Mouse question on a Wells Index Centroid M-400 controls

[Bill Gillen]

Hi all,

I bought a Wells Index knee mill with the Centroid M-400 controls from an individual. There was not a mouse included. I see on the startup screen Microsoft Mouse Driver 8.20 is loading. I plugged in a Dell wheel mouse into each of the three RS-232 serial ports, but it does not work. I tried another old mouse with an RS-232 plug, but it did not work. Does anyone know if a Microsoft two button mouse (with the ball) work? The machine came with a package of MasterCAM, but it is not very useful without the mouse. Also, which of the three ports is recommended to use a mouse with?

It has an Award Bios, 80486DX2 processor, 8Mb RAM and I also saw Microsoft Interlink Version 1.0 pop up on the startup screen after Himem.sys started. The back of the control has three DB9 serial ports, a DB25 printer port and an RJ-45 jack.

If there is any more information I can add please let me know. I'm kind of stuck at the moment on this.

Thanks,
Bill Gillen

[holbieone]

do you have the dos version of the centroidcnc control ?

what dos version ?

[Bill Gillen]

Hi,

We started the control up, and it never stated which version Dos is running. It did say MS-DOS, and was followed by HIMEM.sys. The processor is 80486 DX2, has 8Mb RAM, and a 1994 Chips and Technologies BIOS. I saw 1992 and 1993, I think it was referring to copyrights, just before the Centroid software came up.

As best as I can tell, it has one of the following MS-DOS versions:

1993 MS DOS 6.0
1993 MS DOS 6.2
1993 MS DOS 6.21

Hope this helps,

Bill Gillen

[holbieone]

If you can get to the ms-dos command prompt type edit then press enter

The edit program uses a mouse, if the mouse works then you have the drivers installed and you are using the correct comm port

[cncsnw]

You can exit from the control software to a DOS prompt by pressing Ctrl-Alt-X at the main menu.

You should be able to re-execute the mouse driver by entering the command:
MOUSE
or perhaps
C:\NC\DRIVERS\MOUSE
or perhaps
C:\DOS\MOUSE
That is a more expedient way of testing different configurations than rebooting every time. If the mouse driver detects a mouse it will say so, and will then remain resident in memory.

At the DOS prompt, you can find out what version of DOS you are running using the command:
VER

To restart the control software from the DOS prompt, enter:
CNC7M4

The standard driver should work with any Microsoft-compatible serial mouse. If nothing seems to work, reboot and press DEL persistently to get into the CMOS Setup menus. See if the on-board serial ports/UARTs are disabled.

[Bill Gillen]

You can exit from the control software to a DOS prompt by pressing Ctrl-Alt-X at the main menu.

You should be able to re-execute the mouse driver by entering the command:
MOUSE
or perhaps
C:\NC\DRIVERS\MOUSE
or perhaps
C:\DOS\MOUSE
That is a more expedient way of testing different configurations than rebooting every time. If the mouse driver detects a mouse it will say so, and will then remain resident in memory.

At the DOS prompt, you can find out what version of DOS you are running using the command:
VER

To restart the control software from the DOS prompt, enter:
CNC7M4

The standard driver should work with any Microsoft-compatible serial mouse. If nothing seems to work, reboot and press DEL persistently to get into the CMOS Setup menus. See if the on-board serial ports/UARTs are disabled.

Thank you for this reply. With your instructions, I was able to get to a DOS prompt. The version is 6.22. I tried to start a mouse driver, but all I got was an error message, something like mouse not found (having to work from memory here). We used an old Microsoft mouse, but it had a PS/2 plug on it which we had to convert to a DB9 RS232 with an adapter.

I noticed there is a message "Microsoft Interlink not established" that also appears, but do not think it is related.

Thank you again,
Bill Gillen

[cncsnw]

Try the other serial port.

Check the CMOS Setup menus (maybe under something like "integrated peripherals") to see if the serial ports are disabled.

Try a different mouse.