First post, by superderek
Hey there!
I somewhat recently rescued a 486 computer from an e-waste junkyard and have been trying to resurrect it for some fun DOS and Win95 fun! Slowly but surely, I've been making my way through the restoration process and have stumbled upon a problem with getting my serial mouse to work that I just can't seem to surmount.
The R418 has COM1/3 and COM2/4 headers onboard, and the PC came with a bracket with connectors for those headers. One of them is the standard 9-pin serial connector, and the other is the longer variant, though the connectors and internal headers are the same. The problem is that I don't seem to be able to get the machine to recognize that I have a mouse connected to COM1.
I've taken a pin jumper and connected pins 2 and 3 on the serial connector and attempted to load up a hyperterminal session, but none of the things I've typed are echoed back to me. Additionally, I've switched the RS232 ribbon cable over to COM2 and attempted the same procedure, again with no luck.
I've been told though that some older motherboards have different header pinouts. But before I go down that rabbit hole with a multimeter, I was hoping someone here with experience with the R418 motherboard might be able to offer any insight? Much appreciated!
edit: I just dug out my multimeter and was able to verify that in pins 4 and 7, DTR and RTS, I'm getting around 11.9 volts DC on each. So that should indicate that since the pins are giving the right voltages, the pinout of the cables should also be good. What I don't know is if this should indicate that the controller is still good since I'm getting good levels? Or maybe it means nothing?