Mouse cardWhat is a Microsoft InPort?
Bus mouse card. Will not work with a serial or PS/2 mouse - it is an old interface.
The second card looks to be an EGA card rather than a CGA.
... and complete set of original adapters for use on PS/2 or either serial port too...[/I]
**If anyone has a copy of the disk(s) that came with the setup I'd appreciate a copy please.
Am I too understand that one can use this card to connect a PS/2 mouse into an older machine?
The standard MOUSE.COM that comes with later versions of DOS does detect InPort (bus) mouses, and it is the only driver required to use them.
Mice information here. Note that the Microsoft bus mouse is essentially a passive device, much like an old joystick. All the smarts reside on the InPort microcontroller card. The PS/2 mouse, on the other hand, has the smarts in the mouse.
I never understood the Microsoft InPort mouse. Takes up a whole ISA slot, while a serial mouse only uses part of a multi-I/O serial card. No cheaper than a serial mouse either.
The bus mouse did use less CPU time than a serial mouse, a good thing with low end systems. It also left the serial port open for other uses like connecting to a mini-computer.
Measurably so? Compared to the cycles used to display the mouse pointer, the interrupt servicing time for a serial mouse driver would seem to be negligible.
Many systems by that time had capabilities for at least 2 serial ports; witness the multi-I/O card above--add a 1488, 1489 and an 8250 and you're in business. I don't think I have a vintage PC with only a single serial port.
True, it was a design destined for failure. However I think some video cards integrated the InPort design - I have one such card, an ATI Graphics Ultra something or other. It's the same jack, I haven't tried to see if it works, I'm terrified of damaging my relatively rare mouse in case it is a different "bus mouse" design. The card originally came with an ATI mouse that I can't seem to find any info about.
My experience was based on a CompuAdd 286. Unfortunately, that system gave up the ghost about 5 years ago so I can't confirm these values. What I remember was that Turbo Pascal compiles took about 10% longer with the serial mouse installed compared with the Logitech bus mouse. Additionally, using Windows 3 with a modem would often stall when the serial mouse was attached; problems that did not show up when using a bus mouse. I did connect that system via serial cable to other systems; I preferred the bus mouse to disconnecting either modem or serial cable to attach serial mouse or hoping that IRQ sharing would work this time.