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386 and serial mouse - funny problem here

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pauls640

Member
Joined
Sep 24, 2013
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48
Location
Italy
Hello everyone,

I have a strange issue trying to get a serial mice to work on my 386 system...

The box has a GA-386UM mobo, runnung a AMD DX40 processor, with 4 MB Ram onboard.

I tried swapping two differend ISA multi/io cards, both offering two serial cards, parallel, ide, fdc.

BUT interestingly, four serial mouses (tested on other systems) don't work. AND, both multi/io card work on other systems (used them to use serial mouse on my test 486)

The serial ports are recognized correctly, but mouse not. The dos driver loads up, but, only the cursor shows up, no movement.

I suspect this is a common issue I have here, but I was unable to find a solution, so I ask you guys if you have some advice!

Thanks

Paul
 
Could there be on-board serial ports that you need to disable in the BIOS?

Check the logic board for 8 pin headers. You might have an existing serial port or mouse port on the logic board. Check near the keyboard connector.
 
Al Hartman said:
Could there be on-board serial ports that you need to disable in the BIOS?.
Click to expand...
There are none on this board.

dorkbert said:
how did you verify the serial ports are working correctly? did you run a loop back test?
Click to expand...
He didn't, he just said they were recognized. Checkit will perform a loopback test. Of course, you need the loopback device. They're not that hard to make from a serial cable -- even I was able to make one and a parallel loopback as well but I used 25 conductor ribbon cables.
 
Pauls640

Assuming you are using MS-DOS, find MSD.EXE and determine what address your serial ports are using:


Serial Port 1 = 3F8 – 3FF
Serial Port 2 = 2F8 – 2FF
Serial Port 3 = 3E8 – 3EF
Serial Port 4 = 2E8 – 2EF

Ensure that your mouse driver (mouse.exe if autoexe.bat or mouse.com if config.sys) is loading and the path is correct. You should see a notification when you boot that the mouse has loaded.
 
Also, note that mouse drivers depend upon serial interrupts being configured properly. If you've forgotten to jumper them to the expected IRQs (IRQ4 for COM1; IRQ3 for COM2) or have configured them for some other interrupt (and not told the mouse driver about it), you'll get no action.
 
Al Hartman said:
Could there be on-board serial ports that you need to disable in the BIOS?

Check the logic board for 8 pin headers. You might have an existing serial port or mouse port on the logic board. Check near the keyboard connector.
Click to expand...

Nope, there are no mouse ports or serial ports onboard :(
 
Ok, I run msd, here's the results,

COM1, 3f8, irq 4, 1200 baud 8 bit no parity. (mouse is connected here)
COM2, 2f8, irq 3, 2400 and same as above.

Mouse driver loads and says mouse connected to com1 3f8 irq 4, BUT msd says: no mouse detected.

I tried the mouse driver from PCDOS 6.1 and says : NO Mouse found. (IBM knows :D)
 
quote_icon.png
Originally Posted by dorkbert
how did you verify the serial ports are working correctly? did you run a loop back test?

pauls640 said:
No, no need for it, because a mouse works on them when installed on other systems.
Click to expand...
You still need to run the test on this system.
 
I think he's asking if you can add a PS/2 port for a mouse to a system via a ISA card. I dont think so, or at least I've never seen or heard of one. That would be real convienent though. I prefer laser mice and finding a seriel laser mouse that acually works acually is tricky
 
smeezekitty said:
Not sure if this would work or not: http://www.ebay.com/itm/ISA-Card-to-PS-2-Port-EPC-Buscard-1-/360760693652?_trksid=p2054897.l4275
It sure would be useful because I can find PS/2 mice by the truckload but serial mice not so much.
Click to expand...

Wish they had a picture of the connector. From the side, it is impossible to tell the difference between a PS/2 port and the various circular bus mouse connectors.

Bus mice have several problems. It is difficult to find both a bus mouse card and bus mouse that work together. Win 95 dropped support for bus mice and some early Linux versions will need to be recompiled for bus mouse support.
 
smeezekitty said:
Not sure if this would work or not: http://www.ebay.com/itm/ISA-Card-to-PS-2-Port-EPC-Buscard-1-/360760693652?_trksid=p2054897.l4275
It sure would be useful because I can find PS/2 mice by the truckload but serial mice not so much.
Click to expand...

Eheh funny, I've got plenty of serial mice yet this 386 wont accept none :)

Anyway, no joy with COM2 either. Too bad, I can't test the mainboard throgh PC-Check, some sectors of the boot floppy are unreadable. I'll go get a new image from vetusware...

If the mainboard is faulty, like someone pointed out, it's a real problem. Can't use a 386 without a mouse!!
 
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