Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!convex!harper From: harper@convex.com (David Harper) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Mice Keywords: 4DOS, Microsoft Mouse Message-ID: <103637@convex.convex.com> Date: 3 Jul 90 17:26:39 GMT References: <4084@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> <546@ra.MsState.Edu> <1990Jul2.161859.18331@ariel.unm.edu> Sender: news@convex.com Organization: Convex Computer Corporation; Richardson, TX Lines: 72 }In article <1990Jul2.161859.18331@ariel.unm.edu> conner@carina.unm.edu (Steven Conner) writes: }>In article <546@ra.MsState.Edu> pam1@ra.MsState.Edu (Phillip A. McReynolds) writes: }>>In article <4084@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> iain@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au writes: }>>>I'm in the market for a mouse and would appreciate any advice about }>>>what's hot and what's not. I have a 386 box and run 4dos (I won't }>>>register it until I find out if it works okay with a mouse). Are there }>>>models to steer clear of? What about drivers? I have 3M of expanded }>>>memory, and a driver that could live there would be nice. All }>>>constructive comments welcome. I'll post a summary if there's interest. }>>> }>>>Cheers, Iain. }>> }>>I downloaded 4dos (the most current version from simtel) and tried it out, }>>but it *really* didn't like my mouse. It seemed that it was reading a lot }>>of garbage from my mouse: buttons as pressed when they're not and putting }>>the cursor in weird locations. I assumed that this was a problem with 4dos }>>since I haven't had any problems with any other programs. }>> }>>My mouse, btw, is a GeniusMouse. I have been very happy with it and it has }>>a reasonable number of buttons for a SunHead like myself. Oh, and it's a }>>serial mouse that comes drivers to operate in either MicroSoft or Mouse }>>Systems mode. It's a shame that it doesn't work w/4dos, though... }>> }>>--------- }>>pam1@ra.msstate.edu }> }> }>My Microsoft mouse goes beserk when I open a 4DOS window under Windows 2.11. }>I am then unable to use the mouse until I exit 4DOS and close the window, at }>which time the mouse goes back to normal. I think 4DOS is *WONDERFUL* but I }>wish that I could use it with Windows also. Anyone else had this problem or }>know how to fix it? }> }>Steven }>conner@carina.unm.edu I have just been through all of this myself and I think that I now have all of my problems resolved, although I don't know if my solutions will work for others or not. I am using a Mouse Systems optical mouse and have a 386 system with an ARCNet LAN (ViaNet O.S.). The mouse was installed with a device driver in config.sys and worked well with 4DOS until I fired up the ViaNet LAN software. At that point ViaNet would hang and I would have to reboot the machine. It took a lot of experimentation before I finally verified that it was a three way interaction problem between 4DOS, the mouse driver, and ViaNet. When I removed the mouse driver from config.sys and installed a TSR version (mouse.com) in my autoexec.bat the problems went away. Everything that uses the mouse still works, and I can now load the LAN software under 4DOS and it works correctly. Before I finally was able to find out what was going on, I talked to Tom Rawson at JP Software and he said that there have been a lot of reports of mouse problems. He indicated that the mouse part of 4DOS (which I believe is only used for the help screens) is not written by JP Software but is a third party piece of code. Whether there will be any changes in this on future releases of 4DOS I don't know. Anyway, check your configurations and, if you are using ".SYS" mouse drivers, try switching to ".COM" versions. I'd be interested to know if this works for others as well. By the way, for all of you ANARKEY users out there, I found that if you invoke the 4DOS command "SETDOS /L1" you can run ANARKEY under 4DOS with no conflicts and have the best of both worlds. For those of you unfamiliar with ANARKEY, it does some of the same things as 4DOS (ie: aliasing, completion) but I like using the tab key for command/directory completion rather than the F9 key. ANARKEY also gives you the ability to use the Unix switchar convention; ie: "/" as a path separator rather than "\" and "-" as a parameter indicator rather than "/". Since ANARKEY translates these keys ("/" gets translated back to "\") on the fly before stuffing them into the keyboard buffer, there are no conflicts even with programs which have a check for "\" as a path separator hard coded into them. Dave Harper - Convex Computer Corp. E-mail address: 3000 Waterview Pky. Richardson, TX 75081 harper@convex.COM (214) 497-4525 (W) (214) 727-4206 (H)