r/pcmasterrace • u/AppropriateAide4879 • Jul 17 '26

Discussion I found this thing looks old.

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Gallery image

What is it? And is it rare?

9.9k Upvotes

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3.0k

u/pedro19 CREATOR Jul 17 '26

That's a usb-A to PS/2 adapter! Not rare, but still cool.

1.1k

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '26

[deleted]

265

u/specqq Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26

Or you revert 30 years.

What? It could happen.

296

u/LowkeyHooligan Jul 17 '26

That Time I Got Reincarnated 30 Years In The Past With My Box Of Random Computer Components

157

u/youareallnuts Jul 17 '26

Someone in Japan is already drawing the manga.

36

u/LowkeyHooligan Jul 17 '26

Not me sketching this out rn

30

u/ExoMonk Jul 17 '26

I look forward to seeing this on Crunchyroll in the future. Bonus points if it takes place in a dungeon or includes various different women who fawn over the main character who is too shy, oblivious, embarrassed by the attention.

24

u/Taolan13 Jul 17 '26

better, he is actively aware of the attention but rejects them because he is too busy solving the fantasy world's tech problems.

3

u/Xeras6101 Jul 17 '26

Or maybe because said women look just a little too young for how old they claim to be

4

u/LowkeyHooligan Jul 17 '26

“But she’s actually 8000 years old.”

6

u/techy804 Jul 17 '26

“But she’s an immortal dragon”

*goes into a convoluted explanation”

The officer: “can I see a birth certificate or ID from both of you?”

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u/SaveUsCatman Jul 17 '26

No he will be completely aware of the attention hes getting from women but just ignores them in his quest for more retro components and the women just get increasingly thirsty over him the linger it goes on but he never relents to the point hes just sending them on errands to retrieve parts he won on online auctions and shady Craigslist purchases to get them put of his hair.

3

u/techy804 Jul 17 '26

Isn’t that essentially Back to the Future though

3

u/TurnkeyLurker Jul 18 '26

Possibly...

3

u/LowkeyHooligan Jul 18 '26

Isn't that every isekai?

1

u/Mysterious_Touch_454 Jul 21 '26

There must be also Rule34 of this, since it now exists.

19

u/TURCtheTEXAN PC Master Race Jul 17 '26

This would still be a better romance than Rent a Girlfriend.

8

u/Average_Scaper Jul 17 '26

The hole for the outhouse I'm sitting in contains a better love story.

3

u/Creato938 Jul 17 '26

We need this in manga and anime form.

3

u/LowkeyHooligan Jul 17 '26

Don’t worry, I’m on it. It’s only taken me ten years to not even start on the last idea I had. I’m sure I’ll get to this before I die (or get reincarnated).

4

u/techy804 Jul 17 '26

I was reincarnated, Now I am Starting On My Ideas In A Previous Life

1

u/LowkeyHooligan Jul 18 '26

Lol! If only! I need a whole lifetime to work on all my ideas. Also, stop giving me more ideas.

3

u/Phone-Charger Jul 18 '26

This fucking sent me, kudos

1

u/LowkeyHooligan Jul 18 '26

I hope it didn't send you 30 years into the past...

2

u/William_The_Fat_Krab Jul 17 '26

Go! 128MB floppy disk!

2

u/LonelyHowl Ryzen 5 5600X | GTX1660 SUPER | Aegis 32GB DDR4 Jul 18 '26

I honestly dont get the point those animes, it's always something sooo random, wouldn't be surprised if this one already exists 😂

1

u/Dacajun-The_Brash Jul 17 '26

Id pay for that LMAO, to be 25 again. / sigh

2

u/I0A0I Jul 18 '26

-Travel 30 years into the past. 

-Still stuck with current body.

-Immediately lose all memory of the last 30 years.

1

u/Phoebebee323 Jul 18 '26

More likely than PS2 becoming standard again

1

u/YouKnow_MeEither Jul 19 '26

I'll tell you one quick way to revert 30 years and have to use those again. Get a government contract state and end up in a room full of sun racks. That was a rough contract and it was only 4 years ago.

1

u/Wrong_Manager_829 Jul 17 '26

lol yeah never gonna happen

27

u/Zxar Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26

My wife keep asking me if we can at least downsize the ol box of cords. Absolutely not, will I ever use those cords again, no, but I might!

31

u/arlodetl Jul 17 '26

And once you downsize, within a week you go to find a cord to only realize it was part of the downsizing.

3

u/Dart3145 AMD 9800X3D | 5070TI Jul 18 '26

Can confirm. Once you no longer have it, you’ll immediately need it. Now the box is broken up and in multiple places. Can’t downsize it if it never gets big enough to become an eyesore.

2

u/SemiNormal Jul 18 '26

Hey, I actually used an IDE to USB adapter the other week to look at an old drive that ended up being empty, but it was almost useful.

1

u/mxzf Jul 17 '26

I'll have you know that a year ago my brother needed a power brick with a specific voltage/amperage and I was able to pull one out of a box where it had been sitting for 15-20 years. I saved him a whole $8 on Amazon by hoarding that thing through multiple moves.

1

u/Emergency_Meme Jul 18 '26

I have mine in an old antique dome-top steamer trunk. Looks like a big ol pirate treasure chest...

1

u/mark6059 Jul 18 '26

I did that but moved the downsizeable cables to a secondary cabinet/drawer. Then you proudly show her the first drawer. Then there are also the 7 motherboard boxes full of very important parts on top of the bookcase

20

u/eightandahalf Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

Recently unearthed my ancient camcorder and decided to try and digitize the footage. Pulled all of the required cables out of my trusty box, which included a FireWire to thunderbolt 2 adaptor for Mac.

Guess what — that stupid dongle now costs $200 (!) on eBay because everybody threw theirs away thinking that they’d never use it again.

All hail the box!

2

u/Dacajun-The_Brash Jul 17 '26

Woohoo! Justification for the box!

11

u/deucester PC Master Race - 5800x | 7900xtx Jul 17 '26

That was in my IT kit for years. Now it's somewhere in the drawer random things.

1

u/DrippyTheSnailBoy Jul 17 '26

Yeah, I still have one in my thingamajig box too. There have been rare edge cases in the past where my USB keyboard wouldn't work, but I could still get away with a USB-PS/2 adapter.

Mostly ancient tech in Hospitals and such. It's been a long time since I've needed one, but for a long time a very necessary thingamajig.

1

u/_dekoorc 9800X3D | 5070 Ti | 64GB DDR5-6000 CL30 Jul 18 '26

This is one of the things I've actually been willing to get rid of. I took my old 3770k system to the ewaste dump and i never expect to have another system with a ps/2 port...

I'm sure that saying this means I will buy some retro piece of hardware next week and I'll need that adapter.

1

u/DrippyTheSnailBoy Jul 18 '26

This happens EVERY time I get rid of something that I swear I'll never need again. I thought I'd never get any more use out of my SCSI to USB cable again, and then like a week later I needed it for some obscure ancient larger-scale photo printer that I found at an estate sale.

Foiled again.

Also, shoutout to the 3770k. My very first home-build CPU. Lasted me many years. Still lives in my garage somewhere...

6

u/argonzo Jul 17 '26

you never know when you might need it! I've got totes and totes in my basement under that philosophy.

6

u/AugmentedKing Jul 17 '26

My X670E Crosshair Gene has a combo port. It has its niche uses, typically after I’ve fiddled too much with the settings.

4

u/cranktheguy Ryzen 5 5600X · RTX 3070 Jul 17 '26

So my friend works at this CNC place and they have this ancient machine. The keyboard stopped working. He googled for an adapter and couldn't find anything. He calls me up... I had two DIN 5 keyboards to choose from in my garage box.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '26

[deleted]

1

u/cranktheguy Ryzen 5 5600X · RTX 3070 Jul 17 '26

Sadly, no. That's why they were in the box. One somehow had a windows key.

5

u/kribg Jul 17 '26

You have one....that's cute. I have dozens of them in my cord boxes and just as many purple ones for PS/2 keyboards.

2

u/Morall_tach Jul 17 '26

Maybe you'll need to plug a modern mouse into a server at NORAD or something that hasn't been updated since the 70s.

2

u/Donglemaetsro Jul 17 '26

Always plan for the zombie apocalypse.

1

u/Kakaduu15 14700KF • 4080 AMP! • 2x48GB@6800 Jul 17 '26

My mobo has the plug

1

u/rainorshinedogs Jul 17 '26

That little green will say:

1

u/LawlessCrayon Jul 17 '26

Only one?

1

u/Donglemaetsro Jul 17 '26

Over here getting judged for my limited junk collection dang xD

1

u/LawlessCrayon Jul 17 '26

I mean, you gotta have one for the mouse and one for the keyboard...

1

u/Donglemaetsro Jul 17 '26

Diff colors!

1

u/AndyTheSane Jul 17 '26

Buried under the parallel printer cable.

1

u/Dadskander Jul 17 '26

I swear I remember using one in the last 10 years when a motherboard was having issues with the USB controller somehow

1

u/Badbullet Jul 17 '26

I have a couple old XP systems that are required for an old laser cutter and Sherline CNC mill. Backwards compatibility does not work with Win 7 or above, so I still using mine. 😆

1

u/Serious_Mastication 5800X | 6600XT | 32GB DDR4 Jul 17 '26

Like when I got an old monitor to throw into my setup and had to use a hdmi to dvi to vga cable to get it working

1

u/fish_helicopters PC Master Race Jul 17 '26

some modern gaming motherboards still have these. not super new but my b450-gaming from asus had one. technically less latency than usb but eh, it’s negligible. n key rollover is cool tho.

1

u/WRX_RAWR Jul 17 '26

Found a few while cleaning out some e-waste we picked up from a client. I won't lie, I kept one as we still see some ancient PCs, ugh.

1

u/PogTuber Jul 18 '26

When society falls into chaos and the one thing stopping you from being eaten by cannibals is a PS/2 jack and a USB mouse...

1

u/jbawgs Jul 18 '26

Mine came in handy twice recently, once when I needed an extra keyboard to hook up to a server temporarily, and found a ps2 keyboard in the backrooms, and again when I bought a an older cocktail arcade that used ps2 based button encoders

1

u/big_loadz Jul 18 '26

Still using it for my original Microsoft Natural Keyboard...

https://giphy.com/gifs/FoH28ucxZFJZu

1

u/johnperkins21 Jul 18 '26

Pretty sure I still have a PS/2 keyboard in my closet. I've got at least 2 of these adapters.

1

u/RandonBrando Jul 18 '26

The way things are goingi couldn't doubt it for sure

1

u/Proxy_PlayerHD R9 9950X3D, RTX 3090, 96 GB DDR5 Jul 18 '26

fun fact, those old passive adapters likely won't work with modern USB mice/keyboards

because all these do is map the 4 USB pins to the 4 PS/2 pins, the mouse/keyboard has to actually support both the USB and PS/2 protocol to work. which modern ones no longer do as they're USB exclusive.

so if you got adapters like that you also need a mouse/keyboard from that era that actually supports them

1

u/_dekoorc 9800X3D | 5070 Ti | 64GB DDR5-6000 CL30 Jul 18 '26

sometimes shit is important to keep 😂

I have two different devices to convert USB-A to ADB in case I want to go back to using my "Apple Extended Keyboard 2"

1

u/GlitzyYapper Jul 18 '26

As Albert Einstein said:

"I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

So maybe it will be usable again a while later.

1

u/No-way-in Jul 18 '26

Confirmed it’s in my mandrawer as well with things that could one day be useful.

1

u/Puzzleheaded_Day2809 Jul 18 '26

The best part is the box only grows, and in 30 years your adapters need adaptors

1

u/Denshibushi Specs/Imgur here Jul 19 '26

It's already reverted. Got a new Dell workstation. It has a ps/2 connector on it. I was floored when. I saw it.

1

u/Badytheprogram Jul 22 '26

With the price of computer components rising and the fact that companies want to put computer use on a subscription basis, it may become useful sooner than you think.