On Sat, Sep 04, 2004 at 07:14:30PM -0700, Paul Johnson wrote: > Pigeon <jah.pigeon@ukonline.co.uk> writes: > > > Sorry, but I have to disagree. I've booted PS/2 systems without keyboards > > and plugged them in later, without any problem. > > You have weird hardware, then. 8:o) Off the top of my head... Intel 440BX, VIA 82CXXX, SiS 746FX all do it without complaint. The PS/2 interface is so electrically simple that there's really no reason why hot-plugging it shouldn't work, as long as the keyboard has a sufficiently long reset delay that it doesn't come alive before the "cchhcccch" of making the connection has finished. This is not always the case - I've done it with a Dell keyboard where apparently the keyboard's own microcontroller crashes due to dirty power lasting longer than the reset delay, and can be brought back to life by unplugging it for a few seconds then plugging it in again more deftly. Having said that I guess it would be possible to incorporate the assumption that the interface wouldn't be hot-plugged into the design in such a way that it became inescapable. Probably wouldn't happen if I was designing it but not everybody thinks like me. :-) -- Pigeon Be kind to pigeons Get my GPG key here: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x21C61F7F
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