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Aftermarket Applemouse II? Did they exist? Or Schematics to make one?

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cj7hawk

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Hi All,

Just recently got my first Apple II, and I was wondering if there was much information on the AppleMouse for the IIe? Or whether aftermarket mouse/cards were made?

And also did they make anything more than a paint program for the system, or an OS shell or mouse-operated OS for the II series at all?

Thanks
David
 
Several third party mice were made. I have a GeoMouse (marketed for use with GEOS), a couple Laser mice (marketed for use with the Laser 128 series), and early 9-pin Macintosh mice are compatible as well. I have a Kensington trackball and a "Shining" mouse that looks like the early Microsoft "Dove bar" mouse. Note that due to sharing the port with the joystick on the IIc (and clones), some mice that are compatible with the IIe mouse card do not work with the IIc (and clones).

As far as GUI apps and environments go, there was GEOS which was a full blown OS with integrated applications, but also many third party ProDOS-based GUI apps, including MouseDesk (licensed and rebranded by Apple as Apple II DeskTop) as a Finder-style disk and program launcher. See a2desktop.com for more details; the FAQ has a list of GUI apps. (Disclaimer: I'm the unofficial maintainer of modern A2D)
 
inexorabletash said:
Several third party mice were made. I have a GeoMouse (marketed for use with GEOS), a couple Laser mice (marketed for use with the Laser 128 series), and early 9-pin Macintosh mice are compatible as well. I have a Kensington trackball and a "Shining" mouse that looks like the early Microsoft "Dove bar" mouse. Note that due to sharing the port with the joystick on the IIc (and clones), some mice that are compatible with the IIe mouse card do not work with the IIc (and clones).

As far as GUI apps and environments go, there was GEOS which was a full blown OS with integrated applications, but also many third party ProDOS-based GUI apps, including MouseDesk (licensed and rebranded by Apple as Apple II DeskTop) as a Finder-style disk and program launcher. See a2desktop.com for more details; the FAQ has a list of GUI apps. (Disclaimer: I'm the unofficial maintainer of modern A2D)
Click to expand...

Thanks for that - that was exactly the sort of information I was after - though I was also looking for information on the mouse cards themselves to support the mice. Was there an alternative to the Apple mouse card, or did any other cards support a mouse interface?
 
I am interested in this too. So far, I've not acted on it much, largely due to the fact that I had plenty to do with Apple machines just using keyboard and joystick. It's enough most of the time.

I do want to explore A2Desktop.

I have both a FastChip in my //e, and have purchased, but have yet to install the new Esp32 card. It's going to be a lot more fun with a mouse. And frankly, the //e at 16Mhz is crazy good. A2Desktop should fly!

A while back, I copied AppleSoft into the FastChip on card RAM and good grief! It blazes and is kind of fun to program. I highly recommend doing this at least once, if you've got one. That experience got me to thinking about a mouse and I've just kind of sat on it for lack of a card and info about one.

One solution might just be to have the ESP32 do the work. It can do a bunch of crazy things, why not a mouse?

That's a side show though. I am genuinely interested in cloning the mouse card, or at the least plopping a micro on a card, maybe Propeller chip (which would be pretty easy for me), maybe something else (harder), maybe even another 6502 (probably harder just because I have yet to build up a 6502 circuit from scratch! (I know, I should at least walk through Ben Eater's fine work)

It all starts with details on the Mouse Card though. Any pointers?

Can newer mice be modified to work?
 
potatohead said:
I am interested in this too. So far, I've not acted on it much, largely due to the fact that I had plenty to do with Apple machines just using keyboard and joystick. It's enough most of the time.

I do want to explore A2Desktop.

I have both a FastChip in my //e, and have purchased, but have yet to install the new Esp32 card. It's going to be a lot more fun with a mouse. And frankly, the //e at 16Mhz is crazy good. A2Desktop should fly!

A while back, I copied AppleSoft into the FastChip on card RAM and good grief! It blazes and is kind of fun to program. I highly recommend doing this at least once, if you've got one. That experience got me to thinking about a mouse and I've just kind of sat on it for lack of a card and info about one.

One solution might just be to have the ESP32 do the work. It can do a bunch of crazy things, why not a mouse?

That's a side show though. I am genuinely interested in cloning the mouse card, or at the least plopping a micro on a card, maybe Propeller chip (which would be pretty easy for me), maybe something else (harder), maybe even another 6502 (probably harder just because I have yet to build up a 6502 circuit from scratch! (I know, I should at least walk through Ben Eater's fine work)

It all starts with details on the Mouse Card though. Any pointers?

Can newer mice be modified to work?
Click to expand...

At the end of the day, the mouse card is going to be some digital inputs - so if you have a CPU in there somewhere with a USB interface, then it must be possible. I heard of USB mice being slaved to the A2USB, though no details on it, and nothing on Ebay backing it up.

So for the moment, Mouse cards for the AppleII are still going for around 6x what they should be compared to other rare cards, and I figure an aftermarket solution should be OK-ish.
 
VERAULT said:
They make reproductions now. Not cheap, but cheaper than trying to get the originals off of ebay: https://www.8bitstuff.com/product/3d-printed-apple-m0100-mouse-recreation/

As for a mouse card your choices are the original or buying a modern Apple II V2 Analog board and using a modern usb mouse as an apple II mouse (using the relatively new pico mouse firmware).
Click to expand...

It makes me wonder why the Apple Mouse was never reproduced as an aftermarket mouse. Especially with Apple's connection to mice?

There are literally dozens of people who have reproduced the Spectrum mouse, and they were never popular on the ZX Spectrum.

I even made one that combined a Kempston Joystick and a Kempston Mouse in one single-sided PCB with just two GALs and a logic IC. One more to the list. ( I also made an AMX mouse adapter, which just had the two GAL chips ).

So I'm genuinely surprised that they don't exist for the Apple II series.
 
cj7hawk said:
It makes me wonder why the Apple Mouse was never reproduced as an aftermarket mouse. Especially with Apple's connection to mice?

There are literally dozens of people who have reproduced the Spectrum mouse, and they were never popular on the ZX Spectrum.

I even made one that combined a Kempston Joystick and a Kempston Mouse in one single-sided PCB with just two GALs and a logic IC. One more to the list. ( I also made an AMX mouse adapter, which just had the two GAL chips ).

So I'm genuinely surprised that they don't exist for the Apple II series.
Click to expand...
Id bet money there were 3rd party alternatives. They were probably not popular enough to be remembered. But again, you now have options. 3 options to be precise.
 
Just a crazy though - if there is no mouse, does it (The Apple IIe and software that expects a mouse) default to something else, say, the analog joystick???

Making a mouse-to-analog-joystick interface would be relatively trivial.
 
cj7hawk said:
1. Applemouse II Interface
2. A2USB / VGA ( plus some uncertain mods ) / V2 Analog PCB.
3. ???
Click to expand...
I already mentioned the brand new opticla mice for the apple ii. See my link.

"Plus some uncertain mods"???
Pretty sure you have your facts wrong.
 
There were also trackballs available for the Apple ][. From memory I had a WICO(?) trackball made in Taiwan, it had a red top with cream coloured ball with arcade style buttons.
I can't recall at all how it interfaced to the computer now, I don't think it had a card and just plugged into the joystick port.. maybe. I do remember it wasn't very good at all.

There is an Apple ][ compatible vintage trackball on eBay right now that has a DE-9 connector https://www.ebay.com/itm/116418282564

Edit: the DE-9 replaced the fragile IC socket connector and was on the //e and later machines, I only had a ][+ clone and did not know that. There is apparently an adapter from DE-9 to the IC connector available.
 
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VERAULT said:
I already mentioned the brand new opticla mice for the apple ii. See my link.

"Plus some uncertain mods"???
Pretty sure you have your facts wrong.
Click to expand...

Well, I am not certain about them - I did find the link within a link you mentioned, but they are sold out and don't seem to be selling more. I will keep an eye on them.

As for my facts? You would be more correct in identifying that I am searching for facts in a sea of what I do not yet know. I have very few facts to go on. All the Apple II stuff is new to me.

My next step is a drive emulator so I can increase my learning speed with the Apple IIe. But I had an unusual challenge finding a mouse adapter, and the 9 pin mouses sold for them that don't plug into anything without a mouse card being installed threw me a bit.
 
I seem to remember a story about the original mouse effort being just a card with address decode and the buffer chips needed for the CPU to read the mouse signals. Also, they used VBLANK, and it's unclear here, but maybe used the slot that provides it on earlier machines, or just make the whole works "newer Apple only."

Doing one this way is not hard! Code exists to read tracballs and other devices that could read the step and direction signals from a modern mouse, or at least older mice that have an encoder wheel.

The story goes they had that interface up and running in an evening, but jobs killed the effort off concerned that the Apple CPU would not be up to the task. (I disagree, moving 20 bytes tops and reading a few signals every VBLANK isn't all that taxing. Be that as it may, Jobs wins, that super duper easy mouse vision goes into some bitbucket somewhere and that's that.

We then got the newer card, with a CPU on it, and... what does the card do?

Read mouse, drop position values in RAM via DMA, or does Apple require it's ROM do that? I suppose it triggers an optional interrupt too, responding to VBLANK by triggering an ISR...
I'm off to look for a ROM listing.
 
potatohead said:
I seem to remember a story about the original mouse effort being just a card with address decode and the buffer chips needed for the CPU to read the mouse signals. Also, they used VBLANK, and it's unclear here, but maybe used the slot that provides it on earlier machines, or just make the whole works "newer Apple only."
Click to expand...

It generated an interrupt when the state changed and it worked pretty well, and the developers invented it in their own time, with their own resources, and someone told Steve Jobs about it and he claimed it all and took it off them, and gave them nothing in return. They sounded pretty bitter about it. It's on one of the museum websites. I found it here: https://www.folklore.org/Apple_II_Mouse_Card.html

potatohead said:
Doing one this way is not hard! Code exists to read tracballs and other devices that could read the step and direction signals from a modern mouse, or at least older mice that have an encoder wheel.
Click to expand...

That's not the issue though. The issue is making one that existing software recognizes as a mouse.
 
cj7hawk said:
Well, I am not certain about them - I did find the link within a link you mentioned, but they are sold out and don't seem to be selling more. I will keep an eye on them.
Click to expand...
I just checked it says there are 5 mice left on the link I posted above.

As far as not knowing apple II! I hear you. I know it very well. I love the platform.

By the way The apple IIc has a mouse and joystick port combines into one.

Drive emulators. Two easiest are Floppy emu and Wdrive. I own both. Wdrive is cheaper and supports Woz images (I forgot is the newest firmware floppy emu does, it might as well) but floppy emu works on my Apple Lisa, and early macintosh systems so its by far the most versatile.


EDIT: Oh I see what you did. You clicked on the mouse link and then found some usb card link and thats sold out. Ok first off if you choose the mouse that is labeled "serial" (its not serial I dont know why they sell it as such) it will just plug into the apple II (with mouse card). If you choose usb, you are just buying a usb mouse and I am sure you own one.

As for the card it links thats sold out, you dont need that. Thats not even a v2 analog. You certainly dont need to buy from me but I have been selling those for a few years. They are VGA, Z80 softcard, or mouse. You just drop the firmware on them and go. Just make sure the card you get is the newer version which has IRQ builtin or you cannot use a mouse. Mine are the newest version.
www.ebay.com

Apple II V2 ANALOG VGA & Z80 PCPI Applicard Softcard PicoPal IIe Ralle version | eBay

These cards can also be re-flashed with firmware that turns it into a Z80 CP/M SOFTCARD Emulating the Very Rare and expensive PCPI APPLICARD but running in this mode disables the VGA out. Multiple alternate firmware modes including a PCPI Z80 Applicard emulator ALLOWING YOU TO RUN CP/M NATIVELY...
www.ebay.com
 
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VERAULT said:
(its not serial I dont know why they sell it as such)
Click to expand...

It's pretty obnoxious when people do that. I mean, I get it, they both have nine pin ports, but it's just another toxic case of different computers using the same D-shell connector for completely incompatible ports.
 
Eudimorphodon said:
It's pretty obnoxious when people do that. I mean, I get it, they both have nine pin ports, but it's just another toxic case of different computers using the same D-shell connector for completely incompatible ports.
Click to expand...
And then since its on the internet it becomes truth and is regurgitated by all the brainless sheep.

Like people who call rubbing alcohol Beer.
 
VERAULT said:
I just checked it says there are 5 mice left on the link I posted above.
Click to expand...

You mentioned later in your post you noticed what I did, and this is the part I'm most interested in.

I have Apple mouses with 9 pin interfaces. Well, I have an old mouse and a new one from when they were being sold NOS for USD$20... Which seemed like a good price at the time. And so I got one in anticipation.

But it's the interface card I am having trouble finding at a reasonable price.

VERAULT said:
As far as not knowing apple II! I hear you. I know it very well. I love the platform.

By the way The apple IIc has a mouse and joystick port combines into one.
Click to expand...

The C64 was also like this, and I made a combined mouse/joystick port for the Spectrum, though I'm reasonably confident I was the only person ever to attempt this on the Spectrum... It was only practical because of the chips I was using.

I like the Apple II. I first played with one at the age of about 12, when my mum visited a chiropractor, and he let me program on his computer while I was waiting. They only ever let me touch it once, and I didn't do much.. But I always recall the stuff I never saw on my own platforms for it in shops and wondered what they were llike. But I have no prior experience with them, and I'm trying to learn more about what they were and were like back in the 80s, and get a feel for them.

VERAULT said:
Drive emulators. Two easiest are Floppy emu and Wdrive. I own both. Wdrive is cheaper and supports Woz images (I forgot is the newest firmware floppy emu does, it might as well) but floppy emu works on my Apple Lisa, and early macintosh systems so its by far the most versatile.
Click to expand...

I'm not even sure what drive emulator I found. I noted three produced locally were just cards that plug into the Apple IIe slots. The fourth was a drive based unit that they wouldn't even post an image out-of-bag for, so I don't have a lot of idea what I am getting into... I am surprised at how expensive these are though.

Do you recognize this emulator?

www.ebay.com.au

Apple II IIe 2c floppy + hdd emulator Smart SDISK2 +idc20 cable +db19 adapter | eBay

Idc20 to db19 adapter (custom made using headers. New Release SDISK UNIVERSAL 2 IN 1 APPLE 2 II ADVANCED SDCARD-FLOPPY DRIVE & HDD SmartPort IMAGE FILE EMULATOR. iic boots internal drive first then external, hdd will boot automatically, floppy images require internal drive switch to make...
www.ebay.com.au

They claim a wide range of compatability, though they don't mention whether it will take shrinkit files and I think some disk images have been zipped up using this apple protocol, so I hope it takes those compressed archives also as I'm not entirely sure how to decompress them on a PC.

VERAULT said:
As for the card it links thats sold out, you dont need that. Thats not even a v2 analog.
Click to expand...

Ahh, you got some cool stuff there - now I know who I'm going to bug with all my Apple II questions ( though feel free to swat me away if I bug you too much ).

I may be confused about what works with the Apple II. It was this page on Github that made me think the VGA interface can be used for a mouse.

github.com

GitHub - ThorstenBr/A2USB: This projects provides alternate firmware for A2VGA cards to add USB support to the Apple II. It currently supports a USB mouse and fully emulates an Apple II Mouse Interface Card.

This projects provides alternate firmware for A2VGA cards to add USB support to the Apple II. It currently supports a USB mouse and fully emulates an Apple II Mouse Interface Card. - ThorstenBr/A2USB
github.com github.com

Do the ones you make do that?

Thanks
David.
 
VERAULT said:
And then since its on the internet it becomes truth and is regurgitated by all the brainless sheep.

Like people who call rubbing alcohol Beer.
Click to expand...

I love it when people do that... It creates uncertainty, and results in the item being sold on Ebay for far less than it's worth.

I managed to find a rare Spectrum style Mouse interface from Datel like that. All the seller posted was "Doesn't work when tested" so I asked them to open it up and take some pics and send it to me, then told him what he had, and on realizing he was good enough to still offer me the part at the same price, so I took it - :)

In those cases it's even worse, because the same company made both Joystick Interfaces and Mouse Interfaces, and they look amost identical - same markings, same labels, no indication what the item actually is or does and there's just a slight different in the shape of the housing and placement of the D-plug and the text embossing.

The only way to be certain is to see the PCBs and even then you need to know which PCB is which, because they still look similar to each other.

The problem though is that it takes expert knowledge to pick them apart, and a lot of knowledge around that is lost, so I suspect a lot of apple mice and parts like that get discarded.
 
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