• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

PS/2 mouse driver on PS/2 model 30 with 8086 CPU

ADAD8

New Member
Joined
Jul 5, 2019
Messages
7
Location
Germany
I bought a PS/2 model 30 (8086 CPU) which has to arrive yet and I'm thinking about buying a PS/2 keyboard and mouse set, relatively new. I didn't even know there were optical PS/2 mice. :wow:

Am I right in assuming that any keyboard will work flawlessly, but I need a DOS driver for the mouse (which doesn't exist)? If I need to use an old mouse that works with the "IBM compatible mouse" driver or something, I might look for that. The system is supposed to be used with a mouse, so... It would be cool to have a mouse for the DOS shell and all that stuff. :lol:

Maybe chances are higher that I could use a modern mouse with Windows. But it seems that I could only run Windows 3.0 in monochrome mode. Using another VGA driver it might be possible to run 320x200 with 16 colors, maybe even 256 colors. I might also test Windows 2.x.
 
I bought a PS/2 model 30 (8086 CPU) which has to arrive yet and I'm thinking about buying a PS/2 keyboard and mouse set, relatively new. I didn't even know there were optical PS/2 mice. :wow:

Am I right in assuming that any keyboard will work flawlessly, but I need a DOS driver for the mouse (which doesn't exist)? If I need to use an old mouse that works with the "IBM compatible mouse" driver or something, I might look for that. The system is supposed to be used with a mouse, so... It would be cool to have a mouse for the DOS shell and all that stuff. :lol:

Maybe chances are higher that I could use a modern mouse with Windows. But it seems that I could only run Windows 3.0 in monochrome mode. Using another VGA driver it might be possible to run 320x200 with 16 colors, maybe even 256 colors. I might also test Windows 2.x.
Give Geoworks a shot. Its a gui that will run faster than win3.x
 
Thumbs-up for both above posts. CuteMouse is lean and efficient (doesn't hog memory).

Geos 1.x/2.x was a far better GUI than Windows 2.x/3.x ever conceived of being...Berkley Software (the then owners of Geoworks) didn't have the marketing like the Microsoft behemoth of the day. It had as good a support for printers and far better support for video than Windows ever had. Also 2.x came with it's own integrated "mini office-suite".

https://tedium.co/2019/06/20/geoworks-geos-history/
 
Thanks for your answers. I might try Windows and GEOS. I would love to create a backup of the HDD first / transfer the files to my PC to test some things in DOSBox etc. But because of the proprietary HDD interface I can't connect it to another system, so the only way is copying everything using 720 k floppies, right?

I'll have to use floppies for getting any software/OS on that machine anyway. Also chances are high the DOS (version 4.01) is Italian. Do I have to reinstall a german/english version or can I change the language?
 
Can’t go wrong with the good old Model 30. I’ve got two and I love them.

Geos looks neat, but I will say I love early versions of Windows. I have an early version of Windows on pretty much all of my systems. I like to call myself a “Windows enthusiast.” :) I’d kill for a boxed copy of Windows 1.01.

Is Geos an “Environment” or an operating system (didn’t read too much into that article)? Because the early versions of Windows are not operating systems.
 
Geos is a GUI (or a shell built on top of DOS) just like every non-NT version of Windows. No disrespect intended, but it was way better than any version of Windows prior to perhaps Win95 (with far fewer resources consumed). It's failure was due to a lack of marketing and the afore mentioned strong-arm tactics by Microsoft. I ran it on a Compaq Portable II long ago and even had dial-up internet (on a 286 processor with 640K of ram)
 
Last edited:
None taken. I need to put Geos on something and see what it’s like.

The best version of it that I had was "New Deal Office 2000", which was "supposed" to be for 386/486 CPU's, but ran on 286's (and maybe 8088's---never tried). Never had a try at the later version "Breadbox Ensemble", but I'm sure there was little difference. I'm glad to see be spun off to a GitHub project...maybe something still good to come from it.

https://github.com/bluewaysw/pcgeos
 
I didn't even know there were optical PS/2 mice. :wow:
Fujitsu also makes a PS/2 Laser mouse in gray and black ;)
The only bad thing is that the horizontal scroll only works with the USB connection.
https://www.fujitsu.com/fts/product...accessories/input-devices/mice/m530-grey.html
https://www.fujitsu.com/fts/product...ccessories/input-devices/mice/m530-black.html

I also have replaced the USB cable on my Fujitsu Laser mouse with the PS/2 cable from a dead PS/2 mouse so i don't have the big adapter sticking out the back of my system's
 
It's a mixed statement. Out of the box, Geoworks and Geoworks Ensemble supported not only a variety of enhanced cards (400-line graphics modes, etc.) but also had both broad supervga chipset 16-color support as well as 16-color VESA 1.x support, making it possible to run 800x600x16 out of the box on any system suitably equipped. This was in 1990.

Whether (supported cards * modes) > Windows is true is left as an exercise for the reader, but it was a very large list of supported cards IIRC.
 
It's a mixed statement. Out of the box, Geoworks and Geoworks Ensemble supported not only a variety of enhanced cards (400-line graphics modes, etc.) but also had both broad supervga chipset 16-color support as well as 16-color VESA 1.x support, making it possible to run 800x600x16 out of the box on any system suitably equipped. This was in 1990.
.

Precisely. Undoubtedly, support for video-cards beyond the initial release of Win3.x was greater, but that support was developed by the video-chip manufacturers, and not inherent to the GUI itself. That support really didn't ramp up until Windows 3.1 was released in 1992.
 
256 colour support came about after GeoWorks 2.0 was released and development kind off stagnated until New Deal Office came out later in the 90s. GeosWorks was in quite a few Brother and Cannon products as word processors of verious shapes and sizes. Also IBMs later SchoolView wich some what looked like the OS/2 UI and first Dos AOL client were PC Geos based. Never liked the Industrial User Interface though in later incarnations and always used the Motif one.
 
Back
Top