PS/2 KB+Mouse Y-cable (2 x PS/2 to 1 x PS/2) for motherboards with 2-color single PS/2 port?

[DaveSimmons]

Many motherboards, especially gamer-oriented ones, still include a single PS/2 port with it colored purple + green to indicate it supports both keyboards and mice.

Of the several I've owned, none included a Y-cable for if you want to use both.

Has anyone had luck using a Y-cable, and can you point to a specific model at Newegg or Amazon? The motherboard I want to use it with is an ASRock Z370 Extreme Pro4.

Most of the cables I found with a search said they were for some old motherboard and had people saying they didn't work on anything else.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I've seen them on older laptops too. I thought that the PS/2 cable Y-cable was standardized, so I'm slightly surprised to hear that it could be mobo-specific. Especially, using the PC'97 coloring scheme, which is supposed to indicate standard ports / pinouts.

OTOH, I've seen those dual PS/2-to-single-USB adapters, to use a PS/2 mouse + keyboard, on a single USB2.0 port. Those work pretty well, in my experience. As long as you don't go too cheap on them. (Firmware can differ.)

 

[DaveSimmons]

I could just buy one or two and try them, but it would be nice to know I'm not throwing away money. The motherboard manuals I've looked at don't discuss using a Y-cable, they assume you only want to attach one device.

In my case the PS/2 cable is from an old KVM switch. I'm using those PS/2 to USB adapters now but there are minor glitches like a keypress starts repeating endlessly, or a key or two is dropped. I was hoping getting rid of the PS/2 to USB conversion would fix that.

 

[OTG]

I've been using one of these with my Unicomp Classic Trackball.
Seems to do the trick.