Thunderbolt or 10 GbE would certainly be a welcome step forward, maybe even supplanting some of those 4,000 USB ports and d-sub / ps2 ports that mobo manufacturers are still putting out.
D-Sub is entirely a waste of space on modern motherboards if only because analog output should be part of the DVI output. I suppose an HDMI-D-Sub stack makes some sort of sense because it is slightly less wide than a DVI port but still it's pretty inexcusable.
A single PS/2 combo port (which really means a keyboard port - let's face it no one is using PS/2 mice) at least has some legitimacy and technical advantage (true n-key rollover) for the PS/2 keyboard crowd.
Can't have too many USB ports though imo. I hate seeing space wasted on half-stacks of USB 3.0 ports when there could easily be two more USB 2.0 ports on there. I used to not have too much use for tons of USB ports then I started getting more than basic I/O peripherals.
There is absolutely no need for the super ancient PS/2 connector these days. I'm amazed that new motherboards still come with it. I've not used it for years and this is also the case for many people.
USB keyboards are limited to 6 (7?) simultaneous key presses by the standard keyboard driver. High end PS2 models can go higher, which apparently can matter in some mash on the keyboard type games (presumably not having 8+ keys being pressed simultaneously but by not having minimum keystroke times resulting in a buffer overflowing).
What I don't get is why none of the premium hardware vendors don't just get together and collectively design/write drivers that support higher numbers of simultaneous key-presses. That would leave only BIOS/OS developers needing PS2 support (PS2 is much less complex to write a driver for than USB).
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jwcalla - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link
Thunderbolt or 10 GbE would certainly be a welcome step forward, maybe even supplanting some of those 4,000 USB ports and d-sub / ps2 ports that mobo manufacturers are still putting out.MadMan007 - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link
D-Sub is entirely a waste of space on modern motherboards if only because analog output should be part of the DVI output. I suppose an HDMI-D-Sub stack makes some sort of sense because it is slightly less wide than a DVI port but still it's pretty inexcusable.A single PS/2 combo port (which really means a keyboard port - let's face it no one is using PS/2 mice) at least has some legitimacy and technical advantage (true n-key rollover) for the PS/2 keyboard crowd.
Can't have too many USB ports though imo. I hate seeing space wasted on half-stacks of USB 3.0 ports when there could easily be two more USB 2.0 ports on there. I used to not have too much use for tons of USB ports then I started getting more than basic I/O peripherals.
B3an - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link
There is absolutely no need for the super ancient PS/2 connector these days. I'm amazed that new motherboards still come with it. I've not used it for years and this is also the case for many people.Agree with your other points though.
DanNeely - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link
USB keyboards are limited to 6 (7?) simultaneous key presses by the standard keyboard driver. High end PS2 models can go higher, which apparently can matter in some mash on the keyboard type games (presumably not having 8+ keys being pressed simultaneously but by not having minimum keystroke times resulting in a buffer overflowing).What I don't get is why none of the premium hardware vendors don't just get together and collectively design/write drivers that support higher numbers of simultaneous key-presses. That would leave only BIOS/OS developers needing PS2 support (PS2 is much less complex to write a driver for than USB).