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Amiga mouse with an Atari STfm

M

MrGamer

New Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2007
Messages
7
Location
Sweden
Hello! I recently purchased an old Atari STfm (1989). It "works" but there are two serious flaws. First, the internal floppy seems to be busted and the two Atari mouses I have are rather crappy...

The floppy problem is one thing I might be able to fix though. So the thing I ask is how do I fit this Amiga mouse I have to my Atari?

First, I would like to point out what I know and what works.

The mouse WORKS on the computer, I have tried it and I can move the pointer around and click, but it does not FIT in the BUS... It sort of just "sits" there.

On the Atari mouse I see a "drilled" hole in the upper left corner of the mouse's connection in to the computer and when I tried the Amiga mouse on the Atari, that is almost where it seemed to "stop" it from connecting.

So...

The question I ask is, what do I have to do to make the Amiga mouse FIT in the Atari's socket?

I would LOVE to skip soldering or any other major surgery on either the mouse or the computer itself (at least for this job)

Why? Well, first, who really WANT to mess with their precious machines? :D and partly since it might be unnecessary and that the Amiga mouse is in PRISTINE condition. It is NEVER used and is of extraordinary quality...

The Amiga mouse is a "Performer = For Amiga 500 Computers", it is of brand "datalux" and it has 200 DPI's.

So, anyone can help me with this?

Feel free to mail me!

Ch33rs!
 
Huh? As far as I know, both computers use a regular DB9 connector. Is the hole in some housing outside the connector or drilled through the DB9?

Also, I thought an Amiga mouse would not work right away with an Atari ST, since two or four lines are swapped. There were 3rd party mice which had a toggle switch underneath for Amiga/Atari ST and then a small logic circuit inside that would route the signals to the correct pins.
 
Well it is a DB9 port on both of them - like the old small COM-port's on the PC - but the Amiga-Mouse does not fit directly on the ST. No switch or anything! I could even up some photoes if you are interested.

I also find it strange that it worked right off since the mouse was unopened when I got it! :)

I think that there is something in the connection on the Amiga-Mouse that prevents it to stick in the DB9-port in the Atari ST "permanently"

I also think that I could drill this hole with a VERY small drill. But I have to be certain that I drill the right thing.

There is another way to circumvent this though, since I have an STfm, the ports are below the computer, and I could stick it in place and then put something that fits very snugly in the compartment below the computer.

But I am trying to find a more permanent solution...
 
I admit I have never studied an Atari ST mouse or its control ports, but the Amiga mice I have seen have a "slim" connector with no screw extentions unlike e.g. serial cables. A picture may help a lot describing what you've ran into.

(Förresten, vilken del av Sverige bor du i?)
 
Hm. If I read the pinout right, that is pin #5 (no connection). So the mouse port on the ST has an oversized pin in this place? I think I've seen something like that before, but never reflected where or why.

At the bottom of this page there is a picture supposedly showing the control ports on an Atari ST (perhaps not STFM). They look like normal.

http://retrospec.sgn.net/users/tomcat/miodrag/Atari_ST/Atari_ST.htm
http://www.maedicke.de/atari/hardware/pictures/520st_3.jpg

In any case, the pinouts differ as following:

Code: 
Pin Atari Amiga
 1  XB    YA (V-pulse)
 2  XA    XA (H-pulse)
 3  YA    YB (VQ-pulse)
 4  YB    XB (HQ-pulse)
 5  NC    MBUT
 6  LBUT  LBUT
 7  +5V   +5V
 8  GND   GND
 9  RBUT  RBUT

Another source claims YA and YB are swapped on the Amiga side, and also swaps around the buttons a bit. If your Amiga mouse works mostly right out of the box, perhaps it is one of the switchable ones that already is configured in ST mode underneath?
 
After looking at the pic, I now know what you mean. I don't know what the oversize holes are for. I havea few mice that are like that, it's a mystery to me.

Do you mean that the thing won't stay plugged in, that it slips out? If that's the problem, use a hot glue gun to make a little bump on one fo the flat sides of the mouse plug. Might want to scratch up the side you put the glue on so it'll hold if you take it in or out a lot. The whole point is to make it a little bit bigger so friction will hold it in place. i would say tape, but tape comes off and gets gummy over time.

Nathan
 
I got the impression the plug won't fit in the connector, because the oversized hole is not present in the Amiga mouse. That's why he's considering drilling it bigger.
 
carlsson said:
Another source claims YA and YB are swapped on the Amiga side, and also swaps around the buttons a bit. If your Amiga mouse works mostly right out of the box, perhaps it is one of the switchable ones that already is configured in ST mode underneath?
Click to expand...

Nope. I now know that there is something strange afoot. I paged through tradera.se (a Swedish auction site) and found several of these mouses I am talking about available for auction for the Atari there, even as a package with a computer a mouse and some other stuff from a Swedish company called "spelfyndet"...

I think I found at least three Atari's there that came with this model of mouse and at least one for sale under the "flag" of Atari... There must be something with that mouse that makes it fit directly.

As said above in the first post, it is a mouse of model "Performer" from company "Datalux" and features 200 DPI's and says on the package that it is for Amiga 500 computers...

And as for a switch, there is none! I did look inside it some time ago to see if I could simply refit the Atari Mouse-cord directly in to the mouse, the fitting was similar but on my Atari mouse model the fitting was to large to just "pop" it in to place. And if I remember correctly I could not see a switch... Hell, I'll just pop it open and see.

*doing stuff*
Kay. I photoed the guts of the mouse... CARNAGE! ;) As you can see, no switch!

Opened mouse.
(High Res)
http://www.chimeramusic.net/files/mrgamer/DSC01791.jpg
(Low Res)
http://www.chimeramusic.net/files/mrgamer/DSC01791_resize.jpg

Mouse without the cord
(High Res)
http://www.chimeramusic.net/files/mrgamer/DSC01795.jpg
(Low Res)
http://www.chimeramusic.net/files/mrgamer/DSC01795_resize.jpg

And the picture you showed me is exactly the right ports except mine (the Atari STfm) they are located underneath the machine. I will take a picture of it right now.

*doing stuff*

Ah! Here...
Atari STfm DB9-ports

Super High Res
http://www.chimeramusic.net/files/mrgamer/DSC01760.jpg
Normal Res
http://www.chimeramusic.net/files/mrgamer/DSC01760_resize.jpg

So what do you think? Even if you don't know what my problem is, at least you get a small tour of my stuff... And maybe even learn something from a newbie like me. ;)
 
Last edited:
NathanAllan said:
After looking at the pic, I now know what you mean. I don't know what the oversize holes are for. I havea few mice that are like that, it's a mystery to me.

Do you mean that the thing won't stay plugged in, that it slips out? If that's the problem, use a hot glue gun to make a little bump on one f othe flat sides of the mouse plug. Might want to scratch up the side you put the glue on so it'll hold if you take it in or out a lot. The whole point is to make it a little bit bigger so friction will hold it in place. i would say tape, but tape comes off and gets gummy over time.

Nathan
Click to expand...

You have a few valid points there and i appreciate the tips.

But the mouse does not exactly "slip out" of the socket, you have to manually hold it there and it just "sits" on top... it is hardly even connected... Think of it as the plug for the socked was cut short and there was only contacts without holes for the socket to fasten on.

Maybe a bit of a bad comparison, but I think you get my drift.

One thing though. I imagine I could "semi-force it" in to place by first "plugging" it in, and then hold it there by putting something that fit's snugly in the compartment underneath the Atari STfm. (pictures of that in the previous post)

It will be sort of a half-permanent solution, but since it is "forced" in to place - rather little but still - I might eventually cause harm to the plug and/or port if i plug it, and then out and then in and out again... Even when using the "MrGamer's fit something snugly in compartment underneath technique(TM)" described above! :D

Again, thanks for tips, they might still be useful some time!

Cheers!
 
Strange. I don't see any oversized pins on the mouse/joystick connectors, yet you're saying the other mouse needs to be forced in to fit. Some may be trickier than others. The switch I spoke about would be accessible from the outside, just next to the mouse ball on the underside. If it mostly seems to work with an Atari ST, I'd say the packaging was wrong. I suppose you don't have an Amiga to compare with anyway?

By the way, Spelfyndet is selling stuff through eBay too, under the name "gamebargainno1" and possibly other aliases. Often you can find similar goods cheaper from another seller. In many cases you can even buy something from abroad, pay international shipping and still get away cheaper than buying the item from them. I've even heard from buyers who tried to buy an item and was told it is not currently in stock, i.e. they advertise items they could acquire within 5-10 weeks if they find a buyer first. Perhaps it is becoming a common way to make online business?
 
Well, I don't know anything about this shipping and buying abroad... Well, I do, but I only consider doing that if I get really desperate since I only pay in cash! Hehe... :)

About the mouse
No, there is no switch underneath and it is packaged (factory packaged) as an Amiga 500 mouse. I swear to God! :D

And sadly. No. I do not have an Amiga :( ... Off topic, but I have heard quite a lot about the old feud/war between the Atari and Amiga sceners! Personally I find both of the machines totally wonderful!

I started my "computer career" with PC and sort of missed the other stuff. My interest actually began with Amiga and not Atari when I started tracking music in good old Fasttracker ][!

As I said, I love both machines.... The Atari for being more "oldschool" (but still equally powerful if not more powerful, although more expensive I've heard) and the Amiga for it's audio-capabilities among other things.

The main goal I have with my Atari is to make either Chip music (with the built in Yamaha YM chip of course) or make sample-music like with a regular tracker.

Enough dreaming and back to the mouse.

Actually, It is not *that* big a deal. And I need to correct you about something. I can't even force it in!

It is neither to large nor to small. I just can't get it to "snap" in to place in the DB9 BUS, probably due to one of the holes in the Amiga-mouse's plug being to small.

The problem is not all that easy to explain in text.

But imagine this =

I hold the STfm and BUS'es "up in the air" vertically (that is to say they point upward ;) ) and I place the mouse plug in one of them... It makes contact and I can use it. But there is not the slightest little friction or anything else to hold it in to place.

It does not go *in* the bus... It just *sits on top* of it, and although it makes contact, I can't plug it in!

But as said above, it is not that big a problem. I am pretty sure can solve it by putting someting that fits snugly in the compartment underneath the STfm holding the mouse plug in place without using excessive force...

:sleepy: Hell... I see this is going more or less nowhere... No offence, and not blaming you Carlsson! You have provided much information, food for thought and also nice conversation and I bet you still have a lot to offer! :)

When I find a solution to this problem - should anyone come across it or something similar again - I will post it here.

But in the meantime, we can still talk about the subject at hand and maybe even turn our heads towards the other problem my machine suffers from = A broken floppy driver! :sad3:

I recently purchased a Sony MPF 920 floppy (since I got the impression it was the most reliable and trusted "cross-platform" hardware out there for an STfm and newer models) and I have found a lot of documentation on how to make it work.

As far as I know you just need to twist the IDE (or whatever it is called in an Atari) cable and put the Drive select to 0 on the floppy and you are all set!

Pleas, correct me if I am wrong! (Or better yet, add something! :) ) If I can't solve this problem, maybe it is a good idea to go to Atari-Forum? ;)

Oh well. Even if I fix one problem with my machine I will certainly stay here and ask for other advice if something pops up.

Cheers! And thanks for your time!
 
I can tell a little bit about twisting the cable. It will work at 720k, that is probably what you read already. I don't know if you read that the cable is gonna be short. All of my ST's have dead onboard floppies, and I had to wrestle with the cable to make it work, and then it called for some strange screws so I just yanked it back out and put everything back. Well, minus one dead floppy drive.

This is one reason I'm not into the ST so much. There's always some technical issue to be worked out that turns out to be pretty deep.

Oh, and if you decide to go to atari-forum, get ready for very technical talk. Nothing against tech-talk, it canjust get overwhelming. There is a lot already on there from past problems, so you might want to look around first. Er, sorry I couldn't be much more help.

Nathan
 
Not a problem. It was nice to get a reply so soon, and also thank you for informing me of the "problem" with all the technical stuff on Atari-Forum! :)

If it is "semi-simple" stuff, I can cope with it, but soldering on the board and making nifty devices is waaaaay out of my leauge, so I more or less look for "easy" sollutions like with the twisting of the cable and moving a simple jumper.

I also got the impression that the BIOS on the ST's where pretty "smart" and tolerant. That is to say the computer can swallow a lot even if it is not perfectly suited.

Yes, I know I will only get 720k instead of 1.44Mb, but that is not a problem.

All I want is to get the machine to receive input and not just display a green desktop I can't do a single thing with except making noises and clicking on stuff that does not work! :D

I read in one of the other threads you created about a similar problem with the internal floppy, there you mentioned that you pulled your floppy to peices to see if you could find the problem. Any form of luck?

And oh. Do you know why a secondary external floppy does not respond either?

The external one is a SF354 Single-sided 360k in working conditon I salvaged from my previous ST that broke down shortly after I got it to work. :sad3:

The reason I got the STfm was beacause I put a lot of effort and money in to the ST, and now I have put *a lot* of effort - and money - in to the STfm as well!

So I really want it to work...

Could it be that the STfm - so to say - need to have the internal floppy to work before you can use the external one? Or is the Single-sided SF354 simply incompatible?

Cheers!
 
Simple stuff is nice to deal with. When I have to do a ton of research and kill machines in the 'learning process' it's a big turn off for me.

I was able to not use the floppy at all and get the thing to boot. It kept giving me a white screen when the floppy was installed so I removed it and got to the GEM desktop. Then I got back into school and most of my projects are pretty much stalled.

Your 354 should work okay, just make sure the belt is good. Ihave one good one and had to replace the belt. No luck taking the floppy apart, nothing obvious anyways. I didn't try to trace anything down, since I had an idea. Didn't work *yet*. Ah well.

Nathan
 
Atari mouse problems

Atari mouse problems

Hi guys

Just spent ages finding the software required for setting up to use a std PC serial mouse in the SERIAL port

file attached if you want it


cheers
Mick
 

Attachments

  • atari_sermouse_driver.ZIP
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