Wow, this would be absolutely perfect for the NuXT I have on order, also because I'm putting it in a low profile case. Please sign me up for one 😁

(I can't PM because I just registered)

csoren wrote:

Wow, this would be absolutely perfect for the NuXT I have on order, also because I'm putting it in a low profile case. Please sign me up for one 😁

(I can't PM because I just registered)

Doesn't the NuXT have a built-in PS/2 mouse controller? Please give me a link to the description.

I have tested the adapter in Windows 95c OSR2.5. I found one of the oldest boards that I have, which has built-in COM ports.

First, I installed Windows using the real serial mouse connected to the built-in COM port.
Is this the same version of Windows?

For unknown reasons, the mouse was detected as a Logitech serial mouse, although I used the two-button mouse.

Windows shows the port speed of 9600 baud, although this can not be. Real speed is 1200 baud.

After that, I powered off the computer, inserted the adapter...

...again powered on the computer, went into the BIOS and disabled Serial port 1.

After boot up, the mouse worked immediately, but the port COM1 was absent.

To restore the port COM1, I run "Add New Hardware" in the Control Panel.


It detected "Communications port".

After clicking the “Finish” button and restarting the PC, the СOM1 port appeared in the list of equipment.

Continuation further.

Then you rebooted and what happened?!?!

Yes, that is Windows 95c, OSR 2.5.

To enable the mouse wheel, I powered off the computer, set the suitable jumper on the adapter, powered on again. After that, I opened the folder of the MS Intellipoint mouse driver 2.0a and run setup.exe.

After clicking several times "Next"...

... and "Restart"...

...the computer rebooted. And the mouse driver became "MICROSOFT SERIAL MOUSE WITH WHEEL".

But I was glad early because the wheel did not work.
After lengthy attempts and experiments, I found out that the wheel works in Acrobat Reader 5.05.

This meant that the mouse and driver were working, but not compatible with the Windows Explorer.
After spending more time, I found out that the reason is in the Internet Explorer add-on.

After its removal, the wheel worked fine in Windows Explorer.

I think you will find the information useful on how to install the correct driver if it is accidentally deleted.
To begin with, MS Intellipoint mouse driver 2.0a must be installed.
After that, open the Control Panel and run the Mouse.

Click on the "General" tab and click "Change".

Click "Have Disk".

Select the folder of the MS Intellipoint mouse driver 2.0a distributive .

Select MICROSOFT SERIAL MOUSE WITH WHEEL and click "OK".

Enjoy!

feipoa wrote:

Then you rebooted and what happened?!?!

Yes, that is Windows 95c, OSR 2.5.

Then I rebooted and the mouse continued to work normally.

Tiido wrote:

It happens with Win95C, 98SE and ME on those computers. I don't know about original 95 and the other versions and vanilla 98.

I think you are confusing or mistaken. There is no reason that Windows itself be able enabled ports that are disabled in BIOS.
It just doesn't make sense.

Interesting. I may have a system-specific problem or some goofed up software/OS. A lot of software doesn't run properly on the NexGen. What system are you using for testing?

I will give this one more go with Windows 95c - plan to go into safemode and delete the COM ports, re-enable both COM ports in BIOS, ensure sytem works with COM1 with a true serial mouse, then retrace your exact steps.

EDIT: I should point out that I have already tried this, but perhaps not in the precise order you have. The point in which COM1 gets re-detected is when the computer crashes and won't start-up. On reboot, it hangs and I need to go into Safe Mode to delete COM1. But I will try again, though not with NT 3.51 - that system wasn't easy to get setup, especially with the IBM 10/100 ISA network card and sound card.

Rio444 wrote:

Doesn't the NuXT have a built-in PS/2 mouse controller? Please give me a link to the description.

No, it has a PS/2 port for keyboard only, attached to an onboard microcontroller for converting to XT. It only has one serial port.

https://github.com/monotech/NuXT/blob/master/ … er%20Manual.pdf

feipoa wrote:

Interesting. I may have a system-specific problem or some goofed up software/OS. A lot of software doesn't run properly on the NexGen. What system are you using for testing?

You saw the motherboard in the photo, this is Taken PCI590-2 on the 430FX chipset. The processor is a regular Pentium 100. Unfortunately, I don’t have a system on Nexgen. I would love to have one. But they are rare and too expensive for me. I used the computer a bit on Nexgen in about 1997 and was absolutely delighted with its performance.

I would recommend first to make sure that all ports are working and there are no conflicts between them.
If SysCheck did not work, try other programs or run it in MS-DOS session.
Here are some screenshots of the programs that was run on the above system, under Windows 95c.






I note that these programs show the correct settings for the COM1 port, unlike Windows.

feipoa wrote:

EDIT: I should point out that I have already tried this, but perhaps not in the precise order you have. The point in which COM1 gets re-detected is when the computer crashes and won't start-up. On reboot, it hangs and I need to go into Safe Mode to delete COM1.

See above.

I should have Dr. Hard installed on the HDD. Don't think I have QuickTech.

SysCheck did not work in DOS either. It doesn't like the NexGen, which contains only the 386 instruction set. I think some programs are also confused CPU it is and can't run.

I believe that either Windows 95c is re-enabling my serial ports, or that the BIOS isn't really disabling them. Even if I disable both COM ports and use a standard serial mouse, Windows detects COM1/2 and the mouse. As such, it seems that to use the serial ISA emulator card, I must disable the corresponding COM port from within Windows Device Manager. Sorry, not much else I can do, the motherboard manual doesn't have a jumper to disable the serial ports. As you tested yourself, the emulator card cannot co-exist with the onboard RS-232 when using the same IRQ/address.

In all the below images, emulator card not installed.

Tiido wrote:

On most of my hardware Windows enables COM and LPT ports I have disabled in BIOS previously.

I suspect this is the issue. It would be nice to see if using the emulator card on COM 3/4 can solve this issue.

@Rio444 -

I can't answer your PM because I'm a newbie around here. But it sounds good to me, I'm happy to take the chance and test it with the NuXT once it arrives. I'll be Paypal'ing you the amount and you should receive my shipping address that way I assume.

Send me your Paypal address

I think in these machines the BIOS doesn't actually disable the ports but just doesn't mark them as being present in DOS hardware information bytes. Windows probes hardware every boot and then discovers those ports and i imagine any sort of test tools will also discover these ports.

Tiido wrote:

I think in these machines the BIOS doesn't actually disable the ports but just doesn't mark them as being present in DOS hardware information bytes. Windows probes hardware every boot and then discovers those ports and i imagine any sort of test tools will also discover these ports.

Yes, this is even more apparent in my next set of screenshots, where we now see two COM1 ports. DR Hard shows only the Emulator COM port, and unused COM2 from MB. But in Windows, we see both COM1 Emulator, and COM1 motherboard.

Feipoa, can you change Serial Port1 from 3F8h to 3E8h and check the real situation?

csoren wrote:

@Rio444 -

I can't answer your PM because I'm a newbie around here. But it sounds good to me, I'm happy to take the chance and test it with the NuXT once it arrives. I'll be Paypal'ing you the amount and you should receive my shipping address that way I assume.

Send me your Paypal address

Please write me to email "riv-rostov (at) yandex.ru".

Rio444 wrote:

Feipoa, can you change Serial Port1 from 3F8h to 3E8h and check the real situation?

And then re-enable MB COM1 in Windows? If it has the same IRQ, won't that cause the system to crash? What are we trying to determine here?

feipoa wrote:

Rio444 wrote:

Feipoa, can you change Serial Port1 from 3F8h to 3E8h and check the real situation?

And then re-enable MB COM1 in Windows?

Yes.

feipoa wrote:

If it has the same IRQ, won't that cause the system to crash? What are we trying to determine here?

IRQ doesn't matter. The main thing is to free port 3F8. Of course, I don’t know what to expect from your system. But for all what I tested it works.
You reassign the on-board Serial port1 to COM3. You cannot use the adapter (on COM1) and this COM3 at the same time. But if you do not use COM3, it will not interfere with the adapter.
In any case, you need to try.

Enabling COM1 as 3E8, then you can see under properties that the disabled COM1 is set to 3E8. But if I re-enable this COM1 in Windows and reboot, the system hangs once the desktop is shown.

feipoa wrote:

I believe that either Windows 95c is re-enabling my serial ports, or that the BIOS isn't really disabling them. Even if I disable both COM ports and use a standard serial mouse, Windows detects COM1/2 and the mouse. As such, it seems that to use the serial ISA emulator card, I must disable the corresponding COM port from within Windows Device Manager. Sorry, not much else I can do, the motherboard manual doesn't have a jumper to disable the serial ports. As you tested yourself, the emulator card cannot co-exist with the onboard RS-232 when using the same IRQ/address.

Thats why it makes sense to have 3/4 Support.

feipoa wrote:

Enabling COM1 as 3E8, then you can see under properties that the disabled COM1 is set to 3E8. But if I re-enable this COM1 in Windows and reboot, the system hangs once the desktop is shown.

3E8.jpg

In this screenshot COM1, is it the adapter?
Does the mouse work?
If the port is disabled in Windows, and does not interfere with the adapter, this is normal.