I know it's really old and outdated but.... I have a pc that runs 3.1/95 and know very little about computers. The problem is I have a program for making vinyl lettering installed with an old style hardware key, it also runs a cutter and was built when that OS was state of the art. The original mouse died and now I can't get a working replacement because the port is also out dated and have no clue how to fix the issue without the risk of messing up the rest of the software. If anyone knows of a person or place that can work on old junk like this please let me know.

Thanks,

John

get a cheap USB mouse, and something like this: http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Replacement-USB-Mouse-Adapter/dp/B0002ZQG24

 

Keep in mind that with PS/2 ports you the mouse has to be plugged when the machine boots, you can't take add it afterwards.

What ya got there is a dead serial mouse, or possibly a dead serial port.  You can buy a new mouse on ebay, easy peasy.  If the port is dead it complicates matters.

Which connector is it?  Is it a round connector or a rectangular one?

 

PS2:

 

Serial:

You can buy a serial mouse on Amazon as well as Ebay.

 

For what it's worth, you can also buy a PS/2 to Serial adapter that will take a current PS/2 mouse and adapt it to your serial port.    You can even use a USB mouse with 2 adapters....USB-->PS2-->Serial.  It's goofy and falls out, but it does work.

I'm surprised it was the mouse/port that failed before the hard drive (or the floppy disk, whatever the case maybe)

Thanks for all the quick repsponses. The one I have is the rectangle plug. I've tried a few adapters and a few different mice I thought the problem was the mouse but it could well be the port. My original thinking was the old machine wasn't working with the new mice because of the drivers that might be required. Now I'm WAY beyond my skill. A friend had told me to check the bla bla bla and I thought the best solution was someone old enough to remember floppy disc's that started fixing pc when great ram was single digits. I tried best buy and staples but they were just way to advanced to even understand what I had. And please no more hard drive failure talk.

Add-on ISA serial port cards are available on Ebay if you determine that the port itself is the issue.

PM'd.

 

(hairy eared old computer guy)

You can also go into the control panel and delete the mouse and port,  then reboot the computer and see if it recognizes it.  Let us know.

It's not plug and play.  Deleting from control panel won't fix it.

Any way for you to take a picture of the back of the computer where all the ports are and attach it here?

It's not plug and play.  Deleting from control panel won't fix it.

^^ This.... Plug & Play didn't start until Windows 95.

It says Win95 in the first post...

It says Win95 in the first post...

3.1 as well as Win 95. Early versions of 95 were not plug and play, IIRC. Windows 95A I think. Didn't support hard drives over 2.1GB in size either, so you would have to format the hard drive with multiple partitions.

 

I haven't messed around with that old stuff since at least 2000-2001. Very outdated and not user-friendly.

I would seriously consider investigating options to move to a more modern hardware - as mentioned before, hardware that old (as lots of other stuff when getting old) is prone to sudden and complete failures with hard drive probably being a "good" candidate to start with.

 

I also guess "hardware key" is some kind of LPT-port HASP key - legalities aside, there is a very good chance that you might be able to "dump" this key to a file and use a key emulator - this might be a first step towards new hardware. I don't know how your cutter is connected to the computer (likely LPT port as well, maybe through HASP key), but this may limit what kind of hardware you can use.

 

Ebay probably has everything you need, but IMO you first priority in a short to medium-term should be making sure your data (i.e. hard drive) does not fly away and you have all needed backups. But still, the fact that your mouse is COM, not PS/2 gives a hint that your computer might be REALLY old :-)

 

Another idea (but I can imagine you've tried this already) - if this type of equipment has been produced en mass, I might guess that there might be some solutions already developed / figured out, because Win95, let alone 3.1x family is not around for more than 15 years already, so somebody somewhere might have faced the same issue before and maybe posted his/her findings online...

 

***

 

P.S. Offtopic: I have some nostalgic feelings. It was 2002-2003 when I was finishing my high school in Moscow, Russia, and somebody brought a whole truck of old decommissioned PCs to our school, "for tech savvy kids to play around". I have no idea how this "gift" ended up in our school, but I was among the few guys who were very excited and volunteered to help with those. It was the time when Pentium III 600 Mhz was considered a GREAT computer as everyone around still had Pentium II 266 MMX or so :-) It was also the time I saw high-end SCSI drives (of course, high-end, they were of the whole 8 Gb or so capacity!), 56k v.90 modems, branded Dell towers and other cool equipment that we literally spent weeks playing with... All displays were CRT, not flat screens as now, and not all computers had CD-ROMs, but there were 3.5" floppy drives in each of those. Getting mouse to work meant inserting a line in autoexec.bat or config.sys... Does this mean I'm getting too old, LOL?

I remember being in College and having my IBM PS2 286 with windows 3.1 in my dorm room. Had a 14.4 dialup modem, 50 megabite hard drive, and I would surf all the bulletin boards with it. It was outdated then. The 486 was already out with win 95. Just got my 20 year reunion letter in the mail. So I'll just leave it at that...

 

 

P.S. Offtopic: I have some nostalgic feelings. It was 2002-2003 when I was finishing my high school in Moscow, Russia, and somebody brought a whole truck of old decommissioned PCs to our school, "for tech savvy kids to play around".

 

Just for what it's worth, the company I was working for was working with an import/export company back around 93 and we would decommission computers coming out of our major corporate accounts and get them ready for shipping to Russia.  heh.   I know that before I left the company we had sent 4 containers of computer gear off.  We sold each box for $25 for a 8086 or XT with a hard drive($10 without), $50 for a 286 and $100 for a 386, $150 for a 486.  Most of the stuff was 286/386 although there were original IBM PCs in there with 10 or 20 or 30 Megabyte(yes Megabyte) MFM/RLL hard drives.  Even a few floppy only machines.   This was not long after the breakup so there was a dearth of technology in Russia and we were happy to send it over and make a few bucks on what we essentially considered landfill material.  I never found out of any of it got used but they bought more, shrug.

What is the letter cutting program and plotter? 

 

It's some of the key info in determining how screwed you are. 

 

Also, is it running on 95 or dos/3.1? 

 

The reality is that if you want the continued use of your hardware, you have to figure out if you can arrange something that makes use of a more modern PC. On the up side, your setup rode out a period before virtual machines became widely available with good performance, so there may be options that weren't available before. 

 

If you were using it to make money, it should have been paying for it's replacement. If you aren't, well there are some really pretty decent hobby cutters up to about a 30-40" width for under $400 these days. 

Reading this thread is bringing me back to the times when i used to play Leisure Suit Larry off 5.25" floppies off an old monochrome CRT monitor...

 

Yes it's old as dirt. I think it started as 3.1 right before 95 came out so they sent the update disc after I had the set up. The software is flexi sign and the cutter is a Roland cam 1 I think. The cutter and system paid for themselves and then some when I had a shop on rt. 21 a loooong time ago. The state widened the highway and ended that. Lately I've been thinking of a ton of uses for the system like lettering for the club I belong to, targets, templates and stencils for firearm coatings to mention a few. Over the years I've pulled it out from time to time for different things and this is the first time it wouldn't do the job.

Reading this thread is bringing me back to the times when i used to play Leisure Suit Larry off 5.25" floppies off an old monochrome CRT monitor...

 

I remember that game! The land of the lounge lizards, had to answer age appropriate questions for the game to let you play lol.

I remember that game! The land of the lounge lizards, had to answer age appropriate questions for the game to let you play lol.

https://archive.org/details/msdos_Leisure_Suit_Larry_1_-_Land_of_the_Lounge_Lizards_1987

Dangit!  I just wrote a lengthy reply and accidentally lost the page.    The OP might be able to run an emulator to get his s/w running, but on a newer Windows machine. Is this the same company who wrote that s/w?  I would imagine there's freeware, or cheaper options, out there these days for making signs.

https://archive.org/details/msdos_Leisure_Suit_Larry_1_-_Land_of_the_Lounge_Lizards_1987

That's awesome!

Windows 3.1?? You're gonna need help from Barney Rubble to keep that sucker running.

 

I don't even remember the Dos commands to start windows 3.1 lol...

I don't even remember the Dos commands to start windows 3.1 lol...

c:\>Win

 

This only works if you've set the path to c:\windows in  your autoexec.

 

You could always

c:\>cd windows

c:\windows\>win

 

or c:\>c:\windows\win.com

 

I wish I could say that the command prompt days are gone  but I still use it every day.   The number 1 reason.....ipconfig closely followed by ping and tracert.   It's the easiest, fastest way to see that your ip/gateway/dns  are all configured properly and the wire is plugged in.

click start, type cmd.   It's a little harder in Win 8 if you don't use classic shell.

Yep, in the telecomm world DOS commands, but moreso Unix, is still around. They tried to kill it, but it's still around. lol

I don't even remember the Dos commands to start windows 3.1 lol...

 

deltree C: