‘longy thinkgy pluggy’ That could of been a serial plug, if it had pins. If it didnt and just looked like a rectangle hole, this is USB. Usually they work fine. Plug and play.
‘roundy thingy pluggy’ if that is small with pins then it is called a PS2 connection. Nothing to do with the games console, but years ago IBM started selling their machines with these connectors for keyboard and mice, differentiated merely by the colours Handy!
Windows 98 can be a bit fussy with these but if you’re running Second Edition you shouldn’t have any problems. I prefer that to XP or ME, and rarely touch 2000 these days. Linux seems to recognise these ok though these days
You’ve got it working though The trackballs and pads on lappys can be a bit of a pain though
Windows 98SE was absolute crap ! I binned it because it wouldn’t recognise the 3dfx Voodoo 3 2000 graphics card I used to have, went back to 95. Running “Longhorn” at the moment, its brilliant !
The mouse is plugged into the port. The Laptop does NOT auto-detect at switch on. I’ve looked at both the control panel and the BIOS, but can’t see anything obvious.
As Gurner says it doesn’t get detected via the ‘New Hardware Found’ thing it just seems to work. I don’t use a mouse on the laptop in the truck but do at home, I just plkug it in and away it goes. While it is plugged in the touch pad and pointer also still work, doesn’t matter which you use.
Have you tried that mouse in another PC to check it is not a fault with it?
Krankee:
I then tried it with a newer mouse with a ‘roundy thingy pluggy’ and it worked.
That reminds me of a week or so ago when I got one of these ‘gucci’ illuminated keyboards for Xmas. I got to the back of the ‘tower’, checked the plug matched and put it it in. The keyboard lit up nicely but none of the keys could get a response!!!
Over an hour later, how silly did I feel when I realised I’d plugged the keyboard into the mouse socket!!
Handy!
but how do I get it to work?
I then tried it with a newer mouse with a ‘roundy thingy pluggy’ and it worked. 
