Produced 1980s to 2000 | Designed late 1980s External Yes | |
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Superseded by PS/2 port, USB (2000; 17 years ago (2000)) |
A bus mouse is a variety of PC computer 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which was integrated with the keyboard controller (still called the PS/2 mouse interface long after the PS/2 brand was withdrawn); this fairly quickly drove the bus mouse design out of the marketplace.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.