First post, by videogamer555
I have noticed that while there is a sort of hack that lets you use a PS2 mouse (the type of mouse emulated by DOSbox) in Windows 1.0x release versions (replace its mouse driver MOUSE.DRV with the file of the same name from windows 2.xx), there is no equivalent for this hack in Windows 1.0 Beta version. It uses a driver called MOUSE.EXE, and it does not work to simply rename MOUSE.DRV to MOUSE.EXE (even though they both appear to be executable files, and the first two bytes are the characters MZ in both files). I tried it, and the Windows 1.0Beta installer locks up.
And guess what type of mouse is the default for ancient versions of Windows. It's the serial mouse. The serial mouse is a type of mouse that DOSbox does not emulate (at least not in its normal form, though a mod of DOSbox does). However I don't want to have to keep switching between versions of DOSbox depending on what type of software I want to run. Therefore, I am requesting that in the developers create in the official version of DOSbox, an option that will be accessable in DOSbox.conf, that will allow me to set which form of mouse is being emulated (better yet include a DOSbox command for it, just as "ver set" lets me set the version number of DOS while running DOSbox). The reason for the option of emulating a serial mouse is very clear. There is currently no way to use a mouse in Beta Windows 1.00 (or an unhacked version of standard Windows 1.01) in DOSbox. I'm guessing that there may be other very early pieces of DOS software out there that also won't work with anything other than a serial mouse.
DOSbox developers, for the sake of increasing compatibility with the oldest of DOS software, please include an option for emulation of a serial mouse when you release your next version of DOSbox (0.75).
