20251124-ps2_and_ebay.txt

So I decided to have a little fun wasting money. Not really, but
buying another keyboard is unnecessary. I just have a dearth of PS/2
keyboards. Why? Probably because they went out of style around 20
years ago, give or take 5 years. But I really do love the idea of
INTERRUPT-based input. No polling: that's what USB keyboards and mice
do. While I have a USB female->PS/2 male converter, it doesn't like my
ergonomic keyboard from Perixx. I'm almost positive it's because the
Perixx one has multiple circuit boards taking up two USB lanes instead
of one; that's a recurring theme with Perixx keyboards I have,
although it's almost certainly because some embedded pointing device
like a topside ball mouse.

Anyway, I wanted to get a PS/2 keyboard that was ergonomic and I
prefer new ones. That's easier said than done, at least at reasonable
prices. I also, for whatever reason, prefer my keyboards have in-built
mice. I used to go for the topside optical mice, but I'm finding that
the touchpad is much simpler and easier to clean than the ball
variant... I think it's a Perixx KB I have with that which is a pain
in the neck to clean (you have to disassemble the keyboard just to
eject the ball) and I evidently have enough sebum to muck up the
situation often enough.

So I found for what I was searching on Electronic Bay. It was an old
ergo MS keyboard: I didn't care about the brand, but more the price.
It was used for around 30 USD so I bought it. The new ones are
hundreds of dollars, something I can't get behind for a keyboard, no
matter how "fancy" it is. It was PS/2 (with a USB-A converter) and it
came with some gunk on it, but I cleaned it. It's white, which has
gone a bit yellow thanks to being probably 15-ish years old. Another
reason why the price was low for the item.

Probably the funniest(?) part is that it is virtually identical to the
Perixx ergo one I already have. It's not a bad thing, but I can't help
but feel I wasted some money getting it here. I wasn't pleased with
the packaging (seriously the seller just put some trash to cushion it
and the box was falling apart and not properly closed by the time it
got to my porch). But I don't care.

The only flaw I don't like is that the numlock light is not working,
so I can't actually tell without typing what mode the numpad is using.
It also doesn't have a single riser, but that's secondary.

I also recently bought a USB touchpad. I didn't see a PS/2 variant for
sale (not that I looked very hard), but I also wanted to try it out at
my office. It's a baseline Perixx one (no, I'm not sponsored by them),
but it's pretty good. I generally don't use more gestures than
two-finger scrolling and it works for that, but not much else. Then
again, I'm sure if I had a DE there would be some more functionality
unlocked.

Anyway, it's been a while since I used the Electronic Bay and I was a
bit glad to get security warnings about signing in. At least they take
things seriously. I'm still miffed as I had my identity stolen
recently and I still haven't gotten everything patched up. I'm just
glad Thanksgiving break is in a couple days because I need some days
off after the busiest 3 months I've had since I got my new job.