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Getting serial mouse to work through parallel port

Chuck(G) said:
Strictly speaking, a PS/2 mouse is a serial mouse... :)
Click to expand...

Certainly, sure, but a flavor of serial that’s directly TTL friendly, which is an advantage.

(Also if you don’t happen to have one already, which granted probably most of the people reading this do, RS-232 serial mice are getting a little thin on the ground. Last I checked you could still get a rotgut cheap PS/2 mouse on Amazon.)
 
Okay, so if the voltages are incompatible, then I’m glad I didn’t have it plugged in for long.

Intuitively, I don’t think there was anything that should have made me doubt that it was possible. Both ports are intended for customizable 2-way data transfer, as exhibited by null modem transfers (and my recent experience using File Maven to transfer files en masse between my vintage computers).

If I need to buy an ISA card to gain the serial port, then that may or may not be something I do. I’ll put it on my list. Thanks for the info.
 
Hang on, though. Where do I buy these $10 ISA boards with serial ports? The few I see on eBay are at least $30-$40. Please provide specific link if possible.
 
You just have to know what to search for. Not every eBay seller is an expert on vintage ISA cards. So they’ll just list whatever is written on the card, which might not be much. IBM called their original card “async” and a lot of cards were called I/O or multi I/O.


Here is an original IBM card:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Async-I-O-I...-/154654800836

here are some aftermarket:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Viv...-/372908381680

https://www.ebay.com/itm/DIO-500-Mul...-/132566090012

Links provided with no warranty of suitability, etc.
 
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