A bus mouse is a variety of PC mouse which is attached to the computer using a specialized interface (originally, the Microsoft InPort interface developed for Microsoft's original mouse product). In the late 1980s, mice were not integrated with IBM-compatible personal computers, and the specialized bus interface (implemented via an ISA add-in card) was one of two popular ways to connect a mouse. (Serial interfaces, common on engineering workstations, were the other method.) When the IBM PS/2 was introduced, it included a motherboard mouse interface which was integrated with the keyboard controller (still called the PS/2 mouse interface long after the PS/2 brand was withdrawn); this fairly quickly drove the bus mouse design out of the marketplace.
The bus mouse lived on in the NEC PC-98 family of personal computers in Japan.
Famous quotes containing the words bus and/or mouse:
“In the dime stores and bus stations,
People talk of situations,
Read books, repeat quotations,
Draw conclusions on the wall.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)
“An epicure dining at Cree
Found a rather large mouse in his stew.
Said the waiter, “Don’t shout,
Or wave it about,
Or the rest will be wanting one too.””
—Anonymous.