Regarding the missing pins, I suspect it's just a result of the manufactuer choosing to use crimped rather than soldered connections.
Soldered D connectors generally have the pins as a permanent part of the connector. So a soldered D connector will generally end up with all pins present. The same is true for IDC D connectors that go on ribbon cable.
However, with crimped D connectors, the connector body and contacts are supplied seperately and the contact is crimped to the wire before insertion in the connector. If a given position has no wire then it will also generally have no pin (or contact sleeve in the case of a femal connector).
Regarding the name, I would guess microsoft called it a "bus mouse" because the product connected to your computer's bus, rather than to one of it's existing ports. The connection between the mouse itself and the supplied card being an implementation detail.
Soldered D connectors generally have the pins as a permanent part of the connector. So a soldered D connector will generally end up with all pins present. The same is true for IDC D connectors that go on ribbon cable.
However, with crimped D connectors, the connector body and contacts are supplied seperately and the contact is crimped to the wire before insertion in the connector. If a given position has no wire then it will also generally have no pin (or contact sleeve in the case of a femal connector).
Regarding the name, I would guess microsoft called it a "bus mouse" because the product connected to your computer's bus, rather than to one of it's existing ports. The connection between the mouse itself and the supplied card being an implementation detail.
Statistics: Posted by plugwash — Mon Feb 09, 2026 10:24 pm