the twiddler plugs into serial port but it gets power from the keyboard port you can also plug it into the mouse port, and it will still get power (doesn't matter if plugged into mouse or keyboard port) the power connection is clumbsy and akward, as it is now, with the big adapters, and these can all be replaced by a single ps2 style plug. ordinarily, i plug the twiddler into the mouse port for power, leaving the keyboard free. you can use the twiddler and another keyboard at the same time, but not the mouse at the same time. therefore, there's no need for twiddler plug to be cascadable, if it's being plugged into mouse port. cut off the whole mess. strip the wires. inside: red (or brown), black, white (or red), and shield. neither the white (or red) nor the shield are connected to anything else, e.g. they were neither connected to the keyboard connector that was cut off, nor are they connected to the serial port. therefore cut off to short length (no need to worry if they short together). then connect to ps2 mouse plug as follows (looking into pins of male): _| o o |_ _ red (+5v) o | | o black (ground) (or brown) | | o | | o |_| make sure you connect both the red (or brown) and black, not just the red (or brown). although it will work with only the red (or brown) connected (since serial cable has ground) operation may sometimes be erratic or unreliable unless the black wire is also connected for an independent power ground (in addition to the signal ground that arises from the serial port). ask friends for broken ps2 mice, and if the connector is still good, cut off and use, as above. note that the colours of the wires in the twiddler cord do not necessarily agree with those of ps2 mice cords, for example, in my case, the orange wire of the ps2 mouse cord was positive (so i connected it to the red twiddler wire) and the red wire of the ps2 mouse cord was negative (so i connected it to the black twiddler cord). be careful not to short the remaining wires of the salvaged ps2 mouse plug cord (e.g. insulate them from each other). --steve http://wearcam.org/ece1766/twiddler_wiring_howto.txt