PS2 mice, a vanishing breed?

Dorsetmike

Member
Just installed a KVM switch box, so I control both PCs from one K/'B, mouse and monitor. saves quite a bit of desk space and means I don't have to move around to the second PC desk, just a couple of key strokes. or push a button on the box and I've swapped PCs.

However, the switch box only has PS2 sockets for K/B and mouse and my rodents are USB, plus the switch box doesn't recognise a USB mouse connected via a USB to PS2 adapter.

Local stores, both chain and independent no longer stock them, luckily Amazon do, so on order.

I've also spent quite a time this evening looking for a PS2 mouse driver, like looking for rocking horse dung, unless you want a "Download manager", or "PC scanner" "Registry repairer" added to your download or other cr@p that sets the anti virus application off into convulsions. It's getting more and more difficult to download "free" software without having a load of other rubbish forced upon you.

Never had these problems with my Amstrad 1512 back in 1984, DR-DOS (way better than MS-DOS) 640K of RAM, no hard drive just a 5.25" and 3.5" floppies and Basic! Wordstar, for word processing, and a Seikosha dot matrix printer!

Oh and me laptop seems to have died, recently bought a new battery and hard disc for it - typical [/rant/moan/groan]
 

teddy

Duckmeister
I expect you know Mike that you can buy a little plastic box to slip your laptop hard drive into so it becomes a removable hard drive. I have done this with an old PC I had so for £10/15 I now have extra backup storage which I can also cart around with me. Waste not etc, etc

teddy
 

Dorsetmike

Member
Got 3 external drive boxes but with PC drives in not laptop. Got a few USB sticks as well, handy for sharing photos.
 

Dorsetmike

Member
[rant]
Further to looking for drivers on the web, I also wasted a few hours looking for WLAN drivers, typical experience was again download a driver update manager or some such, if one was daft enough to do that, you could gaurantee that it would find quite a few, but you had to register before you could download what you really wanted, and guess what Registration £19.99; How often are you likely to need new drivers, £19.99 for a driver -- insert expletive of choice!!? So many PC bits nowadays come from some obscure Chinese or other Asian source and chances are you won't be able to track them down to find drivers etc.

Microsloth have a download centre as do some other manufacturers offering free downloads, but unless you want something fairly recent and can quote exact item numbers, you'll be lucky to find what you want. Case in point, the two laptops I've been working on,built 2004/5 no longer on the manufacturers list, I finally had to phone them - premium rate number!!!!!!!!! -- and was given a part number for a later model which used compatible drivers that I could download for free.

Whatever happened to customer service?

It's like some of the box shifters, more interested in selling an extended warranty than selling the product. They tend to find it difficult to understand why you're walking away having not bought the item. Probably part of the problem for Comet going into admin, customers go in to look at the product, get driven away by over zealous sales person trying to flog ext warranty, so go and buy on line! [/rant]
 

Krummhorn

Administrator
Staff member
ADMINISTRATOR
I see your rants and raise you a dollar ...

Customer service has definitely flown the coop ... or it's someone on the other end of the tele that is from a foreign land that doesn't speak English very well. Their responses are 'scripted' ... they are told what to say and not deviate from the book of answers. In the good ol' days, we got to talk to a person who had years of experience working with this equipment and could get a great answer, one that really helped us.

I too loathe those over zealous commission only sales people ... they are rather annoying, and only interested in getting the sale (with the extended warranty) and earning their commission. I was in a big box place once and refused the extended warranty offered by the sales person ... when I got to the checkout counter, I was again told about extended warranties and how much better I would be off if I purchased those.

I replied "well, apparently your product isn't worth the bother ... " and turned away and walked out - without the purchase of the product. So, they lost on both accounts ... if only they had left well enough alone, they would have gotten the sale. I went somewhere else ... Crutchfield online, got a better product for less money, too ... and a 5 year manufacturers warranty included in the cost.
 

Dorsetmike

Member
Latest problem is that while sorting another problem I discovered one PC only has XP SP2, the other has SP3, so I downloaded SP3 - again! then tried to install after a short while it failed, "Internal Error" (or should that be Infernal error?) Please somebody tell me I don't have to do a complete Windoze install plus all the programmes and applications on C:

As a matter of interest in order to avoid going through all the nausea of reinstalling everything, can Windoze be installed and run from a separate partition leaving all the other goodies on the current C: partition undisturbed?
 

teddy

Duckmeister
If you do that Mike you may experience a conflict between them as I did when I connected a seperate drive with W7 to my machine using XP. Constantly fighting each other like two drunks in a sack.

teddy
 
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