Has Elbox went into old PC hardware addons now also? 😀

I'm interested!

not Elbox amigo, but the final thing will be similar to cocolino (actually same appearence) but not that expensive

keropi wrote:

not Elbox amigo, but the final thing will be similar to cocolino (actually same appearence) but not that expensive

Cool 😎

Sign me up for one, amigo

If it won't be very expensive and shipping costs will be reasonable I would be interested.

Will it support wheel mouse
I would be interested (maybe for 2)

It's hard to find serial mice which have more than two button and I don't know if there are any optical mouse which support serial protocol

keropi wrote:

There is a chance that some serial->ps2 mice adaptors will be made. Those are REAL microcontrolled ones,

You mean not the usual serial to PS2 mouse adapter?

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

keropi wrote:

There is a chance that some serial->ps2 mice adaptors will be made. Those are REAL microcontrolled ones,

You mean not the usual serial to PS2 mouse adapter?

Nope, read Keropi's post and you will know the thruth 😁

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

keropi wrote:

There is a chance that some serial->ps2 mice adaptors will be made. Those are REAL microcontrolled ones,

You mean not the usual serial to PS2 mouse adapter?

ofcourse NOT these! those are useless, the mouse has to support serial mode for those simple re-wire adaptors to work.
The ones I talk have inside a chip to translate serial->ps2 and vice versa.

I would be intersted as well as long as shipping to the USA is not to expensive.

no , shipping would be cheap, it is a very small item!

I'm interested as well, It's nice to have as many options as possible when trying to get old systems up and running again.

The ultimate adapter:
http://www.vetra.com/327text.html

Not sure how it works out, but... been contemplating buying for a couple of years now...

the ones I talk about will cost half and maybe less...

Bumping this after 3 years or so!

Was there ever any more info about this? I'm keen for an adaptor (two even!), but I don't like the price of the Vetra ones,

Keropi: You say the Microcontroller can convert in both directions. Are there also switchable boxes with 4 connectors that are able to convert PS/2 Mouse to Serial and Serial Mouse to PS/2 ?
Are there small cables extensions for the computer connection side included with the converter boxes?

Count me in too! 😀

I prefer to use a ps/2 optical mouse connected to that serial adapter, just for the sake of maintenance-free usage (no need to take care of the mouse ball and the roller pins inside). My 486 and Pentium 133 machines still use Logitech 3-button serial mice.

wow!
well, after 3 years I must admit I have only made 1 converter for a friend...

@elianda:
the controller sits in the middle of the serial-ps2 protocols and translates. it has to do 2-way translations like all adapters of this kind, the serial both sends and receives data from the ps2 mouse and the ps2 mouse both sends and receives data from the serial interface... I am not sure if it will work in the situation you described.

the adapter I made was like this: I took one of these ps2-mouse brackets that old AT boards used, soldered a small pcb with the pic on the ps2 mouse header and used a serial cable to make the connection on the mobo. In other words all u had to do was mount the bracket with the mouse plug and insert a normal serial cable on the mobo header...

I'll see if I can make more, need to research this a little 😀

Could you perhaps give me the schematics, parts list, and PIC source code? I could probably make the device myself, and save you a bit of time and effort!

I've just picked up a nice server-grade KVM switch for my retro setup, but I still have to use my homebrew mechanical switch for sharing my crappy old serial mouse.

I would be interested to test out your scheme. I second the motion to send along schematics and documentation for this conversion.

For me, the ideal 486 must have a PS/2 mouse. So if this conversion works well, it will open the door to a lot more 486 systems.

The Vetra Systems conversion box isn't that great. I own 2 varieties of them. The tracking quality isn't so smooth, but it is usable.

Could you let us know how the quality of the mouse tracking was? Was it indistinguishable from a system with native PS/2 support?

Another means of getting PS/2 working on 486 boards is to wire up the appropriate pins on the Southbridge chipset. I've noticed recently that on PS/2-enabled 486 motherboards, the pins head on over to the southbridge. Some 486 boards, which have the same chipset as the PS/2-enabled motherboards, do not, for whatever reason, have PS/2 support. So this solution would be to wire up the appripriate PS/2 pins and write a custom BIOS update to support PS/2.

If you happen to have a 486 motherborad with an available PCI slot, you could always use the USB-to-PS/2 converters, but in my opinion, you really need a 4-slot PCI motherboard to have an extra slot (10/100, SCSI, and graphics are in the other slots). I have tested USB mice in Windows NT 4.0 and they work fine.