the Tezro, I think) had PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports but also offered USB ports and support for HID devices in IRIX. I have no idea whether the keyboard and mouse that shipped with those later SGIs were PS/2 or USB devices. edit: IMO there was nothing wrong with preferring PS/2 to USB 20-some years ago. Higher theoretical refresh rate on the PS/2 mouse at that time and the PS/2 keyboard offered better n-key rollover, although I question whether any of that mattered one way or the other to an SGI owner
- walrus01 4mo agoIn x86 i386 world there was a good long overlap of ATX/MicroATX motherboards shipping with both PS/2 keyboard/mouse ports and also USB ports on them, starting from 1998 era Pentium 2/3 systems when USB first became commonplace and continuing until probably 2010 or so.
- bigfatkitten 4mo agoIndustrial boards and some workstations still come with PS/2 ports today.
- mghackerlady 4mo agoAsrock still makes some modern boards with PS/2 ports (though, it's usually a combo port)
- wolrah 4mo agoI am currently at a customer site installing a brand new mainstream budget computer purchased off the shelf from a brick and mortar retailer (Microcenter PowerSpec B687) which has PS/2 ports and a VGA output right next to the USB/HDMI/DP paired up with a 14th gen i5. The motherboard is an ASUS Prime H610M-A WiFi D4.
- anthk 4mo agoPS/2 ports interrupt the CPU directly. You can't be faster than that.
- hulitu 3mo agoAnd also don't install "keyboard drivers".
- classichasclass 4mo ago(author) My understanding is that they're wired into the AMD southbridge which provides them over memory mapped I/O.
- brynet 4mo ago> I'm pretty sure a MIPS doesn't have them on port 60h/64h, or indeed any I/O ports. Funnily enough, it does. They're just sitting behind a AMD CS5536 PCI-to-ISA bridge. https://man.openbsd.org/man4/loongson/glxpcib.4 https://man.openbsd.org/man4/loongson/glxpcib.4 https://man.openbsd.org/pckbc https://man.openbsd.org/pckbc ... > glxpcib0 at pci0 dev 14 function 0 "AMD CS5536 ISA" rev 0x03: rev 3, 32-bit 3579545Hz timer, watchdog, gpio, i2c > isa0 at glxpcib0 > pckbc0 at isa0 port 0x60/5 irq 1 irq 12 > pckbd0 at pckbc0 (kbd slot) > wskbd0 at pckbd0: console keyboard, using wsdisplay0 > pms0 at pckbc0 (aux slot) > wsmouse0 at pms0 mux 0 > mcclock0 at isa0 port 0x70/2: mc146818 or compatible ... Other machines, such as the DEC Alpha were similar.
- mjg59 4mo ago> or indeed any I/O ports. PCI has the concept of I/O ports even if the CPU doesn't. The details differ depending on whether it's PCI or PCIe, but the net effect is that whatever's responsible for putting the access on the bus exposes an MMIO window that corresponds to the the port addresses available, and generates port I/O cycles in response to accesses to that window.