IBM model M: Extra long cord ???

[mcc]

Hi,

two webpages on the Internet mentioned an "extra long cord"
in context of the IBM model M keyboard, which seems to be a
rare item.
But from only two cites I neither can decide whether it is a
joke or not and -- if not a joke -- what length is meant
with "extra long" ... 1m? ... 2m?....10km?

Is this an urban legend, a hoax or ... what?

Best regards
mcc

[Quarzac]

My model M has a fairly long cord. I don't know if it's "extra long", but eyeballing it, without stretching the coiled part, it's about 12 feet long.

[mcc]

Hi Ripster,

thanks for the info!

Do you know the lengths in meter/feet/inch or ?
How long are they?

[mcc]

Hi,

I have a SDL cable here:
Length from PS2 plu to coiled area: 16cm / 0.52 feet
Length of the coiled area, unstretched: 50cm / 1.64 feet
Length of the coiled area to the SDl plug: 1.98m / 6.5 feet

The PS2 plug has a IBM logo "engraved" (somehow...missing words, sorry...the characters are konvex)

Best regards,
mcc

[theferenc]

I have one that is just under 10', unstretched. It's actually almost exactly 3 meters. It's pretty absurd, honestly. I imagine it stretches to nearly 5 meters, based on how the other, shorter cords stretch, but I've never had the desire to stretch it out.

Personally, I prefer the short models, the ones that only have a few inches of uncoiled length at both ends.

[mcc]

I am asking myself, how and whether the controller board inside
the keyboard is able to push the signals along such distances...
The coiled areas additionallu is a ... hmmm ... coil. Does that
mean anything or are the effects too minimal... ?

[mcc]

There are two effect, which put this question into my head, ripster:

My model M is connected via the described cable to a Belking PS2=>USB adapter to my PC.
Sometimes when booting my Linux the keyboard LEDs start blinking at certain point o fthe boot
process (before the Linux kernel takes control) and the keyboard hangs. Power cycling via pulling
and reinserting Belkin USB connector to the PC core that...but it is annoying.
And when the BIOS takes takes control and displays its "Press F1 to...." message I cannot
enter the BIOS because the keyboard still sleeps...
I wonder, whether there is a way to cure both...

[Pretendo]

I have two cords myself, one is about 5' with the coil unstretched (eyeball measuring), while the other is 10'.

Interestingly, the 10' cord had two extra pins on the ps/2 side that most cords do not.  This caused the board to lock up, as well as any mouse that was also plugged into the ps/2 controller, on some computers.  In order to gain use of the cable I had to perform a bit of surgery.  Don't know what those two extra pins would have ever done.

EDIT: the above information is incorrect.  See my following post.

[mcc]

The PS2 plug has 6 PINs.

The writing on the Belkin Adapter says:

USB Dual PS2 Adapter
         N10117
    Made in China
       P81706-A

[Pretendo]

I'm sorry, posted the issue incorrectly!  All cables have 6 pins on either side, but most have no wires actually connected to the far two pins on the SDL end.  You can see this by looking at the SDL connector head-on with the pins facing down; there will be white, black, brown and red wires respectively.  On this longer cord I have, a green wire is added on the right and a yellow wire on the left.  The wire caused problems until I removed the two edge pins.  Check to see if you have these two wires.

And never post about a problem from memory if you haven't looked at it in a long time

EDIT: clarification on which way to hold SDL edge.

[mcc]

Uuuh...wrong adapter I have...

Amazon offers a Belkin adapter with the number:
F5U119EAE
.

Are both identical...?

[TacticalCoder]

Length from PS2 plu to coiled area: 16cm / 0.52 feet
Length of the coiled area, unstretched: 50cm / 1.64 feet
Length of the coiled area to the SDl plug: 1.98m / 6.5 feet

Same here.

Here's a picture of the three different length side by side:

[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 26955[/ATTACH]

All three of them have the IBM logo.

Damn,  more than two and a half meter unstretched is kinda long : )