[Coco] A way to use a serial mouse? (was: Mouse (Bill))

[Rick Taylor]

Heh!
Great minds think alike! I was also thinking about using an arduino as a
translator. I was also thinking, maybe use the RBBB from Modern Device (
http://moderndevice.com/RBBB_revB.shtml
<http://moderndevice.com/RBBB_revB.shtml> and
maybe put it in a small package.

Also on arduinos, I have been mulling over how one might stick an arduino in
a program pak and allow for even more real world sensing than the coco
inherently has.

I'm thinking maybe a set of buffers/latches, with the arduino (or, atmega
chip in this case) sitting on the other side? It would tie up a few lines on
the atmega chip for addressing the buffer, but, if we're talking an 8 bit
latch here, what's that give? One line for read/write and eight to address
the latch(es)?

I'm thinking out loud here. The idea is still half baked. What I'd love to
have is for the arduino to be able to communicate on the coco's bus
natively, and still have all of its I/O, PWM, and other lines available.

How would one go about converting i2c to the coco's native bus.. hmmm..

Just thinking out loud here... and I should say, hardware is not my strong
point. I tend to let the magic smoke out of things.



On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 8:27 AM, Andrew <keeper63 at cox.net> wrote:

> I read this message, and no, there isn't a way to simply "re-wire" a serial
> mouse to hook up to the coco, short of via an RS-232 pak and some OS-9
> drivers (and even then, IIRC there were issues?)...
>
> But...
>
> What about this (and maybe I should try it out, although I don't have the
> time, I have all the hardware - hmm): Connect a serial/ps-2 mouse up to an
> Arduino (or any other favorite microcontroller that has the right ports,
> etc), then hook the Arduino up to the joystick port. The Arduino would then
> have code to read the serial data then convert it using its internal
> commands into the voltage level outputs on other pins which feed into the
> CoCo.
>
> It would be real simple then to do some other funky things, such as "mouse
> macros", as well as create a form of hi-res interface (if you connected to
> the cassette port). I could also see this thing interfaced to the bit-banger
> serial port...
>
> This should be VERY simple to build - the difficult part would be the code
> (maybe). On an Arduino, you could even (in theory) interface to a USB mouse.
> It has enough commands for the serial input (though you might need a level
> shifter?). Hmm - I am also seeing code on the site to read a PS/2 keyboard
> (maybe a way to hook a PS/2 keyboard to the CoCo?):
>
> http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/Libraries
>
> But for PS/2 or RS-232 mouse - you might be on your own writing code, but I
> bet somebody else has already done it. I could see even interfacing
> something like a Playstation joypad to the CoCo with something like this
> (although it would probably be single player only - you would need to use
> both joystick ports likely unless you did some form of multiplexing).
>
> Hmm - here's some PS/2 mouse stuff:
>
> http://www.arduino.cc/playground/ComponentLib/Ps2mouse
>
> Ok - for the voltage output you just use PWM commands (and you might need a
> cap for smoothing - not sure how the coco would react):
>
> http://principialabs.com/arduino-pulse-width-modulation/
>
> Hmm - actually, this project is now looking pretty simple...I wish I had
> fewer projects, more time, and a host of other things...
>
> -- Andrew L. Ayers, Glendale, Arizona
>
> --
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>



-- 
All of this machinery making modern music can still be open hearted -
not so coldly charted; it's really just a question of your honesty.

- Neil Peart, Rush, _The Spirit of Radio_