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Hardwiring mice
_Iz-:
--- Quote from: TheManuel on May 27, 2003, 04:54:18 pm ---
That brings us around to my original question. I would essentailly be wiring two mice together wheather it is using a gutted mouse or Radio Shack opto-electronics or a commercial board.
You believe it is possible then?
By the way, I would build my own spinner (based on somebody else's writeup) and still gut the mouse to go as el cheapo as possible since I do not play a lot of spinner games (yet) but still would like to have it.
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Well, I have a hacked mouse with both a trackball and spinner wired to it in parallel. Only difference here is you are using the original, fully functional trackball pcb and adding a spinner instead of using a mouse, removing all optics and wiring others in their place. You're technically not wiring 2 mice together, you're just adding an extra "input" to one existing axis. Wiring 2 mice together would involve having the computer "talk" to pcbs on 2 mice. This *is* just one mouse and therefore avoids all those problems.
So to make a long story short, you need an "arcade" type spinner to add. (Just spinner mechanicals and basic optics only). Make one styled after one of oscar's with a universal optic board.
TheManuel:
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Well, I have a hacked mouse with both a trackball and spinner wired to it in parallel. Only difference here is you are using the original, fully functional trackball pcb and adding a spinner instead of using a mouse, removing all optics and wiring others in their place. You're technically not wiring 2 mice together, you're just adding an extra "input" to one existing axis. Wiring 2 mice together would involve having the computer "talk" to pcbs on 2 mice. This *is* just one mouse and therefore avoids all those problems.
So to make a long story short, you need an "arcade" type spinner to add. (Just spinner mechanicals and basic optics only). Make one styled after one of oscar's with a universal optic board.
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I see your point.
One alternative would be to try and use from the mouse guts only the optics trying to figure out a way of not involving the PCB of the gutted mouse in the setup. What's your opinion on this?
Another alternative, would be to buy a USB mouse fo the hack but that would mean having to buy the mouse and a USB hub as I ran out of USB ports already.
Yet another one, to buy a serial mouse. Although, I did notice that the when I connect the trackball to the serial port (it is a combo serial and PS/2), it does lose movement resolution.
gtjoe:
I did this with a ps/2 spinner and a ps/2 compusa trackball.
The only solution I found is using a ps2 to usb converter like this:
http://www.callcct.com/cgi-bin/cart/wamy.cgi?wuser=cables&searchtype=fieldmatch&fields=xindex&search=3054&table=inv&head=dhead.html&foot=rfoot.html&template=detail.html
You can only use the mouse port on the converter for a pointing device, so at most 2 ps2 pointing device. A pointing device on the keyboard port of the converter was not recognized.
Other solution, is to use a USB mouse for your spinner.
Warborg:
I'd just go with the USB mouse, and get a 4-port minihub to hook it in... That's what I did for my cab, at any rate... I think it will save you a lot of headache if you hack all this together and something doesn't work, you will end up needlessly troubleshooting the trackball/mouse combo. I think it's better to keep all the devices separate, much easier to track down problems and tweak things if need be.
TheManuel:
Thanks to everyone that chipped in.
Hacking a USB mouse is the safest solution in this case while still maintaining cost low.
Adding the spinner to the trackball PCB would probably get me in trouble.
Still, I would like to see Iz's setup, so if you have anything in the Examples page, please let me know.
The ultimate solution would be to make my CompUSA tracball work just as well in serial mode as it does in PS/2. I'll make that the subject of a separate post shortly.
Second to this, would be to find a serial mouse with good performance and hack this.
I'll keep beating the dead horse to a bloody pulp.
Thank you all.