Mouse Mat
Andrew J. Nickson
Does any one know where I can get an optical mouse mat or cheap mechanical
mice I have 2* Sparc Stations that at present are useless.
If someone can scan in the mat I can print as many as needed.
Andrew
anic...@anacomp.co.uk
Ken Farwell
regards
Ken
Andrew J. Nickson wrote in message
<89qsn9$1l3t$1...@quince.news.easynet.net>...
George Adkins
>
>Does any one know where I can get an optical mouse mat or cheap mechanical
>mice I have 2* Sparc Stations that at present are useless.
>
>If someone can scan in the mat I can print as many as needed.
>
For the length of recorded time itself, Brave souls have pitted
themselves against the task of replicating the Optical Mouse Mat. Again and
again, the project has failed or been lost to dispair. For the Sun Optical
Mouse Mat is a cleverly constructed beast, it must be reflective, shiny like
semi-polished sheet metal. It must have a grid, but the grid is not uniform
from model to model, and often the grid lines are of different colors and
spacings. Attempts to duplicate it must be cheap, for used ones can be had
for around ten dollars (US) and New ones are only about Twenty-Five (again,
USD).
Surely there must be a way that we can do this, I say 'Once more into
the breach! ... Or let them close up the wall with our ('acker) dead.'
(on a serious note, I have type 3,4 &5 Optical pads, and would be willing to
offer any information or skill I have in assistance to the task of
re-creating a substitute to "git them optical mice rollin.." er.. I mean
glidin!)
(Mike, you with me on this?)
George
James Lockwood
: For the length of recorded time itself, Brave souls have pitted
: themselves against the task of replicating the Optical Mouse Mat. Again and
: again, the project has failed or been lost to dispair. For the Sun Optical
: Mouse Mat is a cleverly constructed beast, it must be reflective, shiny like
: semi-polished sheet metal. It must have a grid, but the grid is not uniform
: from model to model, and often the grid lines are of different colors and
: spacings. Attempts to duplicate it must be cheap, for used ones can be had
: for around ten dollars (US) and New ones are only about Twenty-Five (again,
: USD).
New type-5 mouse pads are only $12 brand new from Sun. P/N 370-1399.
Type-5 pads cannot be easily replicated due to the tight spacing of blue and
black lines. Type-4 pads can be replicated with a fine black grid printed
onto glossy white paper. I know this because I have one I printed out from a
postscript file back in 1994, but the original file is long lost to me. We
used these in a university student lab once upon a time because the paper
could just be duct-taped into place while the pads tended to get lost. I
suspect that a file printed onto an overhead transparency with a metal
backplate would work even better.
Brand new type-6 mechanical mice are $35 from Sun, not a bad deal (the type-5
Compact 1 mice are $39 I believe). They have discontinued the type-5 opticals
so I am hoarding what is left of my stock.
Type-5 opticals and mechanicals can both be upgraded to 4800bps. Has anyone
managed to do the same with a type-6?
-James
George Adkins
>black lines. Type-4 pads can be replicated with a fine black grid printed
>onto glossy white paper. I know this because I have one I printed out from
a
>postscript file back in 1994, but the original file is long lost to me. We
>used these in a university student lab once upon a time because the paper
>could just be duct-taped into place while the pads tended to get lost. I
>suspect that a file printed onto an overhead transparency with a metal
>backplate would work even better.
I have heard that this can be done, but I have not tried it. I expect that
the overhead plastic would be an even better idea. How about this, if you
printed the grid on transparency and then laminated it in plastic with a
piece of aluminum foil? I bet you could produce a fairly durable (yet cheap
enough to be disposable) mat...
>Type-5 opticals and mechanicals can both be upgraded to 4800bps. <>
Would you be willing to post details on this? (as in how-to?)
George
Mike N
mention I have a metric buttload of type 4 and 5 optical meeses)
Cheers,
Mike N
Spamblock in use, remove the .spamnot to reply
dig...@pathcom.com
>> Type-5 pads cannot be easily replicated due to the tight spacing of blue and
>> onto glossy white paper. I know this because I have one I printed out from a
>> postscript file back in 1994, but the original file is long lost to me. We
>> used these in a university student lab once upon a time because the paper
>> could just be duct-taped into place while the pads tended to get lost. I
>> suspect that a file printed onto an overhead transparency with a metal
>> backplate would work even better.
here is a PS one that may work ( I have never tried it my sun has a ball :)
part of the post I took it from:
> Here's the postscript to do it. Send this straight to a postscript
> printer or use ghostscript/ghostview to view it and send it to a
> printer. If you want to increase the "speed" at which the mouse moves on
> screen for a given movement of your hand, throw the paper on a
> photocopier and reduce it to 90% or 80% or less.
>
> Adrian Drury
----cut here----
%!PS-Adobe-2.0
%% Sun 3 mouse pad
%% Copyright 1987, BeakSoft Inc.
%% All Rights Reserved
%% Permission is granted to copy and use this without charge as long
%% as the copyright notices remain intact.
%%
%%
gsave
90 rotate
/ZapfChancery-MediumItalic findfont 24 scalefont setfont
5 -40 moveto
(This is a mouse pad. It works!) show
( 1987, BeakSoft Inc.)
dup
stringwidth pop
10.9 72 mul
exch sub
dup /copyr exch def
-40 moveto
show
/Symbol findfont 24 scalefont setfont
(\343)
dup
stringwidth pop
copyr exch sub
-40 moveto
show
grestore
.8 setlinewidth
50 0 moveto
250
{ 2.4 0 rmoveto gsave 0 11 72 mul rlineto stroke grestore } repeat
.6 setlinewidth
50 0 moveto
300 { 0 2.8 rmoveto gsave 8.5 72 mul 0 rlineto stroke grestore } repeat
showpage
---cut here---
James Lockwood
: >Type-5 opticals and mechanicals can both be upgraded to 4800bps. <>
: Would you be willing to post details on this? (as in how-to?)
:
: George
Here's a modification guide I came up with last year:
Sun mice are both good and bad. Good, because they're generally very well
made and have an excellent feel (I prefer the opticals myself). Bad,
because they run at a slow serial speed (1200bps). This makes mouse
movement somewhat "jumpy".
Due to the way that mouse movement is encoded on a Sun, you can only get a
maximum of 24 positional or button updates per second. This doesn't
sound so bad until you realize that you are getting a new position less
than half as often as you are updating the screen, and you are looking at
a minimum of 40ms latency for any mouse action at all. Move nearly any
Sun mouse rapidly from side to side, and you get a very jumpy response.
The same problem is noticeable to a lesser degree when scrolling or moving
windows.
The good news is that Sun, in their considerable foresight, made it
possible for all type-5 mice to run at a faster serial speed (4800bps).
This gives you 96 updates per second with 10ms latency which gives a much
better mouse feel (and better performance from interactive RT processes
such as 3D visualization or games). You need Solaris 2.3 or above to take
advantage of faster mice speeds.
Anyways, here's a brief guide to "upgrading" your Sun type-5 mouse. No
warranty expressed or implied, if you screw up and toast your
E6500/Elite3D that you're using for 3D visualization of weather data I
will disavow all knowledge of this message. This post will self-destruct
in 5 seconds...
Anyways, there are two different versions of the type-5 mouse. I'll
discuss the ball mice (optomechanicals) first:
If you've got a mouse that's part number 370-1586-01, congratulations!
You have an extremely rare piece of Sun history, that will doubtless be
worth as much as $15 in another decade. These were the only 4800bps mice
produced by Sun (for the Voyager). Lord only knows what they were
thinking at the time.
Part numbers 370-1586-02 and -03 are the most common versions. These are
fairly easy to modify as follows:
Remove the mouse ball. Disassemble the mouse by removing the 3 bottom
screws and remove the top cover. Unplug the circuit board from the cable
and flip the board over.
Using either a soldering iron or a pair of cutters, remove the zero-ohm
resistor at "R3" (near the mouse ball). Connect the solder pads at "R2"
(in one corner of the board) using either a blob of solder or a wire
whisker. If the jumper at "W9" (next to R2) is missing (usually is on -03
mice, isn't on -02 mice), short that one as well (you can't just use a
blob of solder here as another wire runs between the terminals).
Installation is the reverse of removal.
For opticals (370-1398 tested, no idea on any other):
Remove the felt pads on the bottom, exposing the screws and plastic tabs
at the top. Remove the screws and pop the tabs out using a flat-bladed
screwdriver. Remove the top cover. _Gently_ unplug the circuit board
from the flex-cable that runs to the optics, I find that a pair of
non-crushing needle-nose pliers and a lot of patience is good here.
Extract the board and flip it upside-down (but don't disconnect the cable
that comes out of the mouse, it's a pain to get back on right).
Join the solder pads at one corner near the main chip labeled "JP2" with a
small wire. Reassemble, being careful to get the flex-cable back in all
the way without breaking it. Also make sure to route the main cable
that runs out of the mouse correctly, if you don't lay it in the proper
channel then you can cause binding of the middle button.
This is it. Plug it in and move the mouse around. Pretty smooth, eh? To
confirm that you are running at 4800bps, run:
% stty </dev/mouse
speed 4800 baud; -parity
...
I hope this helps people, it's a cheap upgrade that makes a terrific
improvement. Once you've done it, it's hard to go back.
-James
Thad Floryan
| George Adkins (gwad...@spamtrap.erols.com) wrote:
| : >Type-5 opticals and mechanicals can both be upgraded to 4800bps. <>
| : Would you be willing to post details on this? (as in how-to?)
| :
| : George
|
| Here's a modification guide I came up with last year:
| This is it. Plug it in and move the mouse around. Pretty smooth, eh? To
| confirm that you are running at 4800bps, run:
|
| % stty </dev/mouse
| speed 4800 baud; -parity
| ...
|
| I hope this helps people, it's a cheap upgrade that makes a terrific
| improvement. Once you've done it, it's hard to go back.
Hmmm, then how would you explain this (on an IPX with a Type 5 keyboard/mouse):
# uname -a
SunOS rigel 5.5.1 Generic_103640-08 sun4c sparc SUNW,Sun_4_50
# stty < /dev/mouse
speed 9600 baud; -parity
rows = 0; columns = 0; ypixels = 0; xpixels = 0;
[...]
yet an SS20 running Solaris 2.6 connected to the same Lightwave KVM switch
(thus the same keyboard/mouse) reports this:
$ stty < /dev/mouse
speed 1200 baud; -parity
rows = 0; columns = 0; ypixels = 0; xpixels = 0;
and another IPX running SunOS 4.1.4 also on the same switch reports:
$ stty < /dev/mouse
speed 1200 baud;
intr <undef>; quit <unde ...
The mouse for all the above is 370-1170-01 and the keyboard is 320-1073-01
Thad
Thad Floryan
| In article <38c62510$0$2...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
| Thad Floryan <th...@thadlabs.com> wrote:
|
| > Hmmm, then how would you explain this (on an IPX with a Type 5
| > keyboard/mouse):
|
| > speed 9600 baud; -parity
|
| > speed 1200 baud; -parity
|
| descriptors, stdin for SysV and stdout for BSD.
That's what I thought before, but checking again:
# whereis stty
stty: /usr/bin/stty /usr/ucb/stty /usr/man/man1/stty.1 /usr/man/man1b/stty.1b
# ls -l /usr/bin/stty /usr/ucb/stty
-r-xr-xr-x 1 bin bin 27776 May 2 1996 /usr/bin/stty
-rwxr-xr-x 1 bin bin 28648 Feb 20 1997 /usr/ucb/stty
# /usr/bin/stty < /dev/mouse
speed 9600 baud; -parity ...
# /usr/ucb/stty < /dev/mouse
speed 9600 baud; -parity ...
# uname -a
SunOS rigel 5.5.1 Generic_103640-08 sun4c sparc SUNW,Sun_4_50
Ah, after starting a windowing system on it the baud was reported as 1200;
I usually just rsh or ssh into it so many months could pass before starting
X or OW.
No problem. :-)
Thad
George Adkins
grid directly onto aluminum foil (the not-so shiny side) after attatching
the leading edge of the sheet to the top of a piece of ordinary printer
paper with spray glue. I sprayed a thin and narrow band of clue across the
top of the paper and stuck the foil to it trailing away from the top of the
paper, and then folded the foil over so that it covered the opposite face of
the sheet. (Resulting in a page of foil that had a margin folded over the
top of the sheet of paper and was glued on the backside.)
like so...
--------------
/ =================
\---
Sorry for the crude line drawing...
then I used the manual feed (to keep it as flat as possible) and printed it
to the foil face.
After smoothing out the slight wrinkles, the result was a fine working
specimen, however the toner had a surfave that would flake off pretty easily
under wear... So I laminated it (Hot-Roll laminator). Unfortunately, the
heat of the process seems to have caused the foil to expand, resulting in a
wrinkled foil sheet after everything is done... spoiling the pad. (Too
jumpy and erratic now..)
My next plan will be to try the transparency, and perhaps to try printing on
the foiled paper and then covering it with adhesive lamination...
Any comments or suggestions are welcome...
George