Serial to PS/2 adapters

[ratdude747]

Yesterday I aquired an old IR Mouse/Keyboard set...

the issue is that while it uses PS/2 for the keyboard, it uses serial for the mouse.

this is fine for windows, but for linux, its a PITA at best... I couldn't get it to work despite my best efforts.

What I would like to know is whether they make serial to PS/2 adapters... I know microsoft made one at one point and that the linux tool I was able to get to work reports the mouse as using the intellimouse standard...

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Serial to PS/2 adapters

What I would like to know is whether they make serial to PS/2 adapters...

By the millions, check ebay.
.
Serial mice are pretty old tech and required drivers.
Old enough they might have dropped the drivers out of the Linux distros.
(PS2 has a chip just for mouse/keyboard. Serial doesn't. With serial the driver does the 'translation' the PS2 chip would.)
If you check around someone has probably updated an old driver to work with the newer distros.
.

[dood]

Re: Serial to PS/2 adapters

I'll poke around and see if I still have one. If I do, I'll send it along with the other stuff (as soon as I can get time to box it up and ship it...)

[Agent24]

Re: Serial to PS/2 adapters

I think a serial to PS/2 adapter is less likely to work in Linux than just a plain serial mouse.

Also, while I have seen a Serial PORT to PS/2 MOUSE adapter I have never seen a PS/2 PORT to Serial MOUSE adapter.

Might be better off playing with your Linux some more. Did you try something like this? http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-23926.html

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Serial to PS/2 adapters

Also, while I have seen a Serial PORT to PS/2 MOUSE adapter I have never seen a PS/2 PORT to Serial MOUSE adapter.

Obviously you never had a reason to look.
They are common.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/330680318428
http://www.ebay.com/itm/110818011433
http://www.ebay.com/itm/150631929125
http://www.ebay.com/itm/130562319221
.

[brethin]

Re: Serial to PS/2 adapters

Or you could just drop a serial port card in the machine.

[Agent24]

Re: Serial to PS/2 adapters

Obviously you never had a reason to look.
They are common.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/330680318428
http://www.ebay.com/itm/110818011433
http://www.ebay.com/itm/150631929125
http://www.ebay.com/itm/130562319221
.

No, I guess I didn't. Interesting!

[bluto]

Re: Serial to PS/2 adapters

Read the fine print in the ebay listing:

PLEASE NOTE: This product will only work with combination mouse, a mouse electronically designed to work with both serial and PS/2 applications,

Your mouse has to have the appropriate guts inside it for this to work. The 'converter' from the first ebay link is strictly passive. In other words it only converts pins from one connector to the other.

Mice that supported both typically had a switch on the bottom to tell it what kind of port it was being hooked up to. I think there is one at the office that I can snap a picture of if you don't believe me.

Edit: found some pictures (attached - site is slow)...
http://www.recycledgoods.com/product...MS-Switch.html

Also found a link for an industrial solution. Should work with any serial mouse. Although probably more that you want to spend:
http://www.vetra.com/327text.html

[ratdude747]

Or you could just drop a serial port card in the machine.

its an SW issue... it has nothing to do with serial controllers. not to mention the computer has NO free PCI slots (its a shuttle xpc st61g4 with the 2 slots taken by an AGP card and a TV tuner)

Read the fine print in the ebay listing:



Your mouse has to have the appropriate guts inside it for this to work. The 'converter' from the first ebay link is strictly passive. In other words it only converts pins from one connector to the other.

Mice that supported both typically had a switch on the bottom to tell it what kind of port it was being hooked up to. I think there is one at the office that I can snap a picture of if you don't believe me.

Edit: found some pictures (attached - site is slow)...
http://www.recycledgoods.com/product...MS-Switch.html

Also found a link for an industrial solution. Should work with any serial mouse. Although probably more that you want to spend:
http://www.vetra.com/327text.html

it emulates a MS intellimouse if that means anything (the linux tools said it needs the intellimouse serial driver, not the standard mouse serial mouse driver)

from what I have read, it probably isn't convertable so, yup, i'm screwed.

EDIT:


WAIT- there is hope!

my set is one of these:



while finding that I found this pic of the receiver:



sounds like if I can find the right adapter, I am in luck.

[Agent24]

Re: Serial to PS/2 adapters

Maybe one of those standard adapters would work, then.

[bluto]

Re: Serial to PS/2 adapters

Yea looks like it would be worth a try. I thought I had one to give you but it is the wrong gender variety...

[ratdude747]

Re: Serial to PS/2 adapters

Yea looks like it would be worth a try. I thought I had one to give you but it is the wrong gender variety...

I have one of those...

[Agent24]

Re: Serial to PS/2 adapters

As do I

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Serial to PS/2 adapters

Here's the full poop.
~~~~

The Serial Mouse uses a RS-232 style interface with -5 to -12 VDC as logical 1 and +5 to +12 VDC as logical 0.
The PS/2 mouse interface is a TTL-style interface, which uses 0 - +2 VDC as logical 0 and +3 - +5 VDC as logical 1.

In addition the RS-232 is an asynchronous interface, the PS/2 interface is a synchronous, where the data is sent along with a clock signal. It uses a simplified 4-wires serial interface with +5VDC (for the transceiver), GND, keyboard / mouse clock and keyboard / mouse data. The data and clock line can be used from the keyboard / mouse controller and the attached device as well following a particular handshake, which defines which is the active sender and which is the receiver.
So: it is not *that* easy converting serial mouse to PS/2 and vice versa.

The dual mode mice have an automatic logic detection and form of adaptive electronic interface, which detects whether the mouse is attached to a serial port or a PS/2 port and sets the output drivers accordingly.

~~~
I've only seen really old or really cheap mice not work for both.
That said.
Except for temp/work-bench use I've used the same make/model mouse since the 90's and it works with either interface.
[Only one I've found where my hand never ever gets tried. My exe had carpel tunnel and it's only one that she didn't have problems with too. Every time I see one cheap on ebay I snag it.]
.

[ratdude747]

Re: Serial to PS/2 adapters

Still looking, I may have to bite the bulled and play the fleabay lottery...