They could be, but that wasn’t standard behavior. When laptops started to become a thing it was realized that having hot swappable peripherals made too much sense to ignore, so some devices had improved ps/2 ports and controllers that could do that.

I genuinely don’t see the problem with those. Amber lights on the left side of the car light up, that can only mean one thing. There is no ambiguity there whether they’re playing snake or just flashing. I have never, on no occasion, found myself confused by those.