Bus Mouse

[kicker10bog]

Hello, I have an old DOS 6.22 / Win 3.1 program that I need to run.

Unfortunately, my old computers are going down 1-by-1. So I installed DOS 6.22 / Win 3.1 in Virtualbox on a Windows 7 host.

The program requires a bus mouse and two COM ports. Thankfully, Virtualbox seems to support the COM Ports. However, it does not appear to support a bus mouse or bus mouse emulation.

Is there a way to emulate a bus mouse in Virtualbox?

I found code for a sample extension that appears like it might do what I need, but cannot find the compiled version for it and am having trouble using the makefile on windows. I downloaded the entire SVN with TortoiseSVN.

[mpack]

No. VirtualBox does not emulate a bus mouse, only a PS/2 mouse.

If it's a Win 3.1 app then I'd be surprised (*) if it much cares about how the mouse interfaces to the host. Even in Win3 it was the OS's job to worry about such things, not the app's.

It would be a different story if it was an old DOS app, particularly one that didn't make use of the Microsoft mouse driver. In that case the application simply isn't written for hardware portability even between DOS platforms, and you might as well discard it.

(*) I suspect that the application doesn't really require a bus mouse. I suspect that the instructions simply assumed that if you're using 2 RS232 ports for comms, then you can't also be using a serial mouse (because you would then be into sharing IRQs or other complications), therefore you have to be using a non-serial mouse. The VM however is not limited to a mid-80's hardware recipe. It can provide two serial ports and a mouse without problems.

[kicker10bog]

The program absolutely will not work without a bus mouse. The program is required to run our embroidery machine which is part of what we do for a living. So, simply discarding it was not an option until all possibilities were explored.

It may be DOS 6.22 app like you said, I'm not the one who uses it. Regardless, the Germans (some of the prompts are in German even) who wrote it made it to only work with a bus mouse.

Any idea where I can get this extension in a working form? It won't let me post links yet.
virtualbox.
org/svn/vbox/trunk/src/VBox/ExtPacks/BusMouseSample/

[Perryg]

https://www.virtualbox.org/browser/vbox ... x/ExtPacks

[kicker10bog]

Those appear to be the same files.

When I try to use the make file:
nmake -f Makefile.kmk

it givs an error:
Makefile.kmk(32) : fatal error U1052: file '$(KBUILD_PATH)/subheader.kmk' not found
Stop.

Yes, I have the entire SVN downloaded from the trunk level.

I'm using the Visual Studio 2010 command Prompt

[Perryg]

You can try adding the following to your LocalConfig.kmk and compiling again.

Code: Select all

VBOX_WITH_EXTPACK_BUSMOUSESAMPLE :=1

If the example code is enough to build, this should produce an ExtPack and will be found in /trunk/out/linux.amd64/release/packages/