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【IC】usb to ps2 adapters: preferences on chipsets and so on and so forth

类型: IC
作者: mkawa
发布时间: 2013-07-29 23:30:26
更新时间: 2013-08-01 23:16:01
原链接: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=46358.0


Folks,
as you may have seen in the krytox IC, i will be stocking some keyboard basics that the community likes to have, but isn’t quite able to get MOQ together for all the time. Proceeds from these sales will go towards funding geekhackers, which, long story short, is a legal way of funding the site and community (there, i snuck it in again! concrete example: geekhackers contributed significant funds to the cherry legends).
anyway, it seems to me that we have the following two options on USB to ps2 adapters. First, there is the ID innovations adapter: http://www.idinnovations.com/usb%20adaptors.html
this is a nice little adapter that works particularly well with model M controllers. Highlight features are that it can present itself as a USB to serial adapter, a standard USB-HID device, or a keyboard emulator that does something or other. The major plus is that it requests more power on the bus than most USB to ps2 adapters and auto-reconnects if the PS2 device is a bit finicky (as some Ms are). Pricing on these would be about 12-13$ per unit plus ship. The downside of these is that they don’t have universal compatibility. I have had reports of incompatibilities with some variations on the OTD a87 aikon variants, and some weirdo stuff that I can’t even remember.
There is also the famous “blue cube” which can be sourced from a number of factories in china. Lead times on these will probably be longer, as I will go direct to factory for these. (I source from ID for the other adapters to take advantage of their firmware). Blue cubes are physically of lower quality, and not quite as compatible with Ms, but when the ID adapters fail, a blue cube almost always works (i have no idea whether the converse is true). Pricing on this would be similar given the prices i’ve been seeing, but if I work out enough guanxi I might be able to get them down a little lower. However, I do feel quite strongly that the blue cubes universally have terrible build quality.
Note that I can only afford to stock one at first due to MOQ. Given that the ID adapters are much harder to obtain, I am leaning towards those. However, I am open to suggestions.

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