Re: [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual

I sent a picture (actually two at different resolutions; keep reading) to the list, but being images they are larger than the address space of a PDP-11 so not allowed here. Is it really necessary to have such a low message size limit in an era

I can buy a terabyte of storage for less than a hundred bucks? Here is a Google Drive link, for the adventurous. 20180123-UnixSkeleton.jpg <

-rob On Sat, Aug 7, 2021 at 7:44 AM Rob Pike &lt;robpike(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: > I sent a higher-res version in which you can read all the text but it

> "moderated". > > This is the Unix room as of the year 2000 or so. > > -rob > > > On Sat, Aug 7, 2021 at 4:34 AM ron minnich &lt;rminnich(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: > >> The story of the mice, one of which I gave to John: >> >> I ran a program called FAST-OS for LANL/Sandia for 6 years starting >> 2005. Think of it as "Plan 9 on petaflop supercomputers" -- it may >> seem strange now, but in that era when some top end systems ran custom >> kernels, there was a strong case to be made that plan 9 was a good >> choice. By 2011, of course, the Linux tsunami had swept all before it, >> which is why you no longer hear about custom HPC kernels so much -- >> though in some places they still reign. In any event, this program >> gave me 6 years to work with "the Unix room", or what was left of it. >> I had been in the Unix Room in 1978, and even met Dennis, so this >> prospect was quite a treat. >> >> We funded Charles Forsyth to write the amd64 compilers for Plan 9, >> which if you used early Go you ran into (6c 6a 6l); we also funded the >> amd64 port of Plan 9 (a.k.a. k10) as well as the port to Blue Gene. >> That amd64 port is still out and about. You can find the Blue Gene >> kernel on github. >> >> I had lots of fun spending time in the Unix room while working with >> the late Jim McKie, and others. I saw the tail end of the traditions. >> They had cookie day once a week, if memory serves, on Thursday at 3. I >> got to see the backwards-running clock, Ken's chess trophies, his >> pilot's license, pictures of Peter everywhere, a "Reagan's view of the >> world" map, the American Legion award for Telstar (which was rescued >> from a dumpster!), and so on. The "Unix room" was more than one room, >> all built on a raised floor, as I assume it was former old school >> machine room space. If memory serves, it filled the entire width of >> the end of the top floor of the building it was in (4th floor?) -- >> maybe 50 ft x 50 ft -- maybe a bit more. There was a room with desks, >> and a similar-sized room with servers, and a smaller room containing a >> lab-style sink, a very professional cappucinno machine, decades of old >> proceedings, and a sofa. I fixed the heavy-duty coffee grinder one >> year; for some reason the Italian company that produced it had seen >> fit to switch BOTH hot and neutral, and the fix was to only switch >> hot, as the neutral switch had failed; I guess in the EU, with 220v, >> things are done differently. >> >> It was fun being there. A few years later the whole room, and all its >> history, was trashed, and replaced with what Jim called a "middle >> management wxx dream" (Jim was never at a loss for words); Jim found >> some yellow Police crime scene tape and placed it in front of the >> doors to the new space. It was redubbed "the innovation space" or some >> such, and looked kind of like an ikea showroom. Much was lost. I tried >> to find a way to save the contents of the room; I had this dream of >> recreating it at Google, much as John Wanamaker's office was preserved >> in Philadelphia for so many decades, but I was too late. I have no >> idea where the contents are now. Maybe next to the Ark. >> >> One day in 2008 or so jmk took me for a tour of the buildings, and we >> at one point ended up high in the top floor of what I think was >> Building One (since torn down?), in what used to be Lab Supply. Nobody >> was there, and not much supply was there either. Finally somebody >> wandered in, and Jim asked where everyone was. "Oh, they closed lab >> supply, maybe 4 years ago?" >> >> Bell Labs had seen hard times since the Lucent split, and it was clear >> it had not quite recovered, and Lab Supply was just one sign of it. I >> think the saddest thing was seeing the visitor center, which I first >> saw in 1976. In 1976, it was the seat of the Bell System Empire, and >> it was huge. There was a map of the US with a light lit for every >> switching office in the Bell Labs system. There was all kinds of Bell >> Labs history in the visitor center museum. >> >> The museum had shrunk to a much smaller area, and felt like a closet. >> The original transistor was still there in 2010, but little else.The >> library was, similarly, changed: it was dark and empty, I was told. >> Money was saved. At that time, Bell Labs felt large, strangely quiet, >> and emptied of people. It made me think of post-sack Rome, ca. 600, >> when its population was estimated to be 500. I have not been back >> since 2011 so maybe things are very different. It would be nice if so. >> >> As part of this tour, Jim gave me 3 depraz mice. I took one, gutted >> it, (sorry!), and filled its guts with a USB mouse innards, and gave >> it back to Jim. He then had a Depraz USB mouse. jmk's mouse did not >> have any lead in it, as John's did, however. The second I gave to >> someone at Google who had worked at the labs back in the day. The >> third mouse I gave to John, and he made it live again, which is cool. >> >> In spite of their reputation, I found Depraz mice hard to use. I have >> gone through all kinds of mice, and am on an evoluent, and as far as >> Depraz go, I guess "you had to be there". I don't recall if jmk used >> his "usb depraz" or it ended up on a shelf. Sadly, I can no longer ask >> him. >> >> I'll be interested to see what John thinks of the Depraz. >> >> ron >> >> On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 9:52 AM John Floren &lt;john(a)jfloren.net&gt; wrote: >> > >> > Ah, right. I opened the mouse because one of the encoders didn't

>> to be working (it worked fine again this morning, who knows...) and >> discovered that there was something duct taped inside the plastic

>> > >> > 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

>> of wine bottles. Up into the 1980s, these were made out of lead, and

>> 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 <

>> 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

>> > > >> > > > I stuck an Arduino on it and with surprisingly little code I

>> it acting like a 3-button USB mouse. >> > > > >> > > > The only problem is that the pointer doesn't move smoothly. It

>> OK left-to-right, and can move down pretty well, but going up is a

>> 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

>> 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

>> 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

>> be fun to get it working on my modern computer. Since the DE9

>> male rather than female as you usually see with serial mice, and

>> 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

>> 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

>> what the protocol looked like, I expect I could make an adapter pretty >> trivially using a microcontroller. >> > > > > > > >> > > > > > > This might be of some help? >> > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >>

>> > > > > > > >> > > > > > > -Henry >> > > > > > >> > > > > > This looks great, thank you! >> > > > > > >> > > > > > john >> >