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Microsoft bus mouse - 9 pin, what interface card and where to get it ?

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First post, by bestemor

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Ok, so this mouse has a rectangular male connector that is physically capable of connecting to a regular 9-pin female serial port, but... the mouse is not serial. In fact it is the first ever MS mouse (2-button greeneyes), 1983ish.

So, obviously this is not an In-Port mouse, with it's round connector, nor a serial mouse. But a 'Bus' mouse...

But where the heck does one find the "interface board" that matches ?
Or could it work somehow, via the serial port ?

I've looked through the 123(!) page manual, but there's no help there...

I finally found a picture of what it should look like, but all I find for sale are the round ones....

http://www.philipstorr.id.au/pcbook/images/busmous1.jpg

Reply 1 of 5, by UpNorth

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This is the unobtainable Bus Mouse (NOT MS InPort) card. It's the stuff of legends, and before seeing that link you posted, I would not have believed it even truly existed.

Reply 3 of 5, by derSammler

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Some early ATI VGA cards had a bus mouse connector, the one in my Schneider Tower AT has as well. But finding these isn't much easier either.

Reply 4 of 5, by bestemor

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Heh... just noticed this 'new' activity.

So, I just had to wait a few months shy of a decade(!) to get an answer/reply to this one.... 😲 ! 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

But seriously though, I just love how old topics never die here on Vogons. Keeps the info about legacy stuff intact.

And, as a long overdue update, I did actually find the correct controller card, some time later in that year of the Lord 2010... 😎

Reply 5 of 5, by Pawlicker

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bestemor wrote on 2019-12-14, 16:44:
Heh... just noticed this 'new' activity. […]
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Heh... just noticed this 'new' activity.

So, I just had to wait a few months shy of a decade(!) to get an answer/reply to this one.... 😲 ! 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

But seriously though, I just love how old topics never die here on Vogons. Keeps the info about legacy stuff intact.

And, as a long overdue update, I did actually find the correct controller card, some time later in that year of the Lord 2010... 😎

What I'm curious about is the pinout. The NEC PC-9801 also infamously used DE-9 for the mouse connector far longer (but with the male end being on the mouse), before moving to the common DIN connector with the H98 and later 9821s (around 1991 for the H98 and 1994 for the rest of the line). What's interesting is that the PC-98 also usually had a missing Pin 7 for the connector as well, they literally implemented NC as "no pins here".

The attachment pc98_mouse_de9_pinout.jpg is no longer available

There were quite a few third-party mice made in Japan with this pinout, and both mouse manufacturer and homebrew adapters to use the later InPort cable, to allow a mouse for one machine to function on the other. I have a DE-9 adapter designed for connecting PC-98 DE-9 mice to a later round InPort style connector.

Someone on another forum cracked one open, and got a similar pinout with NC for pin 1 instead of +5V. That's what's throwing me off, though the round connector also has a +5V pin as well. I'm sure some mice need it if you reuse that card, though the more likely case is to use a newer mouse with an old PC-98 given the sheer number of PC-98s out there as opposed to Bus DE-9 cards.
https://www.brutman.com/forums/viewtopic.php? … t=booster#p6569

Actually it's all labeled and color coded inside so deriving the pinout was easy. […]
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Actually it's all labeled and color coded inside so deriving the pinout was easy.

1 - Not Connected
2 - XA
3 - XB
4 - YA
5 - YB
6 - Button 1
7 - Not Connected
8 - Button 2
9 - Common

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