Nearly all the newer motherboards come with bios which understands and
translates basic USB keyboard usage(101 keys).  It will be as if you had
a regular keybaord attached, and you should be able to use it that way
in most operating systems (such as DOS) that use the bios routines
instead of attaching themselves to the hardware directly (such as windows).

I have never heard of or seen a DOS api for USB usage, so I doubt that
the manufacturers even ship usb devices with dos drivers since every USB
host controller (on the motherboard) would require a driver too, but I
could be wrong.  It is unlikely that you'll find usb drivers for your
motherboard and for your mouse for DOS.  Most manufacturers get around
this by giving you a USB to PS/2 adaptor with a chip inside the mouse
that can tell whether the adaptor is being used and automatically switch
between one or the other.

You might want to see what some of the other DOS people are doing (Yes,
there are versions of DOS other than MSDOS), since they are still being
maintained and developed.  MS-DOS is pretty much a dead end for future
peripheral usage.

-Adam

William Tan wrote:

>Dear All,
>
>(1) If USB mouse or USB keyboard is used under Windows environment, they
>can easily be detected. Then, if I use USB mouse and USB keyboard in
>DOS, then how can both of them be detected?
>
>Or, if I buy a new DIY PC with USB mouse and USB keyboard, then, how can
>I configurate my BIOS and setup my Windows OS (before any USB driver can
>be loaded)? Then, it seems that I also need (or borrow) standard
>keyboard .....???
>
>-------------------
>
>(2) Then, can USB be the futher peripheral interface?
>
>regards,
>William
>
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