The keyboard will connect to the computer, so can’t the mouse piggy back on that wire by plugging in through the keyboard?
Edit: Turns out I just never knew they exist all over the place. Thanks! Learning a lot of cool new keyboard features out there.
Sure, many keyboards have a usb port that you can use. People tend to prefer leaving those ports open for temporary devices though (like a thumb drive) and instead plug the keyboard+mouse into the harder to reach ports on the back of the computer as they likely won’t need to move those often.
I plug my wireless mouse’s dongle on my keyboard USB port. I figure it’s the USB port that sits the closest to the mouse so least chance of interference (not that it’s ever been a problem but hey).
Interference is a legit issue, especially if there is an active USB3 port near the mouse dongle. This is because USB3 specifically does create some mild interference near the 2.4GHz range used by the wireless mouse. The back ports of the motherboard also sit with the metal box between the dongle and the mouse, blocking some of the signal. Using a box-front port, or a keyboard port as you did, helps separate the dongle from potential interference sources. Even just a few inches helps a lot.
Every Mac USB keyboard has two usb ports for the mouse, one on either side. This has been true for for like 20 years. Bluetooth kinda put an end to that for the most part, but it’s still present on the wired keyboards if you opt for one.
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During the PS-2 era Apple was using the very similar ADB plug for input devices. It was standard on Macs of the era to have ADB passthrough on the keyboards. I can’t even recall any old Macs having two ADB ports.
When they switched to USB the passthrough came with it.
I don’t recall ever seeing PS-2 passthrough, as standard.
Ok so I am so unknowledgable about keyboards. They exist all over the place. How cool :D Guess that could’ve been a google >.>
Googling everything gets boring though. I learned something today from your question :)
I think the more interesting question is why you wouldn’t want it, and why it’s a standard. Which I think has to do with flexibility, honestly. I use my keyboard on a different surface than my mouse often, and you need your mouse wire to have a surprising amount of lack and a consistent direction towards the back of your table, otherwise you get weird pulls on it and it’s more annoying to use.
The reason is probably that it costs slightly more to add an extra USB hub controller to a keyboard. Margins aren’t that great when it comes to keyboards (at the low end of the market), so unless you’re Apple you’re going to try to be cheaper than the competition.
If that were true you’d have started to see more USB passthrough for wired mice in keyboards in the past decade when keyboards went from the 30 bucks throwaway that comes with your computer and you use until it melts and into a big techie status symbol. And you probably would have seen charge USB ports already built into wireless keyboards repurposed for mouse passthrough. Neither is the case.
Instead, I’d argue that a) the erogonomics of your mouse going to your keyboard are bad, and b) wireless mice are the practical next convenient step, as opposed to daisy chaining your wired peripherals.
And here I thought that was the standard setup for everyone…
I have a keyboard that supposedly does this. It has never actually worked as advertised.
Mine is
Some external keyboards have usb slots built in that you can plug a mouse into.
There’s no reason you can’t do that. You can buy keyboards with a USB hub and attach a mouse, I had a system maybe 15 years ago setup like that.
I guess they could if the keyboard had a usb port that wasn’t just power…
what kind of usb passthrough doesn’t do data?
Shit ones.
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