(Pardon the title, somehow my first choice “PS/2 + USB <> KVM” really seemed too geeky.)

This week I was very fortunate to get my birthday present early, especially since it is a relatively expensive one. It was partly as a result of two of my blog entries (”XP still outsells Vista” and “Buying a PC with XP“) as I had decided on a Desktop PC with Windows XP. The problem was that Windows XP PCs may be hard to find when my birthday comes around. So now I have a shiny new Dell Desktop PC (well, not really shiny, but new).

There is a major problem though. Even though I knew that the latest Dell machines don’t have PS/2 ports for mouse and keyboard, but instead supply a USB mouse and keyboard, which take up two of the numerous USB ports , I had not really thought it through. Somehow I thought that it would be possible to connect to the existing PS/2 KVM with just two USB to PS/2 adapters. After looking at the Dell PC I realized that what I actually needed was a PS/2 to USB adapter like the Cables To Go USB To PS/2 Adapter. After some research it appeared that this might not even work. Just to get two PCs working I used an “old-fashioned” manual VGA monitor switchbox (which shares one monitor between two desktop PCs), and for the moment I’m using two sets of mice and keyboards. It looks like the best solution would be a USB KVM and a USB to Dual PS/2 Keyboard Mouse Adapter to connect my newest old PC to the USB KVM.

Of course the PS/2 I refer to above is the “PS/2 connector, an interface standard for PC mice and keyboards” not the Sony “PlayStation2″ (from Wikipedia)