6 Aug
2021
6 Aug
'21
6:52 p.m.
Ah, right. I opened the mouse because one of the encoders didn't seem to be working
(it worked fine again this morning, who knows...) and discovered that there was something
duct taped inside the plastic shell:
http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/inside.jpg
Peeling back the tape, I saw what I first took to be chunks of flattened beer cans:
http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/reveal.jpg
A closer look showed that they were the wrappers which cover the corks of wine bottles. Up
into the 1980s, these were made out of lead, and by flattening five of them, a previous
owner of the mouse was able to add quite a bit of extra weight to it:
http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/wrapper.jpg
john
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 9:34 AM, ron minnich <rminnich(a)gmail.com> wrote:
john, don't forget to mention the beer can
On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 9:29 AM John Floren john(a)jfloren.net wrote:
> I stuck an Arduino on it and with surprisingly little code I have it acting like a
3-button USB mouse.
>
> The only problem is that the pointer doesn't move smoothly. It does OK
left-to-right, and can move down pretty well, but going up is a problem. I think pushing
the mouse forward tends to move the ball away from the Y-axis wheel, and the old spring on
the tensioner just doesn't have the gumption to hold that heavy ball bearing in any
more.
>
> john
>
> ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>
> On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 9:12 PM, ron minnich rminnich(a)gmail.com wrote:
>
> > John, you can see that "stick a bird on it" -> "stick an
arduino on
> >
> > it" -> "stick a pi on it" has gone as you once predicted :-)
> >
> > On Wed, Aug 4, 2021 at 8:59 PM John Floren john(a)jfloren.net wrote:
> >
> > > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> > >
> > > On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 6:12 PM, Henry Bent
henry.r.bent(a)gmail.com wrote:
> > >
> > > > On Wed, 4 Aug 2021 at 20:52, John Floren john(a)jfloren.net wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Having just been given a Depraz mouse, I thought it would be fun
to get it working on my modern computer. Since the DE9 connector is male rather than
female as you usually see with serial mice, and given its age, I speculate that it might
have a custom protocol; in any rate, plugging it into a USB-serial converter and and
firing up picocom has given me nothing.
> > > > >
> > > > > Does anyone have a copy of a manual for it, or more information
on how to interface with it? If I knew how it was wired and what the protocol looked like,
I expect I could make an adapter pretty trivially using a microcontroller.
> > > >
> > > > This might be of some help?
> > > >
> > > >
https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/technical-support/vintage-computer-hardwa…
> > > >
> > > > -Henry
> > >
> > > This looks great, thank you!
> > >
> > > john