You know how you can date a global or map by looking for specific countries?
Well, fun fact: If you have a keyboard that's like 15-25 years old, you can tell if it's from the Clinton Era or the George W. Bush era by looking for this one sticker:
You know how you can date a global or map by looking for specific countries?
Well, fun fact: If you have a keyboard that's like 15-25 years old, you can tell if it's from the Clinton Era or the George W. Bush era by looking for this one sticker:
I don't have the exact dates on hand (because I heard this second hand), but during the Clinton Administration the law changed so that workers could claim Workers Comp if they developed RSI/Carpal Tunnel from typing on Bad Keyboards their job gave them.
So employers started buying keyboards which had this warning about RSI on the back, with a label on the front. I believe the law also required employers to buy ergonomic keyboards for workers with RSI.
and then the George W. Bush administration reversed this situation.
So keyboards only had these labels on them for a brief few years, around 1999-2002
@gistofspirit @mwichary nah. Usb supports it as well. Both let you send arbitrary scancodes, so support for "multimedia" keys (which includes those) was equal
@mwichary @foone
Unless I'm mistaken, this was just the relatively short time in which PS/2 (which allowed these functions) was the way to connect a keyboard, before USB (which doesn't allow these functions) took over.
@foone Also Windows 98 (I think?) had these three new power/sleep keys, so it was the darkest timeline.
@gistofspirit @mwichary oh I see what you mean, I thought you just meant if the devices could support the buttons at all.
I think some motherboards support a sort of low-level keyboard support even when off that supports that? But I'm not sure.
@foone @mwichary
I was thinking more along the lines of the MB not being able to receive signals through USB when "off", while it can from PS/2. I guess that's not the case?
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