First post, by StormRyder
I have a Pentium I system with the old-style keyboard connector and a serial connector for the mouse. No PS/2 anywhere. However, I have a serial-to-PS/2 adapter plugged into the serial port for the mouse. And I have an old PS/2 mouse, which works with it, but doesn't work well probably because it's old and has lots of accumulated dirt/crud inside.
I want to get a replacement mouse so that it works better. It should be simple... but apparently it's not. 😒 I have tried a couple PS/2 mice now, but neither of them work. Only my original mouse works. This mouse, when I look on the underside of it, says, "Serial & PS/2 Mouse". The other ones don't say that; in fact, one of the ones I tried was an optical PS/2 mouse.
So my first question is, 1.) is there a special subset of PS/2 mice which are designed to work with these serial-to-ps/2 adapters, but most ps/2 mice will not work? I am pretty certain now that the answer is yes, but I want to just be completely certain.
2.) Now, if that is the case, how do I go about finding such a mouse? Will they all state, like mine does, that it's a serial as well as ps/2 mouse? Or are there any other traits to look for? It sucks because at this rate I might end up just accumulating ps/2 mice with none of them working... People on freecycle.org have mice available but I don't want to waste time going around getting them if they just won't work anyway.