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Good mouse for DOS - PS/2 or BIOS USB->PS/2

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First post, by varrol

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In general all USB mice I got, work under windows 98SE so no problem there. In DOS however it needs to be connected to PS/2 port or be compatible with BIOS USB->PS/2 emulation (then DOS mouse driver works fine).

I've been testing some old mice and found out that:
- PS/2 (as well as USB with included PS/2 adapter) devices are working fine in every case but those available are not the greatest, and those good are very hard to buy or too expensive (basically a good summary can be found here: https://hardforum.com/threads/best-mouse-that … 2-port.1840253/)
- USB devices sometimes work (like Razer Salmosa or Viper, even Microsoft Wireless 4000), sometimes work opposite ways (1gen Razer Deathadder), and sometimes not at all (A4Tech G7)

I've tested on ASUS P3B-F rev. 1.03 - not sure how other motherboards with onboard USB ports handle USB->PS/2 emulation.

I must admit that I started to search for PS/2 mouse and found out by accident that my USB mouse is working under DOS - I was sure that this works only for keyboards. Now I'm curious if there is a way to check compatibility.

AOpen AX6B+ | P3 1G | 1GB ECC REG | FX5200 | CT4500
AOpen AX59pro | K6-2 450M | 256MB | Rage 128
Asus CUBX-E | P3 1G | 512MB | GF4 TI4200 | YMF719E-S
Asus P3B-F | P3 933M | 384MB | Radeon 9200 | CT4520
Asus P5A | P55C 200M | 256MB | Riva TNT | CT3600

Reply 1 of 1, by Jo22

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Hello! I would like to help, but I must admit that my knowledge with the current tech is little.
As a rule of thumb, you can try to go with Microsoft, Cherry or Logitech hardware. They used to be compatible. 😀

Especially Microsoft's hardware sector used to be rather good and was waay less critisized than it's software corner. 😉
So if I had to name a specific model, I'd recommend a Microsoft Basic Optical Mouse v2.0 for testing purposes.

Here, on my father's business PC (Athlon 64), it worked relieable for years. On Win98SE, XP and Win 7.
Also on DOS via pen drive. Chances are good it will also work for you in DOS via PS/2 emulation through BIOS, too.

Anyway, as I stated above, my knowledge with the current tech is little. Seriously. 😢
And past the 2020s, BIOS support in general "is flowing down the river" anyway, so to say.

Well, at least hardware support for 16-Bit real-mode instructions will likely be kept around still,
so virtualization (hardware assisted, even) can be used to boot DOS semi-natively without x86 emulation. 😀

Who knows, maybe a simple Linux Live medium then can be used to boot straight into a VM,
with full PCI pass-through and pass-through of COM and LPT ports. It wouldn't be the same as native DOS, but still acceptable.

Edit: Some typos fixed. Sorry, I'm using a RPi on a small screen here, since the main PC died.

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