> > Got that after I discovered Dell Lattitude (600?) laptops have every port
> > (even serial & parallel) except PS2.  Odd.
> lots of laptops have dropped external ps/2 ports, the systems to make
> internal and external appear as one ps/2 device and to allow either a
> keyboard,a mouse or a keyboard and a mouse with a special splitter on the
> same port were in my experiance quirky at best (especially with hotplugging
> or trying to use internal and external at once) and i guess the laptop
> makers decided it was easier to just use USB.

The PS/2 keyboard mouse splitters aren't really anything special. It's 
really the same pins for each, but one has a diode inside (don't remember 
which one). 

The PS/2 ports aren't meant to be hot-pluggable, so I'm not suprised that 
you had problems doing that. In my experience, the KEYBOARD can usually be 
unplugged, and re-plugged without problems, but not the mouse, and never 
both on a splitter. 

A friend has an older IBM thinkpad, and he tried a couple of USB-PS/2 
(mouse and keyboard) converters. One was a cheap no-name, the other was a 
COMPAQ brand. Neither worked properly UNTIL he tried a different mouse.
He was using a microsoft explorer mouse (with more than 3 buttons). Go 
figure.

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