Hi - this board is brilliant, and includes its own USB controller chip, and the unit supports USB keyboards and mice at MMBASIC level.

As this board uses a dedicated USB interface chip, does that mean it will work/detect a keyboard/mouse combo set thing?

You know - the kits that consist of a keyboard and a mouse, and ONE single USB dongle that works with both the keyboard AND the mouse.

Do these(or are these) expected to work via the USB controller chip, or do I still need to use discrete USB devices - a separate keyboard and a separate mouse, on two of the USB sockets?

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Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!

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ONE single USB dongle that works with both the keyboard AND the mouse.

I have a couple, one is an old Logitech version of that but it requires its own driver, Windows only.
Don't use it any more, too unreliable, missed keystrokes and mouse pointer jumps unpredictably.

An even older Microsoft one is worse.

Wires just work!

Gotcha, sounds about right.
I will use separate wired USB keyboard and wired USB mouse.
Both are Raspberry PI branded, so they should work as they are talking to a RP processor!

Well, not STRICTLY, as the USB controller sits in the middle, but......

Separate units it is then.
I was only asking, as I was about to buy a combo thing-y, but now I won't take the risk.

Others may have better experience with newer ones that they could recommend.

I doubt if a simple USB stack will handle those dongles. The USB stack is running on the Pico, not the interface chip. That is merely a USB hub.

*if* the USB stack on the Pico can be persuaded to see the combined keyboard/mouse as a USB hub with two connected devices then it might work, but I don't know if those dongles work like that. You are reaching the limit of two hubs on the Pico.

Understood.

Basically, the same as the CMM2G2 - no multi-USB thing-y's supported.

Gotcha.  

G'day Graeme,
Most of the wireless keyboard / mouse combo units I have here work happily with the Pico-Computer board via its inbuilt hub, the success rate seems to be around 90%

Perrixx - 100% success (5)
Rii - 100% success (4)
Jaycar - 50% (1 works / 1 is crap)
Unbranded - 3 work / 1 doesn't

Most of these are Combo Keyboard + Trackpad but one Perrixx unit has a Mouse and Keyboard with 1 dongle and works fine.

Best bet is if it says either "No Drivers Required" or "Compatible with WIN98/WINXP" as everything should be compatible with WINXP anyway

Let me know if you need specifics.

Regards, Lyle.

Logitech Y-R0055(K400 Plus) laptop style keyboard and touch-pad works fine.
Both the KB and the mouse, are detected fine by the hub chip and by extension, MMBASIC itself.  Entering the editor, I can move the cursor around with the touch-pad.  






Edited 2026-05-05 15:47 by Grogster

The fact that this works AT ALL, makes me wonder.....

Is the HUB chip reporting TWO separate devices to MMBASIC, which is why it works fine, or is MMBASIC actually working out this is a combo device?

I'm inclined to go for the former, as it has been stated that MMBASIC's USB stack simply does not have the ability to work that out for itself - but if the HUB chip was reporting two separate USB devices to MMBASIC.....

Perhaps we have more compatibility here then we realize via the HUB chip.  

Maybe you can find out by on your Linux box and plug in the USB dongle.

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as it has been stated that MMBASIC's USB stack simply does not have the ability to work that out for itself

Who by? Not me.

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Perhaps we have more compatibility here then we realize via the HUB chip

The hub chip is just a hub

TinyUSB for the RPs is far ahead of the STM32 USB stack used in the CMM2. I have configured it to support two hubs to allow things like a RaspBerry Pi keyboard which has an inbuilt hub to be used. So you can connect a mouse to the keyboard and the keyboard to the Pico.
In addition TinyUSB supports composite devices which present themselves to MMBasic as two separate, independent devices even though they share a single physical USB cable.

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TinyUSB for the RPs is far ahead of the STM32 USB stack used in the CMM2.

Ahhhhh!

That will be it.

For some reason, I assumed that the PM series used the same USB stack as that in the CMM2.
Not sure where I got that from, but that was what I was thinking, and I know that the CMM2 does not support hubs, so that looks like where I went off the rails.