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Operating System Specific Discussions => Other Operating Systems => Topic started by: dougal on June 10, 2011, 12:55:19 PM

Title: Keyboard & mouse connection for old pc
Post by: dougal on June 10, 2011, 12:55:19 PM

I found an old Pentium 166 on the side of the road in very good condition so I took it home. I connected it to my LCD monitor and switched it on and it seems to be fine and booted Windows 95.

The problem is that it doesn't have USB ports or PS/2 ports. I don't have a COM mouse or AT DIN keyboard. I'd love to be able to use this old PC for playing old games but I'm stuck.

Is there a way round this without buying an old keyboard and mouse? Would a PCI USB card work with it and with Win95?

Title: Re: Keyboard & mouse connection for old pc
Post by: amigakit on June 10, 2011, 01:08:00 PM

For the keyboard you can use a PS/2 to Din adapter such as this:

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=461

Title: Re: Keyboard & mouse connection for old pc
Post by: Daedalus on June 10, 2011, 01:16:59 PM

The second revision of Windows 95 supported USB - it may be that you have this version which would support keyboards and mice (but not much else) if you give it a PCI USB card. You'll need a card that's supported by Windows 95 too - no idea if that's a big ask or not.

Failing that, many older PS/2 mice supported the serial protocol with a simple adaptor, and PS/2 and AT keyboards are almost identical protocol-wise so you just need an adaptor to use that too...

Really though, I'm sure you could find a more up-to-date PC for about the same price as a USB card which would have USB already on it. Only 2 weeks ago I threw a Pentium 2-350 with Windows 98 into a recycling skip (along with a Commodore 486 by the way...), basically because it was worthless and there was no software on it that I couldn't run in DOSBox on my XP machine. But it had USB, CD-RW, 128MB and some other good stuff in it.

Title: Re: Keyboard & mouse connection for old pc
Post by: kedawa on June 10, 2011, 11:28:58 PM

You should be able to pick up a compatible kb&m from a surplus store for next to nothing.

Title: Re: Keyboard & mouse connection for old pc
Post by: dougal on June 11, 2011, 10:22:56 AM

Never mind. I found an old PCI USB card at home and installed it and upgraded to Win 98 SE. USB is working fine :)

One question though.. I dont think USB is supported in bios. Can that be upgraded?

Title: Re: Keyboard & mouse connection for old pc
Post by: shaf on June 11, 2011, 02:38:45 PM

USB BIOS Support depends on the Motherboard firmware, depending on the Motherboard Manufacturer there might be something online. If there is a USB Header on the Motherboard then there will be BIOS support, but if it is external USB via. PCI Card there's no way to support USB from BIOS.

To determine the Motherboard without opening the case use a utility like CPUID or CPUZ.