I plugged this classic IBM trackball mouse into my iPad

Computer mice have come a great distance since their prototypical introduction some sixty years in the past. Gone are the times of underside trackballs, giving method to light-based optical sensors. Mice have shed their wired tails, too, in favor of Bluetooth and a pair of.4Ghz dongles. They’ve additionally advanced further buttons, scroll wheels, and, in some instances, even rumble packs and dedicated displays.

All this newfangled know-how is good and all, however there’s one thing quaint about yesteryear’s trackball mice that I proceed to understand in 2026. Maybe it is that signature retro beige grey colorway that all of them shiped with, or maybe its the quirky Personal System/2 (PS/2) plug that they interfaced with PCs utilizing.

The excellent news — for me at the very least — is that it is solely potential to make use of retro mice with fashionable computing {hardware}. I used to be initially uncertain if this could be the case, and so I employed two seperate dongles and a ninties-era IBM Two Button Mouse to check my speculation. After securing all of the peripherals and plugging all of them into one another, my iPad minilit up with that acquainted iPadOS cursor I used to be so hoping to come across.

Controlling my iPad with a twentieth century mouse

It took two seperate dongles, however I made it occur

To get my IBM Two Button Mouse working with my iPad mini, I first wanted a PS/2 to USB-A adapter. PS/2 (no relation to Sony’s PlayStation 2 house online game console) is a 6-pin mini-DIN connector that was the de facto mouse and keyboard interface previous to USB’s takeover within the 2000s. My adapter is a dual-style one, which means it splits USB into each inexperienced (for legacy mice) and purple (for legacy keyboards).

Subsequent, I needed to plug my PS/2 to USB-A adapter right into a seperate USB-A to USB-C adapter. For probably the most half, PS/2 dongles in the marketplace are older and lack USB-C, which is the one port out there on my iPad mini (and, certainly, on many fashionable computer systems and tablets). I believed my days of dongle-ception have been behind me, however my IBM Two Button Mouse evidently had different plans.

As soon as the whole lot was mentioned and finished, the setup labored like a appeal. My IBM trackball mouse was immediately acknowledged by iPadOS, permitting me to regulate and manipulate the interface as if I used to be utilizing another mouse or trackpad. I have not up to date my iPad mini to iPadOS 26, and so I nonetheless have entry to Apple’s experimental circular-style mouse cursor — the new-age pointer model feels unusual when paired with a mouse belonging to the tower PC period.

PS/2 trackball mice reside on in 2026

Classic tech nonetheless has a spot within the fashionable period of computing

Credit score: Pocket-lint / Canva

Along with being a cool social gathering trick, plugging a classic trackball mouse into a contemporary pill is a superb instance of creating previous tech helpful within the fashionable context, all whereas avoiding undue e-waste. Positive, inexpensive Bluetooth mice are available in the marketplace, however my IBM Two Button mouse continues to be alive and kicking in 2026, and so why not give it a brand new lease on life.

Other than having to take care of so many dongles that I nearly unintentionally created a contemporary Gordian Knot, the method itself was remarkably seamless, even on the traditionally restricted iPadOS. I selected my iPad mini for this experiment exactly due to its relative limitations as a computing platform — if I can get my IBM mouse engaged on iPadOS, then absolutely it will work throughout macOS, Android, ChromeOS, Home windows 11, and Linux, too.

If you happen to occur to have an previous PS/2 trackball mouse accumulating mud someplace in a closet, or in the event you’re merely a lover of retro tech like myself, then I genuinely suppose connecting it to your fashionable PC or mobile device is a viable different to buying an all-new mouse. Now, in the event you’ll excuse me, I am off to disasemble my IBM mouse — it is trackball unit is in want of a fast particles purge.