Been a while and spinner troubles

[KeithD]

So it's been a while since I was around here. Place looks great, love what you've done with the carpet... My console hasn't changed except for the new layer of dust: My simple console

Does anyone MAKE anything around here anymore, or do you guys just buy pre-made stuff and plug it into a new PC?

I managed to drag the old control panel and PC out of the closet this last week, and discovered that the old SCSI/Soundblaster ISA card had bit the dust. No more CD ROM drive While changing over to a new(old) PC, I'm having trouble getting the serial mouse hack spinner to work. On the old machine, it would move the mouse cursor in windows in only one direction (makes sense, since it is one axis of a serial mouse) but the new machine won't even find it if there is a PS/2 mouse connected. If I boot up with the PS/2 mouse unplugged, I can use the spinner, and if I plug in a USB mouse AFTER I boot, I can use it, but if any other mouse is plugged in at boot- no dice. If I plug in a USB mouse after boot when the spinner is working, I can have both. I have tried a bunch of different software setups (win 98SE/ DOS, commandline MAME, DOSMAME, MAME32) and in some of them I can get the regular mouse to work, some of them I can't get the spinner to work, and in some neither works, but in all instances, if the spinner is going to work, the other mouse isn't plugged in at boot. Is there some strange hardware conflict on some machine that prevents the OS from seeing both mice? I must be missing something, but I can't for the life of me figure what it could be. I keep thinking there is a checkbox that I haven't seen yet...

The computer is a Dell Inspiron 7200, P3 700MHz, 384MB RAM, with onboard video (i810). I'm using a fresh install of Win 98SE. I have tried the old Optimouse drivers for DOS, but it still doesn't do it. I'm using MAME (get this) 36b16 and MAME32 36b5 (I think)

Any ideas?

Thanks

K