geekhack
geekhack Marketplace => Great Finds => Topic started by: ed_avis on Sun, 12 April 2020, 12:54:20
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https://www.ebay.com/itm/164100488366
Sold as untested, but very likely to be still working. Looks like a regular PS/2 connector, so hopefully no exotic converter needed.
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Not sure why this auction seemed to have been ended by the seller, but if you look closely one of the pins on the PS/2 plug broke off, which would have been a pretty easy fix.
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I don't think they broke. The 2 absent pins are the 2 that don't do anything anyway.
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Its funny I see so many more DIN 5 connectors than mini DIN 6 in my collection, I tend to forget PS/2 had frequently unused pins.
Either PS/2 had a somewhat short run as the primary keyboard connector before rubber domes became the thing, or all the PS/2 mechanical keyboards are still being used so I can't buy them cheaply.
It makes sense though, pins that aren't there can't bend or break off :p
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That spare pin on the AT connector occasionally/rarely saw action as the "reset" connection but that was the exception rather than the rule.
There are millions of rubber dome PS/2 (mini-DIN6) out there but I think that mechanical switches were fading out as PS/2 was coming in.
Of course, IBM provided Model Ms with PS/2 systems from day one in the late 1990s but it took a while for inertia to wash through the industry.