B24Fox wrote on 2025-10-06, 22:15:

You're confusing me with the OP. Im a different user 😀

Apologies, I *thought* I had checked, but ...

Interesting that there were versions of the easly MS mouse that supported PS/2.

I probably had 6-8 of these in the "early days", and I don't think I ever saw one that wasn't strictly
serial (then again my systems back then weren't PS/2 - long live the 5-pin D.I.N.)

Attached is a photo of the bottom of one of them - forgive the "holes" - all of my older mice
has been opened for deep cleaning...

Glad you got it working!

** I do note that the serial number of the Ps/2 compatible one is much greater than the serial-
only ones - presumably it came later in the product lifecycle.

DaveDDS wrote on 2025-10-07, 00:51:

Apologies, I *thought* I had checked, but ... […]
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B24Fox wrote on 2025-10-06, 22:15:

You're confusing me with the OP. Im a different user 😀

Apologies, I *thought* I had checked, but ...

Interesting that there were versions of the easly MS mouse that supported PS/2.

I probably had 6-8 of these in the "early days", and I don't think I ever saw one that wasn't strictly
serial (then again my systems back then weren't PS/2 - long live the 5-pin D.I.N.)

Attached is a photo of the bottom of one of them - forgive the "holes" - all of my older mice
has been opened for deep cleaning...

Glad you got it working!

** I do note that the serial number of the Ps/2 compatible one is much greater than the serial-
only ones - presumably it came later in the product lifecycle.

Well, I believe that most of these mice actually do support PS/2.
I also have another one, that I presume is older, which has an "InPort" connector, and came with a dedicated ISA "InPort" card to connect it to.
But what that mouse also has, is an external attachment in the form of an elongated rectangular white plastic "converter box", in which you can plug it's InPort connector into one side, and on the other side, you can plug a SERIAL or PS/2 adapter-cable, which all came bundled with the mouse; like in this picture:

Later revisions, like the ones in my previous post, and apparently like yours, moved to either a SERIAL connector, or even PS/2 directly on their wire. And from my knowledge, they all came with adapters for the "alternative" connector type.

You can open yours, and check. And if it's got the same chip as mine [Motorola SC88715DW], and 7+1 wires in the cable; then you can make yourself an adapter to connect it on PS/2 based on the specs I gave earlier 😀

I absolutely love these mice. They were far ahead of their time in terms of design, they're small, comfortable, the cable is insanely long, and the cursor movement has very good DPI for 800x600, and actually moves quite decent if you set up the serial driver correctly (especially both buffers need to be set to maximum) .. although it DOES actually move even better when connected on PS/2 . But the size and shape and how it clicks, is what I love the most... It's my favorite mouse for DOS, and I also use it regularly on my test rig (that's why i wanted the versatility of both serial & PS/2). And the fact that they're almost pushing 40 years old, just blows my mind 😳

P.S. Here's a later revision user's guide for them, and some pamphlets 😀

Yes, I had a couple of the "bus" (inport) versions with the ISA card.
Eventually I got rid of my "ball" mice, the only one I have left is the one
I showed - I kept it specifically because it's a "serial" mouse.

I still have 5-6 of the slightly larger later gen Microsoft mice, like shown
by the O.P. with a slight curve, some more "straight" - these are USB with an
adapter for Ps/2. Almost all my systems now are Ps/2 (and a couple USB only)...

I have a couple old-style with the 5-pin D.I.N. keyboard connector (and no M.B.
mouse port).. These are DOS-only and I rarely need a mouse - but when I do, out
comes the serial mouse.

I do have a few MS Ps/2->Serial adapters and I *think* some of the MS mice
work serial with the USB->Ps/2->Serial adapters stacked ... but it's been a
long time since I looked into such details.

An interesting side note - on one of my workbenches I have a "Softtouch 808M"
keyboard - unusually small, mostly standard layout - USB interface... but
It's the only** one I've found where the MS USB->Ps/2 adapter works to make a
Ps/2 keyboard (and Ps/2->5-pinD.I.N. is just a passive connector, so I can
test any thpe of system on that bench without having to drag out a keyboard)

**I did at one time have one of the big Microsoft "erganomic" keyboards which
supported both USB and Ps/2 - but it had both connectors at the end of it's
cable.

B24Fox wrote on 2025-10-07, 02:53:

Well, I believe that most of these mice actually do support PS/2. ...

I'd be surprised if there are many "serial only" mice which support Ps/2 ... Think of the"early PCs"
IBM PC, XT, AT etc. ... These didn't have Ps/2 connectors and were the prime target for early serial mice.

IIRC the Ps/2 connector wasn't a thing before IBM came out with "Personal System 2"
I got several serial-only mice before that happened (incl the one I showed earlier)

After the new IBM system became popular and mainboard makers decided to go with that
connector as 1)"It's the new IBM standard" and 2)"It's takes up less backpanel space",
the "common" mice became Ps/2 - with many supporting serial for "backward compatibility"

I now use a Microsoft InPort mouse with its matching InPort card. Looks good, feels good, and works in Windows and NetBSD

DaveDDS wrote on 2025-10-07, 17:21:

I'd be surprised if there are many "serial only" mice which support Ps/2 ... Think of the"early PCs" IBM PC, XT, AT etc. ... The […]
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I'd be surprised if there are many "serial only" mice which support Ps/2 ... Think of the"early PCs"
IBM PC, XT, AT etc. ... These didn't have Ps/2 connectors and were the prime target for early serial mice.

IIRC the Ps/2 connector wasn't a thing before IBM came out with "Personal System 2"
I got several serial-only mice before that happened (incl the one I showed earlier)

Absolutely! And under no circumstance I'm referring to any of the older mice that came before the one in my pictures 😀
It's just that from that point onward(in reference tot this mouse), Microsoft had a tendency to make most of their mice "dual-input" up to almost the late '90s.

luRaichu wrote on 2025-02-28, 23:16:

Here's the pinout of my adapter.

The attachment BlueAdapter.GIF is no longer available

Can you please check that blue adapter again, and see if any of the contact on the serial side are touching between them; and the same for the PS/2 side? Please?

I want to make a "UNIFIED" Mouse/Keyboard adapters thread; ..as there seem to be many small threads regarding adapters scattered around here.
And apparently there are a lot of types of adapters, and I want to gather as much info as I can 😀

The "UNIFIED" adapters thread is up!
Check it out! 😀 Re: The UNIFIED Passive-Adapters Thread for Mice, Keyboards, Joysticks (and more?)

B24Fox wrote on 2025-10-08, 19:17:

Can you please check that blue adapter again, and see if any of the contact on the serial side are touching between them; and the same for the PS/2 side? Please?

I used fine needles to get contact with the female pins of that adapter and create the pinout, but I can't find those needles anymore...

luRaichu wrote on Today, 16:04:

B24Fox wrote on 2025-10-08, 19:17:

Can you please check that blue adapter again, and see if any of the contact on the serial side are touching between them; and the same for the PS/2 side? Please?

I used fine needles to get contact with the female pins of that adapter and create the pinout, but I can't find those needles anymore...

Most of these types of adapters do have a strap between Pins:4&6 (or more) of the serial side.
With some even having a strap between two pins on the PS/2 side.

Still, I have represented your blue adapter on the new "Unified Adapters" thread (with the mention that it's probably missing the strap), and credited you 😀
If/when you get the possibility, please do another pinout check of the adapter, so we could have it represented and shared 100% accurately 😀

Also, if you by any chance have more, please don't hesitate to share & specify what they work with; on the new thread 😁