IWETHEY v. 0.3.0 | TODO
1,095 registered users | 0 active users | 0 LpH | Statistics
Login | Create New User
IWETHEY Banner

Welcome to IWETHEY!

New "Old mouse" info request: re Early M$ mouse
[Copy of post on EZ-board]

Author friend has an early either 'Microsoft' or even 'MicroSoft' (!) era mouse - runs DOS, Word 5 etc. Local pro maintaining system observes:

1) Gender is backwards on the DB-9 connector! for one thing - bus mouse? too early for 'PS-2'. NO ID like a model #, of course.

2) Steel ball! - maybe mottled surface (suggests to me they bought large ball-bearing rejects before they were case-hardened ? then maybe acid etched.. whatever) Prolly ~1" dia.

3)Rounded but: more squarish than modern shapes. In normal position you see the "Microsoft" logo and two green - also square-but-rounded - buttons.

We imagine this was a rebranded Something, before M$ got up to speed with own stuff. "Pry out of my cold dead hands" kinda thing.. for its owner.

Q: Anyone recognize this museum piece? Have a spare? Know what board it talks to (ISA natch). Problem is to setup a spare machine - capable of talking to This mouse or hopefully - with a spare one too. Seems well-made. How do it work? Driver? Remember it's DOS only - no Win drivers need apply.

(Local pro lives down the street from Gary Kildall's old Digital Research HQ !! Worked for them once..)

Any even vague recollections welcomed..



Ashton
then I need - a head bolt for my Type 57SC Bugatti, and the tachometer pointer..
New Early MS-Mouse
Good luck, as I recall they are bus-mice as in they only ran with special adapter cards. An 8 bit ISA card IIRC. We had some at a college I was working at in the lab, Microsoft and Logictec mice, and some idiots stole the mice but didn't understand that they needed the bus cards to make them work. They never got returned. We had them on PC and PC-XT systems running Windows 3.0 or 2.0 for a while, or used a DOS driver for WP, Lotus, and other software.

The way mice are priced these days, it would be cheaper to get a $10 Generic mouse that uses a serial port and get a 9 pin to 25 pin serial port adapter for a few dollars more. You'll most likely have to hit an auction site to buy a new(used) ISA bus card for the mouse.
"I can see if I want anything done right around here, I'll have to do it myself!"Moe Howard
New Picture and info here...
[link|http://www.myoldcomputers.com/museum/perif/msmouse.htm|[link|http://www.myoldcomputers.com/museum/perif/msmouse.htm|http://www.myoldcom.../msmouse.htm]]

I have no idea how you'd go about finding what you need though...

Cheers,
Scott.
New Hmmmm, looks like a male 25 pin adapter from the photo
Was it designed to plug into the Parallel port or a special female serial/bus port?

I think BOxley may have been on to something in the old EzBoard forums. If it is a serial mouse, you could get an adapter. The guys at a local shop named "Computer Linc" used to call it a 9 pin "daddy". I flunked their tech-test because I called it a serial port adapter instead of a "daddy". Apparently when I learned computer hardware I did so by reading manuals and learning the proper terms for things, and not by assigning slang to them and futzing around to figure out how they worked. So you'll most likely need a 25 pin "mommy" to 9 pin "mommy"? I guess the "daddy" part is male, and the "mommy" part is female? Most modern motherboards have a 9 pin "daddy" connector, the older ones have the 25 pin "daddy" connector. It looks like, from the photo, that it needs a 25 pin "mommy" port. It appears to be only using a few pins on the "daddy" part.

It almost looks like an Amiga 1000 serial port, on which the gender was reversed? Good thing they fixed that with the Amiga 500 and Amiga 2000, to use almost the same serial ports as the IBM PC systems.
"I can see if I want anything done right around here, I'll have to do it myself!"Moe Howard
New yup male 25 pin serial
pin 1 ground 2 tr 3 rd 4 cts 20 dtr you will need a 9 to 25 pigtail about $9 and possibly a null modem gender bender $5 or like Orion said 10 bucks, new mouse.
thanx,
bill
can I have my ones and zeros back?
New Muchas gracias.
Wow even a picture!

Now we know what looking for - and finding an uncrushed one not already in a museum.. likely pure chance.

DTR! cts.. shades of the every-one different serial printers and the little LED box and the jumpers and.. and.. the hours. And the $5k+ NEC/ Sellum I daisywheel. Arrggghhh. Why! did I see that *($^#$ Osborne ad. And bite. Coulda saved enough hours to master the cornet, win the Isle of Man TT, become famous and retired off Fiji.

Thanks all. Now unless this pic prompts a recollection - hey! that looks just like the Kensington ___ Executive Chameleon Ratel model..


Cheers,

A.
     "Old mouse" info request: re Early M$ mouse - (Ashton) - (5)
         Early MS-Mouse - (orion)
         Picture and info here... - (Another Scott) - (2)
             Hmmmm, looks like a male 25 pin adapter from the photo - (orion)
             yup male 25 pin serial - (boxley)
         Muchas gracias. - (Ashton)

There are some who call me... Tim.
43 ms