anyone have a Razer Tarantula keyboard?

[d0l0mite]

Read some of the idiotic Newegg reviews and they said "it's USB 1.1!" but one review said it was 2.0, besides that I can't find any specs on which is it.

I don't see how any new product could possibly be USB 1.1, but before I drop $100 bucks on a damn keyboard I'd like to be sure. Also I've read (newegg reviews mind you) that it's first detected as a USB Hub then a Keyboard, so basically you can't get into your BIOS with it. Not really excited with the idea of having to keep a 2nd keyboard around just when I need to tweek my BIOS.

 

[43st]

One can enter the BIOS just fine with a USB keyboard, safe mode is another story. As for USB 1.1 or 2.0... who cares? If it works and it's fast it can be gerbil powered for all I care.

Enermax also makes a slick keyboard with USB connections.

 

[Peter]

The question isn't whether it's USB 2.0 ... it may well be and still not support High Speed. You can make a device compliant to 2.0 standard without supporting HighSpeed (480 Mbit/s).

Now, given that keyboard and mouse are Low Speed devices (1.5 Mbit/s), you'll generally find that the hubs in keyboards are Low/Full Speed (1.5/12 Mbit/s) only.

Now, BIOS. Keyboard-on-hub is generally supported here, at least if it isn't a very early USB-supporting BIOS from five or six years ago.

 

[shortylickens]

Sweet jesus man!
Do you really think a keyboard needs 480 Megabits per second!?!??

 

[Peter]

Of course the keyboard itself doesn't. The stuff you plug into its hub ports might - things like cameras, MP3 players and memory sticks being the usual suspects you'd like to plug into an easily accessible port.

 

[d0l0mite]

Originally posted by: shortylickens
Sweet jesus man!
Do you really think a keyboard needs 480 Megabits per second!?!??

haha no I don't think you need 480mb for a keyboard, but having an accessable port on it for my flash drive would be a huge plus, unless it's 1.1 then they can keep it.

I don't really care about if it's 2.0 hi or full speed, my Flash drive is only like 20mb I believe so even full speed would be decent enough for my needs.

 

[43st]

Originally posted by: Peter
Of course the keyboard itself doesn't. The stuff you plug into its hub ports might - things like cameras, MP3 players and memory sticks being the usual suspects you'd like to plug into an easily accessible port.

Those connections aren't parsed by the keyboard, they're just passed straight onto the USB bus. They're only limited by the speed of your PC's USB tech at that point.

 

[Peter]

Care to read the original post? It's about keyboards with integrated USB hubs, and the (actual) question is, are these hubs high speed capable?

(There is no "passing straight to the USB bus", simply because USB is not a bus - it's star topology point-to-point. Thus, if you want outgoing ports on a device, you need to integrate a hub.)

 

[43st]

Originally posted by: Peter
Care to read the original post? It's about keyboards with integrated USB hubs, and the (actual) question is, are these hubs high speed capable?

(There is no "passing straight to the USB bus", simply because USB is not a bus - it's star topology point-to-point. Thus, if you want outgoing ports on a device, you need to integrate a hub.)

USB = Universal Serial Bus, and copper is copper. A hub is just a fancy way of jamming a bunch of wire leads in a terminal block and splitting it out to multiple devices. A powered hub just maintains proper voltage, it doesn't muck with the data. You're not losing any speed due to the keyboard.

 

[d0l0mite]

I beg to differ, I have an old ass D-link Hub that's definitely only 1.1

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: 43st

Originally posted by: Peter
Care to read the original post? It's about keyboards with integrated USB hubs, and the (actual) question is, are these hubs high speed capable?

(There is no "passing straight to the USB bus", simply because USB is not a bus - it's star topology point-to-point. Thus, if you want outgoing ports on a device, you need to integrate a hub.)

USB = Universal Serial Bus, and copper is copper. A hub is just a fancy way of jamming a bunch of wire leads in a terminal block and splitting it out to multiple devices. A powered hub just maintains proper voltage, it doesn't muck with the data. You're not losing any speed due to the keyboard.

Sorry, you don't have the faintest clue about the topic. Hubs do contain data processing logic for their host and peripheral ports, and this logic is either HighSpeed capable or it isn't.

Since I happen to own such a keyboard, here's an example.

Terra:/dev # lsusb -t
/: Bus 04.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=ehci_hcd/8p, 480M
---|__ Port 8: Dev 3, If 0, Class=stor., Driver=usb-storage, 480M
/: Bus 03.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=ohci_hcd/2p, 12M
/: Bus 02.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=ohci_hcd/3p, 12M
/: Bus 01.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=ohci_hcd/3p, 12M
---|__ Port 1: Dev 3, If 0, Class=hub, Driver=hub/3p, 12M
--------|__ Port 1: Dev 4, If 1, Class=HID, Driver=usbhid, 12M
--------|__ Port 1: Dev 4, If 0, Class=HID, Driver=usbhid, 12M
--------|__ Port 2: Dev 5, If 0, Class=HID, Driver=usbhid, 1.5M
--------|__ Port 3: Dev 6, If 0, Class=HID, Driver=usbhid, 1.5M

Don't get hooked on how it says "bus" there - on a data packet level it is, but electrically it is not, as I said before. All star topologies share that fact.

As it happens, each root port and each hub port have just the port itself plus one device - it's point-to-point. (Some devices have multiple representations, like 1:1:4.)

Notice how the keyboard on bus 1 port 1 has a (not 480M capable) three-port hub as the device that actually connects to the port, and behind that hub you find the keyboard and extra buttons (dev 4 interface 0/1), as well as the mouse and gamepad connected to its hub ports (devices 5 and 6). HID means Human Interface Device btw.

Summary of today's lesson:
USB uses a star topology. Hubs are active logic.

 

[43st]

Ok... I see what my misunderstanding was. I was caught up just on the physical wiring aspect, not the circuit behind it. Sorry to lend to the confusion and thanks for your comments Peter.

EDIT: In fact I have no idea what I was talking about last night. Maybe Cresnet or Axlink, but certainly not USB.