Don't Forget a PS/2 Port

Keyboards and mice used to connect to computers via a PS/2 port. Its round and resembles an S-Video port. Now, most keyboards and mice connect to a computer using USB ports. The problem with USB ports is that you need a working copy of Windows to use them.

If Windows won't start up, us computer nerds often run diagnostic utilities, many of which are DOS based and run from a bootable CD disc. I just had to run the Sea Tools hard disk diagnostic program from Seagate on a computer with hard disk problems. But I couldn't. The DOS based utility would not recognize a USB keyboard and the computer had no PS/2 port to plug in a different keyboard.

The morale of the story: when buying a desktop computer, be sure to get at least one PS/2 port. If the computer is termed "legacy free" this is a bad thing, not a good thing.