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IBM 5155 mouse TSR driver woes

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themaritimegirl

Experienced Member
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Jun 15, 2011
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I'm having a heck of a time trying to get a TSR mouse driver to work right on my IBM 5155, running MS-DOS 5. I have a 90's Microsoft serial mouse plugged into the serial port of an AST SixPackPlus card. It's the only serial port in the system, and so the card is configured as such - COM1 and IRQ4.

Windows 3.0 detects and works with the mouse with no issues. But I'm having problems getting other software, which relies on a TSR driver, to work. The two programs I'm testing with are EDIT and DOSSHELL. I've tried three different mouse drivers - MOUSE.COM, CTMOUSE 1.9.1, and CTMOUSE 2.1b4.

With MOUSE.COM, EDIT works just fine. When I attempt to run DOSSHELL however, it just switches the video to 40-column mode and immediately goes back to the C:\ prompt, with no message. Any attempt to run DOSSHELL thereafter results in the message "Unable to load MS-DOS Shell".

With CTMOUSE 1.9.1, DOSSHELL works just fine, but when I start EDIT, it does start, but there is no video. If I crank the CRT brightness up, I can see flickering, with no intelligible video. I can exit EDIT, but there remains no video - I have to reboot to solve it. Oddly enough, however, If I run DOSSHELL first, exit, and then run EDIT, EDIT appears and works just fine, mouse and all.

When I try to run CTMOUSE 2.1b4, it successfully finds the mouse, and then reports "Divide overflow". It then steals all of the system memory, and I have to reboot.

Anyone know what might be going on here? Again, Windows 3.0 works just fine with the mouse, out-of-box, and I've also tested it with MOUSE.COM running, and it still works just fine.
 
No idea really, but what version of MOUSE.COM are you trying? Is that Microsoft's version or is that some OEMs version with the same file name? Trying a different version of the Microsoft mouse driver might help.

When mouse drivers give me conflicts like that, I also like to test with the Mouse Systems MSCMOUSE 7.01 driver (or thereabout). Despite the name, the later Mouse Systems drivers work with Microsoft serial and PS/2 mice. And as I recall that was one of the more memory efficient versions too.
 
Try running the mouse diagnostics with Checkit v3.0.

You could also test the serial port (with a loopback plug installed) while you're at it.
 
Correction: Windows does NOT work with MOUSE.COM loaded. It doesn't even start - just throws a few lines of garbled symbols on the screen and beeps a few times. With CTMOUSE 1.9.1 loaded, Windows works just fine.

what version of MOUSE.COM are you trying?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure who wrote it - it only says the following upon launch:

Code: 
Mouse driver Version 6.30
Copyright (C) 1990-1994 All Rights Reserved

Mouse driver installed: Microsoft Mode
Mouse Connected with COM1 (Port: 3F8, IRQ: 04)
Software Multiple for Dynamic Resolution is OFF

It is kinda new for this system, so maybe that's the issue?

I just found a few versions of the Microsoft Mouse software over on WinWorld, so I'll try those, and if no dice, then I'll start testing the serial port.
 
I've had similar issues with my 5155 and serial mouse. If I remember correctly, most of the issues went away when an NEC V20 was installed. So, maybe the mouse drivers and software are getting hung up due to limited instruction set set of the 8088.
 
TheMaritimeMan said:
Correction: Windows does NOT work with MOUSE.COM loaded. It doesn't even start - just throws a few lines of garbled symbols on the screen and beeps a few times.... I'm not sure who wrote it - it only says the following upon launch:

Code: 
Mouse driver Version 6.30
Copyright (C) 1990-1994 All Rights Reserved

Mouse driver installed: Microsoft Mode
Mouse Connected with COM1 (Port: 3F8, IRQ: 04)
Software Multiple for Dynamic Resolution is OFF

It is kinda new for this system, so maybe that's the issue?
Click to expand...
Sounds like you don't know where this mouse.com came from. If that's the case... dump it and use something known! Guessing is not a viable option. :)
 
It came from here - it's the only download I could find before I thought to look on WinWorld:

http://www.bootdisk.com/readme.htm

most of the issues went away when an NEC V20 was installed.
Click to expand...

Hmm, interesting. Ooh, I ought to get a V20 for this. $2 on eBay for even a small performance increase is attractive. And I don't even have to remove the motherboard to get to the CPU.

I'm willing to guess and take chances - if I royally mess up I throw the hard drive in my XP rig and re-image it. :p
 
There were thousands of OEMs that each compiled their own mouse drivers with their own customizations and sold it next to their cheap mice. Shaving off a few resident bytes by requiring a later CPU would certainly be among the things they would likely do. Other drivers provided with whole systems might be customized for odd hardware ports, special video adapters, extra features included on the mouse, and so on.

So generally you instead want the generic Microsoft drivers, or one of the other big names (Mouse Systems, Logitech).
 
I think we found a winner! I first tried Microsoft Mouse 9.01, and it behaved the same as CTMOUSE 1.9.1. I'm now trying Microsoft Mouse 8.20, and everything seems to be working fine!
 
Why are you always rude to me?

My point in posting the link was that was maybe someone had downloaded it before and knew who the developer was. That and it literally answered your question...
 
TheMaritimeMan said:
I think we found a winner! I first tried Microsoft Mouse 9.01, and it behaved the same as CTMOUSE 1.9.1. I'm now trying Microsoft Mouse 8.20, and everything seems to be working fine!
Click to expand...

CTMOUSE 1.9 is what I use with my 8088 systems and it usually works just fine for serial and PS/2 mice. I'm concerned that you were getting extremely bizarre behavior (no video?? crashing?) with that, or other specific versions of mouse drivers. I think it is likely your real problem is somewhere else in the system: Did you try booting clean with an empty config.sys and autoexec.bat? Are you sure your devices aren't mistakenly sharing IRQ or port settings?

I feel it's important to try the above troubleshooting steps with ctmouse 1.9, or the Microsoft Mouse 9.x driver, so that you can find out what the real problem is. Your specific driver/hardware setup may appear to be working, but hiding a deeper problem to bite you later on.
 
Did you try booting clean with an empty config.sys and autoexec.bat?
Click to expand...

Yep; same behavior.

Are you sure your devices aren't mistakenly sharing IRQ or port settings?
Click to expand...

Well, I originally accidentally had the serial port configured as COM2 and IRQ3, and it behaved exactly the same.
 
Serial ports, if you only have one, are typically configured as COM1 (IRQ4, port 3F8). Here are all four possible settings:

3F8/IRQ4 (COM1)
2F8/IRQ3 (COM2)
3E8/IRQ4 (COM3)
2E8/IRQ3 (COM4)

Do you have any hardware installed other than the hard drive controller, floppy controller, AST card, and video card?
 
I've just discovered something really odd. I was idly looking through the list of software interrupts in Norton Utilities, and I notice that software interrupt 10, which is supposedly called "video," is assigned to the mouse! Does this seem kosher?

MVC-024F.jpg
 
Some mouse drivers hook the video initialization interrupt so that they can handle the mouse pointer properly between mode switches. If you unload the mouse driver, this should turn back to VIDEO.
 
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