• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Macintosh DE-9 mice send quadrature signals - should be easy to use on a PC?? Or not?

U

upnorth

Experienced Member
Joined
Mar 9, 2016
Messages
76
Location
North
How hard is it to configure/modify the pinout on an old Macintosh mouse with DE-9 connector, to work on a PC with a serial port? Impossible, barely possible, hard, easy?

Note: I would NOT modify the mouse itself, don't worry - I would make an adapter box, if such thing is doable.
 
Anything is doable with money time and effort. I'd imagine this would be a pointless exercise because it only has one button.
 
Caluser2000 said:
Anything is doable with money time and effort. I'd imagine this would be a pointless exercise because it only has one button.
Click to expand...

There is a lot of things we do in the Vintage Computer community that would be characterized as pointless by most "normal" people, but we still do them.
Thanks anyway for your feedback. I still hope to receive a few slightly more technical replies in this thread.
 
Sir_Fartalot said:
There is a lot of things we do in the Vintage Computer community that would be characterized as pointless by most "normal" people, but we still do them.
Thanks anyway for your feedback. I still hope to receive a few slightly more technical replies in this thread.
Click to expand...

I wrote a detailed reply but then lost it with an accidental close-tab :-(

you might want to have a look at

http://www.pa0qy.nl/pdf/AN519.PDF

and maybe

http://www.epanorama.net/documents/pc/mouse.html

I think "because I can" is a great reason, especially in something like this where old hardware won't be damaged and will go on to be enjoyed again. Good luck!
 
I don't have any advice on how to make a converter, but I can tell you from experience not to plug in a serial mouse into a Mac DE-9 mouse port, instantly kills the machine.

Back when I was 11 or 12, I got a Macintosh Plus from a second hand store and it came with a PC serial mouse taped to it in addition to the weird phone jack connector keyboard. Me not knowing any better when I got it home, I powered the machine up to see if it worked (which it did) and I went to plug the mouse in, something inside immediately went bang and the monitor turned off. It started making rapid a "huphuphuphup" sound and never worked again. It's obvious now why a PC serial mouse was taped to the Mac, but it wasn't obvious to 11-12 year old me.

I learned the lesson that day that not every connector that looks like it will fit will work and to triple check compatibility before blindly plugging things in.
 
justanotherhacker said:
I wrote a detailed reply but then lost it with an accidental close-tab :-(

you might want to have a look at

http://www.pa0qy.nl/pdf/AN519.PDF

and maybe

http://www.epanorama.net/documents/pc/mouse.html

I think "because I can" is a great reason, especially in something like this where old hardware won't be damaged and will go on to be enjoyed again. Good luck!
Click to expand...

Thank you. I am sorry your text was all deleted. I'll have a look at those links when I get home - much appreciated!
 
Sir_Fartalot said:
Thank you. I am sorry your text was all deleted. I'll have a look at those links when I get home - much appreciated!
Click to expand...

Eh, no need to be sorry, my carelessness was my fault. I think I just typed that to excuse not writing proper explanation. Mostly I wrote about thinking that it might be very high effort to do it with early-PC-era-parts unless you could find a chip from a PC mouse that already did the job (and get the datasheet for it), but that small microcontrollers ought to make it not too bad a problem, especially as many of them come with a TTL serial port that can be converted to RS-232 with only one extra part.

Not sure how electronics-experienced you are, I'm only middling myself. Do you have a favourite microcontroller already?
 
I can't help but wonder, would it be easier to connect this mouse to a bus mouse card, rather than a serial port?
 
Bus mouse cards are poorly documented adding a second level of fun to the process. I think one of the early bus mouse companies used a Mac compatible mouse but I can't find a reference to it in quick searching.
 
justanotherhacker said:
you might want to have a look at

http://www.pa0qy.nl/pdf/AN519.PDF
Click to expand...

Wow, that's pretty much the whole enchilada right there, even including the voltage conversion circuitry.

I do agree only having one button might be a bummer, but if it's just for shock value it certainly might be an interesting project. (If you had a Commodore or Atari ST mouse it'd be a somewhat more practical proposition.) You could probably do it with any number of small MCUs if the PIC family doesn't float your boat, although anything much more powerful will probably need its own power supply instead of vampire-ing off the RS-232's port handshaking lines.
 
Having only one button on a mouse isn't a major problem, you can get around that with the keyboard. Many keyboards had a context menu button between alt and ctrl on the right side, and early versions of Windows were designed for keyboard only use.
 
GiGaBiTe said:
Having only one button on a mouse isn't a major problem, you can get around that with the keyboard. Many keyboards had a context menu button between alt and ctrl on the right side, and early versions of Windows were designed for keyboard only use.
Click to expand...

Earlier versions of OSes won't see the context menu key. The software that is difficult to use with only a single mouse button includes OS/2, a lot of Unix designs, and Smalltalk. Not being able to open a menu is likely to be a hindrance. Only a few applications for early versions of Windows used the right mouse button for anything and most had a keyboard shortcut to achieve the same goal.
 
justanotherhacker said:
Eh, no need to be sorry, my carelessness was my fault. I think I just typed that to excuse not writing proper explanation. Mostly I wrote about thinking that it might be very high effort to do it with early-PC-era-parts unless you could find a chip from a PC mouse that already did the job (and get the datasheet for it), but that small microcontrollers ought to make it not too bad a problem, especially as many of them come with a TTL serial port that can be converted to RS-232 with only one extra part.

Not sure how electronics-experienced you are, I'm only middling myself. Do you have a favourite microcontroller already?
Click to expand...

I have been doing some AVR programming some 10 years ago, and now I'm playing with the Arduino Uno from time to time. I guess I could use the serial port on the Uno, for the purpose of talking to the PC?
 
Eudimorphodon said:
Wow, that's pretty much the whole enchilada right there, even including the voltage conversion circuitry.

I do agree only having one button might be a bummer, but if it's just for shock value it certainly might be an interesting project. (If you had a Commodore or Atari ST mouse it'd be a somewhat more practical proposition.) You could probably do it with any number of small MCUs if the PIC family doesn't float your boat, although anything much more powerful will probably need its own power supply instead of vampire-ing off the RS-232's port handshaking lines.
Click to expand...

I am into DOS stuff and not Windows (not surprisingly, I guess?), so one button should do the trick most of the time. I don't remember which DOS applications would use a secondary button. Maybe Ventura Publisher?
 
krebizfan said:
Bus mouse cards are poorly documented adding a second level of fun to the process. I think one of the early bus mouse companies used a Mac compatible mouse but I can't find a reference to it in quick searching.
Click to expand...

Wait, does Bus mouse use quadrature signals directly? Wikipedia is no help here, but I read on the 'net something to the effect that there is no processing on the mouse itself. That seems to suggest direct quadrature signals. Which is what the original Mac mouse would provide, if I am not completely wrong here.
 
Sir_Fartalot said:
Wait, does Bus mouse use quadrature signals directly? Wikipedia is no help here, but I read on the 'net something to the effect that there is no processing on the mouse itself. That seems to suggest direct quadrature signals. Which is what the original Mac mouse would provide, if I am not completely wrong here.
Click to expand...

Wikipedia says yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_mouse

The information you need is on the sidebar at the right, below the pinout information: "XA/XB and YA/YB indicate movement and direction based on quadrature phase"
 
Sir_Fartalot said:
I have been doing some AVR programming some 10 years ago, and now I'm playing with the Arduino Uno from time to time. I guess I could use the serial port on the Uno, for the purpose of talking to the PC?
Click to expand...

Yes, Arduino Uno would be perfect. I just didn't want to assume you were an Arduino fan as there are many alternatives available and some people have strong views :) I think this would be a fun Arduino project of reasonable scope. You'd only need something to convert the Uno's TTL serial to RS232 serial (either the 555-based circuit in the application note I linked before, or just a single MAX232), plus possibly something to convert the mouse's quadrature voltages into 0-5v (depends, the mouse may well already work at the right levels), and the rest is software. The logic would be very similar to the PDF I linked, you'd just have to figure out how to express it all in Arduino-style c++-with-Arduino-functions language. That said, you might need to avoid Arduino's digitalRead and digitalWrite functions as they are rather slow.
 
justanotherhacker said:
Yes, Arduino Uno would be perfect. I just didn't want to assume you were an Arduino fan as there are many alternatives available and some people have strong views :) I think this would be a fun Arduino project of reasonable scope. You'd only need something to convert the Uno's TTL serial to RS232 serial (either the 555-based circuit in the application note I linked before, or just a single MAX232), plus possibly something to convert the mouse's quadrature voltages into 0-5v (depends, the mouse may well already work at the right levels), and the rest is software. The logic would be very similar to the PDF I linked, you'd just have to figure out how to express it all in Arduino-style c++-with-Arduino-functions language. That said, you might need to avoid Arduino's digitalRead and digitalWrite functions as they are rather slow.
Click to expand...

I think the MAX232 is the way to go.
I really have to express my gratitude for you for linking to that PDF.
 
Sir_Fartalot said:
I think the MAX232 is the way to go.
I really have to express my gratitude for you for linking to that PDF.
Click to expand...

You're very welcome! Glad if I was able to help. Sounds like a fun project, good luck with it.

If it were me, if I had a MAX232 on hand, or I was buying parts anyway, I'd use the MAX232. I'd only try the other circuit if I was trying to work from my parts pile, which includes 555s but not a 232. So yes, a 232 would be the way to go unless you're a stubborn "I'm sure I can do this without buying anything" type like I am.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top