Re: Optical Mouse for Amiga

On 11/8/18 9:03 PM, silverdr@wfmh.org.pl wrote:
> 
> 
>> On 2018-11-08, at 19:43, Gerrit Heitsch <gerrit@laosinh.s.bawue.de> wrote:
>>
>> In case someone is interested in having an optical mouse for their Amiga.
> 
> I've been using optical with Amiga since early nineties :-) but of course not as accurate as today's ones.

You mean the kind with the special mousepads? I still know those from 
the SUN workstations.


>> You can either buy a replacement PCB for your existing Amiga mouse. Or you can check your 'pile of mice' (I bet everyone has one) if there is one among them that uses an Agilent A2051 optical sensor. The datasheet for it is available online.
>>
>> That sensor has not only a serial interface but will also produce the same signals as the sensors of a mechanical mouse on pin 2 to 5 (*). So all you need to do, if you have one of those, is to remove the microcontroller that converts the sensor output to USB and use a 9 wire cable hooked up to the 4 sensor outputs and the 3 buttons plus a 9pin sub D connector to convert such a mouse to become compatible with the Amiga.
> 
> That's a very nice finding! Of course a pity that only older ones have a chance of having this sensor as those are usually "tired" in one way on another, which is the main reason they landed on the pile...

Well, a broken cable would be no issue since it has to be replaced 
anyway. Same for the dead USB-interface the one I converted had. And I 
when I bought a mouse and liked it, I usually bought another one as 
spare. So looking through my collection, I have at least 2 more mice 
with the A2051. :)

  Gerrit