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Using a mouse on a Toshiba T3200SX

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shavo11

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Sep 9, 2015
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17
Location
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
I recently got a Toshiba T3200SX and was wondering how I would go about using a mouse on it. Its running DOS 5.00 and Windows 3.1. I took pictures of all the ports and the expansion slots/bay 20150901_230111.jpg20150901_230712.jpg20150908_224840.jpg20150908_224912.jpg20150908_224955.jpg
 
You could hook up a serial mouse to one of the serial ports.

If I remember correctly T3200sx could take ISA cards, so a bus mouse is possible.
 
It might work if the mouse supports it (hard to tell). If you have the adapter handy then try it, but generally you should be able to find a serial mouse off ebay or similar for a cheap price.
You'll often find MOUSE.COM on machines of that era, but almost any mouse driver will work with a simple two button MS compatible mouse on a serial port.

Being ISA, you can add a sound card quite easily too, so they aren't bad little DOS gamer machines.

Edit: just noticed it has Windows 3.1 you don't need MOUSE.COM for Windows, it'll have it's own mouse driver. You'll need the driver for DOS stuff. I always found this model a little slow in 3.1 so I took it off mine to free up disk space, they absolutely fly in MS DOS.
 
Depends on the mouse. Most of the period (early 1990s) mice would work with an adapter. Later mice are less likely to work. USB mice that accept PS/2 adapters will not work if the PS/2 adapter is plugged into a serial adapter.
 
Thanks again guys. I believe I did see MOUSE.COM in the dir. I read somewhere that in order for the mouse to work with the adapter it needs to be a "combo" mouse meaning it will send the signal or something over both PS/2 and Serial. I don't have the adapter yet but the guy I mentioned said he might know where I can get an adapter or/and a serial mouse in town (the shipping to Canada for either of those items is expensive for some reason)

I might add a sound card at some point. It doesn't seem slow to me in windows 3.1 but you are right, it is incredibly fast in DOS.

I also got an earlier Toshiba T1200XE from him which has a line port for internet, unfortunately the T3200SX does not have one installed but I have the option of putting a card in
 
Got my optical serial mouse in the mail today, works like a charm! :cool: It was literally plug and play into the serial port and how great it is to use an optical mouse over a ball mouse. Now that thats over with, can any one link me to a sound card I can put in?
 
All ISA cards "should" work since the T3200 is listed to come with one 8-bit and one 16-bit ISA slot. However, in your photo i think i can only see an 8-bit ISA slot which would limit the number of sound cards available. You should check first if the 16-bit ISA slot can be used, then you could buy pretty much "any" ISA sound card...
 
Yes, sorry it was a bad picture of the slots I didn't get the 16-bit one in the shot.
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Forgive my lack of knowledge, will I need to install any drivers?
Also some of them look much wider or/and longer than others, how will I determine which will fit?
 
You will need drivers for a sound card.

The most common size for an ISA sound card is half length but full height. Some low profile and trapezoidal cut cards might be an easier fit but those cards are rarer. Some of the cards that have both IDE controller and memory slots will be longer. The card I have out of a computer is 5 inches high by 4 inches long.
 
You will not need drivers for a sound card.

Pretty much all sound cards from the ISA/DOS era were sound blaster compatible and/or adlib compatible. DOS games would not need drivers, you would typically pick a compatible card (e.g. "Sound blaster pro" etc) and the parameters like IRQ chanel, I/O port etc. - if the game didn't offer to auto-detect such settings.

The only notable exception that really needs a driver is if you run windows. From the picture I'd say it's a full size 16-bit ISA slot, so all cards would fit.
 
kyodai said:
You will not need drivers for a sound card.
Click to expand...

The prominent exceptions I can think of to that rule are late model "ISA PnP" cards (Creative made a number of them) and a few other jumperless oddballs. (The fairly popular MediaVision ProAudio Spectrum card required a driver to assign IRQ/DMA/PORT assignments to its onboard hardware, including the Soundblaster Pro emulation. What distinguishes the PAS from the PnP soundblaster cards is the PAS' method of autoconfig is proprietary while the Soundblaster cards will be seen and understood by at least some machines with ISA PnP BIOS support. Granted a Toshiba 3200 isn't going to fall into that category.) The PnP Soundblaster cards seem to be worth less on eBay, etc, than the "real" ones, at least according to the little research I've done on the subject. So if you're willing to deal with running a DOS PnP wedge you might save a few bucks.
 
The slot looks small from that little panel, but once you remove the back panel off the machine you'll see it's the same size you'd get in a full desktop PC. In my T3200SX I run an ESS based generic-no-name brand sound card in the 16 bit slot, and a D-Link DE220 network card in the 8 bit slot (these are 16 bit cards, but are easily configured with software to do just fine in an 8 bit).

I would however, just get a plain boring 16 bit sound card, I don't think there is a need to go out and get something like an AWE32 with memory sticking out of it - just a generic sound card that is SBPro or SB16 compatible and you'll be away laughing.
 
@SpidersWeb can you link me to the card you are using if there is one on ebay? It looks like I can get that D-Link card for a reasonable price, I'm going to order that too.
Thanks for all the info and suggestions guys :bow:
 
I use a D-Link220s in a couple of my older systems as well and can confirm the perform quite well.

Some ISA jumperless sound cards work a damn sight better than others. One particular ESS card, the ESS ES1868F, to quote a Vogons poster with regards to his 286 build;

"ESS ES1868F soundcard. Those have the opinion of being cheap and boring, but I personally like this model. I`ve installed many of them in many PCs of that time for my customers. Those cards were always troublefree, no TSRs, simple and intuitive config utility, great DOS and Windows compatibility. I never had any problem with these cards. This is why I`ve picked it for the build. "
 
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