If memory serves, the early Microsoft SideWinder products' drivers were included within the later releases of the Microsoft SideWinder Software packages, the last of which was Version 3.02.00 for Win9x. If you look in the last post of the following thread, you will find a link to that particular package:

MS Sidewinder Precision Pro - Weird Gameport vs USB Issue

See if your device is detected in Win9x after installing that. I may be able to dredge up a copy of the CD-ROM. I have some of the early SideWinder gamepads, but I can't remember if they are the first or second models.

This page should have the DOS drivers developed by Robert Grubbs and another driver as well:

http://arcadecontrols.com/arcade_downloads.shtml#Drivers

Thanks for the links! I'll be sure to try those out once I find a way to get file transfer to the computer going!

I checked, and my SideWinder gamepads are a later version (no pass-through) with a CD-ROM Part No. X03-37535. This CD-ROM contains Version 2.0 of the SideWinder Game Device Software including Profiler, Activator, Editor and Drivers, so you would almost certainly want the Version 3.02.00 software i referenced above.

The only reason why you might not want it is if you are using a non-English version of Windows 9x. The Version 3.02.00 SideWinder Game Software used a naming scheme that follows this pattern: SWGameXX.exe where XX is Microsoft's two-letter abbreviation for a given language. So the various versions look like this:

SWGameEN.exe (English)
SWGameES.exe (Spanish)
SWGameFR.exe (French)
SWGameJP.exe (Japanese)
(etc.)

You may have a hard time finding some of non-English versions. Sounds like a project for the VOGONS driver folks.

Unfortunately I probably won't get to try a lot of the stuff, at least for a bit, as my computer's power supply seems to have problems now. Figures. Thanks for the help though. Hopefully this at the very least helps anyone trying to use google to find this stuff!