The IRQ settings for my COM ports are correct in Windows 2000. They match Windows 98 and the settings in BIOS.

What does "sc query sermouse" command say?

kmeaw wrote on 2024-10-20, 22:46:

What does "sc query sermouse" command say?

It doesn't recognize the command "sc" - should that be in Windows 2000?

Any reason you can't enable USB Legacy mode in BIOS?
That should allow your USB keyboard/mouse to act like PS2 versions.

Quick look into your currant setup though it seems the Startech adapter needs drivers?
https://sgcdn.startech.com/005329/media/sets/ … ICUSB232FTN.pdf

Very quick search I'm struggling to find a copy though

sc.exe is distributed as a part of Windows 2000 Resource Kit. Or you can use PSService from SysInternals PSTools - it has a very similar utility for querying services.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-10-20, 23:05:

Any reason you can't enable USB Legacy mode in BIOS? That should allow your USB keyboard/mouse to act like PS2 versions. […]
Show full quote

Any reason you can't enable USB Legacy mode in BIOS?
That should allow your USB keyboard/mouse to act like PS2 versions.

Quick look into your currant setup though it seems the Startech adapter needs drivers?
https://sgcdn.startech.com/005329/media/sets/ … ICUSB232FTN.pdf

Very quick search I'm struggling to find a copy though

The KVM I am using acts as a USB hub, so that a single USB cable is connected to each computer. When I enable USB Legacy mode in BIOS, I don't believe the BIOS goes as far as to walk through all devices in the hub to assign each one to the keyboard or mouse. Maybe it tries to, but it is not successful with my setup.

The Startech adapter needs drivers for the device on the USB side. That is my Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi acts like a serial mouse by way of the Startech adapter.

On the other side of the Startech adapter is the serial connection. Anything using the serial connection should just see a regular serial mouse.

I've used a real serial mouse on W2K without issue. I guess your pretend device doesn't cut it. Just like I've had no luck whatsoever with USB/PS2 converters.

Just one thing to note: If you use a serial mouse and need to run in safe mode, the mouse driver won't load (at least on Windows 7). A real PS2 works fine though.

dylanrush wrote on 2024-10-20, 23:37:

The KVM I am using acts as a USB hub, so that a single USB cable is connected to each computer. When I enable USB Legacy mode in […]
Show full quote

chinny22 wrote on 2024-10-20, 23:05:

Any reason you can't enable USB Legacy mode in BIOS? That should allow your USB keyboard/mouse to act like PS2 versions. […]
Show full quote

Any reason you can't enable USB Legacy mode in BIOS?
That should allow your USB keyboard/mouse to act like PS2 versions.

Quick look into your currant setup though it seems the Startech adapter needs drivers?
https://sgcdn.startech.com/005329/media/sets/ … ICUSB232FTN.pdf

Very quick search I'm struggling to find a copy though

The KVM I am using acts as a USB hub, so that a single USB cable is connected to each computer. When I enable USB Legacy mode in BIOS, I don't believe the BIOS goes as far as to walk through all devices in the hub to assign each one to the keyboard or mouse. Maybe it tries to, but it is not successful with my setup.

The Startech adapter needs drivers for the device on the USB side. That is my Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi acts like a serial mouse by way of the Startech adapter.

On the other side of the Startech adapter is the serial connection. Anything using the serial connection should just see a regular serial mouse.

Ah ok, I understand now.
I've no idea how to help though.
If it was me I'd try removing a device from the chain and test.
EG unplug the mouse from the hub and direct to the Raspberry Pi and test, basically trying to confirm which device doesn't like Win2k as it should just work as it does in Win98.
But wouldn't know the next step after that

Apparently there was a Microsoft bulletin about Windows 2000 neglecting to re-activate a serial mouse after it had been disconnected, requiring a restart: https://ftp.zx.net.nz/pub/Patches/ftp.microso … -us/197/184.HTM

It's possible that my pretend device is disconnecting somewhere in the process

I am going to try:
1. Preventing my serial mouse from activating until the OS has fully booted - maybe that will prevent this disconnect event from happening
2. Making the changes suggested in the KB article. This requires an OS reinstall but maybe it will help

The end game goal is to have one keyboard and one mouse that I use for all of my computers from 1997 - today.

I may end up just purchasing a PS2 mouse and using a PS2 KVM along with a PS2-> USB adapter. I think in general it is easier to plug older components into newer computers rather than newer components into older computers.

Another thing to try is changing a proprietary USB-to-serial converter to something with a debuggable firmware. It can be either the same Raspberry Pi with some GPIO and UART circuitry to match RS232 voltages or an open hardware implementation of a USB to serial mouse converter, such as rasteri's HIDman. Or if you prefer to attack the problem from the hardware side, you can use a logic analyzer to see the difference between the emulated mouse and a real mouse, or between Windows 98 and 2000 by tapping into the serial pins.

kmeaw wrote on 2024-10-21, 12:07:

Another thing to try is changing a proprietary USB-to-serial converter to something with a debuggable firmware. It can be either the same Raspberry Pi with some GPIO and UART circuitry to match RS232 voltages or an open hardware implementation of a USB to serial mouse converter, such as rasteri's HIDman. Or if you prefer to attack the problem from the hardware side, you can use a logic analyzer to see the difference between the emulated mouse and a real mouse, or between Windows 98 and 2000 by tapping into the serial pins.

Thanks that is very good advice.

The confounding thing is that the "serial" mouse works in Windows 98 so it at least must implement most of the protocol. There may be something missing that Windows 2000 expects but Windows 98 doesn't care about.

At one point I had actually implemented this myself, rather than USB-Mouse-To-Serial with an off-the-shelf USB/serial adapter, I had a RS232 breakout/logic level converter attached to my Arduino with a custom sketch that I wrote. The same Arduino would drive both the PS2 keyboard and the serial mouse. This "worked" but it was very buggy and I'd often have to restart the whole thing. I found the USB-Mouse-To-Serial to be very reliable in Windows 98.

So if I'm going to go back down to the hardware layer I might just start building my own again.

Another option is to start emulating a PS2 mouse rather than a serial mouse... but I do like that the serial mouse is presumably compatible with machines back to around 1987

I use PS2 as the standard. Out of the almost 50 computers in my collection, only 3 don't have the 2 PS2 sockets, and so the choice is obvious. The machines that don't have PS2 is an old laptop (Compaq E500), a newish Windows 10 machine, and an ancient 386 tower. They don't get used with the KVM but instead have their own setups.

Robbbert wrote on 2024-10-21, 22:56:

I use PS2 as the standard. Out of the almost 50 computers in my collection, only 3 don't have the 2 PS2 sockets, and so the choice is obvious. The machines that don't have PS2 is an old laptop (Compaq E500), a newish Windows 10 machine, and an ancient 386 tower. They don't get used with the KVM but instead have their own setups.

OK I think you sold me on just using PS2

I am going to build a USB/PS2 adapter and if that doesn't work, I'm just going to use a PS2 mouse

I’ve been making a little progress.

I picked up a $5 PS2 KVM switch at my PC recycler. The really nice thing about this device is that it makes the PS2 connections hot swappable. So I don’t have to restart my PC to test a new mouse. As far as the PC can tell there is only one keyboard and mouse that it stays connected to from the beginning.

I have been trying to emulate a PS2 mouse with an Arduino. I have been successfully using the ps2dev library to emulate the keyboard, with a raspberry pi reading the USB keyboard values and sending those to the Arduino. That’s been working just fine.

The mouse example code in ps2dev just does not work.

At this point I am giving up on trying to emulate a mouse. The protocol is complicated enough and it’s hard enough to debug that I can see myself spending weeks on this.

My current plan is to take apart a PS2 mouse and just splice into the sensors and drive them with an Arduino. I have a PS2 ball mouse that I’ve pried open. I think I can use transistors to trip the quadrature encoders in the right pattern to trick the mouse into thinking it’s rolling.

I’ve mostly given up on serial mice. But at this junction, if I’m just reconfiguring old mice, then I can do this with a serial mouse just as easily as PS2.

You may still want to look on HIDman - besides serial, it can also do USB-to-PS/2. I haven't tried the serial capabilities yet but the PS/2 emulation code works just fine with both Windows 98 and 2000.

kmeaw wrote on 2024-10-29, 06:10:

You may still want to look on HIDman - besides serial, it can also do USB-to-PS/2. I haven't tried the serial capabilities yet but the PS/2 emulation code works just fine with both Windows 98 and 2000.

Are these for sale? I would absolutely buy one and experiment with it.

dylanrush wrote on 2024-10-29, 17:24:

Are these for sale? I would absolutely buy one and experiment with it.

Looks like some would be avilable soon on Ebay - Re: HIDman - USB to PS/2 converter (Open Source)

I have built one using a CH559 evaluation board (ebay.ie/itm/194635576530) - the only tools I needed was a micro-B USB cable to flash the firmware, a wire cutter and a crimper to make PS/2 jumper cables out of a spare KVM cable. And a laser cutter to make an enclosure of plywood.

Nice thanks. I picked up an eval board. That will ship from China, so hopefully I'll get it soon enough. I am hoping the HIDMan will walk through all of the devices behind my KVM's USB hub. That was the main problem I was facing with off-the-shelf USB/PS2 converters - they don't usually walk through the devices.

My Logitech G502 also presents as a keyboard (since it has so many buttons) so we'll see if the HIDMan can handle that as well.