Steapa wrote on 2020-10-14, 21:46:

So I was thinking... can I unplug the game port from that COM port and plug in the serial connector instead? Would it work?

Game ports and serial ports are completely different hardware. So, no – unless that's not really a game port. Have you been able to use a joystick or joypad with it?

You might be able to plug the COM port into one of the other headers on the controller card, provided it has the right pinout. Does your computer detect a serial port on the card? (It should be able to detect it regardless of whether there is actually something connected to it.)

Jorpho wrote on 2020-10-14, 22:42:

Steapa wrote on 2020-10-14, 21:46:

So I was thinking... can I unplug the game port from that COM port and plug in the serial connector instead? Would it work?

Game ports and serial ports are completely different hardware. So, no – unless that's not really a game port. Have you been able to use a joystick or joypad with it?

You might be able to plug the COM port into one of the other headers on the controller card, provided it has the right pinout. Does your computer detect a serial port on the card? (It should be able to detect it regardless of whether there is actually something connected to it.)

Yes, I used a joystick on it and it worked fine. It has 15 pins if I recall correctly.

The bios detect two serial ports: 3F8 and 2FB.

Steapa wrote on 2020-10-14, 21:46:

I have this ISA controller card with a parallel and game port: […]
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I have this ISA controller card with a parallel and game port:

I already have one game port on my sound card and I want to use a mouse with this build.
So I removed a serial port from a broken controller card:

So I was thinking... can I unplug the game port from that COM port and plug in the serial connector instead? Would it work?

No, you can not unplug the game port from the controller card and expect your serial cable to work at the same electric connection. But there are two connections for serial ports directly behind the parallel connector. If your serial cable is of the right type (there are two incompatible pin-outs, the older one mostly used with controller cards and the newer one mostly used with onboard ports on late 486 and Pentium mainboard), it will work at either of those connectors. One will be COM1 and one will be COM2.

mkarcher wrote on 2020-10-14, 23:07:

Steapa wrote on 2020-10-14, 21:46:

I have this ISA controller card with a parallel and game port: […]
Show full quote

I have this ISA controller card with a parallel and game port:

I already have one game port on my sound card and I want to use a mouse with this build.
So I removed a serial port from a broken controller card:

So I was thinking... can I unplug the game port from that COM port and plug in the serial connector instead? Would it work?

No, you can not unplug the game port from the controller card and expect your serial cable to work at the same electric connection. But there are two connections for serial ports directly behind the parallel connector. If your serial cable is of the right type (there are two incompatible pin-outs, the older one mostly used with controller cards and the newer one mostly used with onboard ports on late 486 and Pentium mainboard), it will work at either of those connectors. One will be COM1 and one will be COM2.

Thank you.
I took the cable from a dead controller card. The serial cable has 10 pins. Is it compatible with one of the two ports?
Also, how do I know the correct orientation to plug the serial cable at the port? It has a red stripe on it but I can't see anything at the card telling where to plug.

Also, how do I know the correct orientation to plug the serial cable at the port? It has a red stripe on it but I can't see anything at the card telling where to plug.

Usually there's at least a little marking to indicate pin "1", which is supposed to be where the red stripe goes. It might be on the black plastic.

That thing is a multi-i/o card, by the way. 😀
It also has an IDE host adapter and a floppy controller on-board.
These can be disabled by the correct jumper setting (or removal of the corresponding jumpers) also.

Edit: Please be careful with that 2-pin header between the two large connectors.
It might be intended for a HDD LED. Don't short it with a jumper.

Steapa wrote on 2020-10-14, 23:23:

Thank you. I took the cable from a dead controller card. The serial cable has 10 pins. Is it compatible with one of the two por […]
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mkarcher wrote on 2020-10-14, 23:07:

No, you can not unplug the game port from the controller card and expect your serial cable to work at the same electric connection. But there are two connections for serial ports directly behind the parallel connector. If your serial cable is of the right type (there are two incompatible pin-outs, the older one mostly used with controller cards and the newer one mostly used with onboard ports on late 486 and Pentium mainboard), it will work at either of those connectors. One will be COM1 and one will be COM2.

Thank you.
I took the cable from a dead controller card. The serial cable has 10 pins. Is it compatible with one of the two ports?
Also, how do I know the correct orientation to plug the serial cable at the port? It has a red stripe on it but I can't see anything at the card telling where to plug.

If the cable is from a controller card, it is most likely compatible. In my experience, using an incompatible cable and connecting a mouse to it does not break anythig - it just doesn't work. The same is true for orientation.

But you can do better if you want and you have a continuity tester: Out of the 10 pins, only 9 pins are used. The unused pin is pin number 10, so the red wire goes to the other end of the plug. You can find the unused pin by looking at the traces on the board, or by using a continuity tester. All the used pins are connected with pins on the 1488/1489 chips next to the connector. Only pin 10 is not connected to anything. Furthermore, pin 5 on the DSUB-9 connector is ground. It's the only pin shared between the two COM ports. In the classic pinout, pin 5 is one of the two center pins. In the new pinout, pin 5 is just below pin 10, the unconnected pin. On the DSUB connector, pin 5 is at the end of the longer row if pins. If you get continuity between that pin (please use a search engine to find pictures which end it is, or just try both ends) and ground on the card, the cable type matches the card type.

Steapa wrote on 2020-10-14, 23:23:

[...] […]
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[...]

Thank you.
I took the cable from a dead controller card. The serial cable has 10 pins. Is it compatible with one of the two ports?
Also, how do I know the correct orientation to plug the serial cable at the port? It has a red stripe on it but I can't see anything at the card telling where to plug.

A better pic could help us help you. I think there might be a fatter bit of white silkscreen on one corner (which is a typical way of indicating pin one). Failing that, if we can identify the exact card we might be able to find documentation indicating pinout/orientation.

Beware there are 2 types of COM edge connector pinouts. 123456789 and 1526374859 type.

dionb wrote on 2020-10-15, 06:09:

A better pic could help us help you. I think there might be a fatter bit of white silkscreen on one corner (which is a typical way of indicating pin one). Failing that, if we can identify the exact card we might be able to find documentation indicating pinout/orientation.

I don't think we even need a better picture. I re-checked it, and as far as I can tell, at the left corner below the COM1 connector, there is a clear "1" printed on the card. That's the corner where the red wire has to go to. It is extremely likely that both COM connectors have the same orientation, so if you later want to connect COM2 with a similar cable, pin 1 should again be at the ISA slot side.

Thank you, everyone!
Sorry for the bad pic, my phone camera is really bad.

I looked at it better this morning and, as Mkarcher said, there's indeed a "1" marking the right orientation, I don't know how I missed that, sorry. I was worried I would break something if I put the wrong cable or wrong orientation, but since that's not the case I will just go with that.

I will try to use it when I have a serial mouse.

Thanks.

Steapa wrote on 2020-10-15, 16:25:

Thank you, everyone! Sorry for the bad pic, my phone camera is really bad. […]
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Thank you, everyone!
Sorry for the bad pic, my phone camera is really bad.

I looked at it better this morning and, as Mkarcher said, there's indeed a "1" marking the right orientation, I don't know how I missed that, sorry. I was worried I would break something if I put the wrong cable or wrong orientation, but since that's not the case I will just go with that.

I will try to use it when I have a serial mouse.

Thanks.

Don't worry, the serial port is one of the few ports that's actually robust (in stark contrast to LPT ports).
It usually has internal diodes and can take a full short, even.

Personally, I also was never able to kill a real RS-232 port before. Just try it with a serial mouse.
If it doesn't work, make a pause and check if the driver is compatible with the mouse (on another PC).

Oh, and please do not try CuteMouse. At least not for the first try. Use something genuine, period-correct, like mouse.com (or *.sys) from Microsoft.
Or one of the drivers in this thread, maybe: CuteMouse not working properly

I had good results with these. If things work (or not), you may still want to try CuteMouse, of course.
It's just that CuteMouse was made with Pentium era systems in mind (just like most FreeDOS stuff), rather than late 80s/early 90s stuff.
(Edit: Reasoning: FreeDOS was designed as a modern DOS. It was meant to continue were MS-DOS 6.22 stopped evolving.)