mice - was and still is Re: IBM RT 6150?

[Chris M]

--- Gordon JC Pearce <gordonjcp at gjcp.net> wrote:

> On Sunday 20 January 2008 20:21:00 Chris M wrote:
> 
> >  of course everyone would opt for an authentic
> > original rodent, but how hard could it be to rig
> > virtually any mouse to work on, IWT, any computer?
> 
> Depends on the mouse, depends on the computer. 
> Quadrature mice are easy.  At 
> worst the "dot pitch" of the mouse won't match the
> original and the pointer 
> will be too fast or too slow.  Serial mice (not just
> PC serial, I mean any 
> mouse that communicates via some sort of serial
> link) would be harder.  You'd 
> have to know what the computer was expecting, and
> what it might send - 
> perhaps there's an "are you there" handshake on
> initialisation.

 So you're saying this would indicate there's some
sort of firmware built into the mouse itself?
 
> You used to get combined PS/2 and Serial mice for
> PCs that came with a little 
> adaptor.  The adaptor only worked with the mice they
> were intended for, 
> because the mouse detected the presence of the
> adaptor and sent serial mouse 
> data instead of PS/2 mouse data.

 AFAIK any of the common PS/2 mice can be use as
serial, at least. Not sure if there are adapters to
convert the other way though. Or if they'd work. Can't
see why not though.
 I do have at least 1 mouse, a Goldstar branded, that
has a switch to go from, IINM (actually this could be
erroneous) bus or serial. Maybe that is correct
though.
 
> It might be possible to make a "smart enough" mouse
> adaptor that would suss 
> out what it was plugged into from handshaking
> signals, and interface an 
> ordinary mouse to it.

 I haven't a clue what you're talking about mate.




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