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Author Topic: A-EON Boing Ball Mouse for Classic Amigas  (Read 6322 times)

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Offline QuikSanz

Re: A-EON Boing Ball Mouse for Classic Amigas
« Reply #29 from previous page: September 09, 2015, 03:23:01 AM »
Quote from: QuikSanz;795107
That joystick looks to be a switched type, Digital. Operation Stealth and others allow you to use an analog type stick, Continuously variable. Much better for flight. I have an old Quikshot but it's getting very sloppy and won't stay centered.


Maybe it's just bad potentiometers? I'll put in some new ones and see if it helps.
 

Offline Oldsmobile_Mike

Re: A-EON Boing Ball Mouse for Classic Amigas
« Reply #30 on: September 09, 2015, 09:28:02 AM »
Quote from: Thorham;795264
Moving the mouse in a circle shape very slowly will result in the mouse pointer moving in a rectangular fashion.

@Thorham -

I tried really hard to test what you're saying here.  Spent 10 minutes drawing circles on two different Amiga's using four different controllers (a "Boing logo" USB mouse, a generic PS/2 mouse, a trackball, and a clunky-old ball mouse).

Everything was silky smooth on my A2000, with the exception of the classic trackball, which actually felt like it made the most "square-like" circles.  On the A500, the ball mouse did seem to make the most "circle-ish" circles, like what you're saying, but in no case were any of these devices some horrible nightmare to use, like what it sounded like you were trying to say.  Of course the ball mouse is also 1/5th the DPI so it's easier to make small motions (and less sensitive to shaky hands), but I hated how slow it felt otherwise (and also when the buttons stuck... old clunker, haha).

In hindsight, my testing was flawed because I didn't compare a direct USB connection to USB-through-Cocolino (I could have done this, my A2000 has a RapidRoad).  I also should've tried a different mousepad, those Amiga.org logo pads are a bit slippery, and probably all the colors and patterns aren't the best things to use with an optical mouse.  ;)

In any case, I think I could count on one hand (with four fingers left over) the number of times I've tried to draw circles with a mouse.  That's what drawing tablets are for.  ;)  Maybe if I'm really bored tomorrow I'll try with a "less colorful" mouse pad, and with a straight USB connection.

TL;DR.  I don't want to deal with a clunky old slow ball mouse, so even with their imperfections I'll continue to use "modern" mice and Cocolino's on my Miggy's.   To each their own.  Cheers, now enjoy a 10 minute video of me drawing circles!  :)

https://youtu.be/w0wHegf7XLY
« Last Edit: September 09, 2015, 09:41:47 AM by Oldsmobile_Mike »
Amiga 500: 2MB Chip|16MB Fast|30MHz 68030+68882|3.9|Indivision ECS|GVP A500HD+|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|Cocolino|SCSI DVD-RAM
Amiga 2000: 2MB Chip|136MB Fast|50MHz 68060|3.9|Indivision ECS + GVP Spectrum|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|AD516|X-Surf 100|RapidRoad|Cocolino|SCSI CD-RW
 Amiga videos and other misc. stuff at https://www.youtube.com/CompTechMike/videos
 

Offline Leffmann

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Re: A-EON Boing Ball Mouse for Classic Amigas
« Reply #31 on: September 09, 2015, 10:14:53 AM »
I see what they've done here. The Amiga mouse interface has two 8-bit  counters for horizontal and vertical movement, and they've simply  discarded the least significant bit in both sets of 8 bits, and used  them to signal the status of the mouse-wheel.

It reduces the  accuracy in half, and when you move the mouse slow it will snap into a  perfect horizontal or vertical motion. If you move it slow enough you  should be able to move the mouse across the whole desk without the  pointer moving a single pixel. In some situations, moving the wheel may  also cause the pointer to move or jitter.

It's hardly the end of  the world, but it is an embarassingly poor solution. Why not just send  those signals in serial on a separate pin, just like the CD32 pad does  with all its extra buttons? That was Commodore's own working  solution, ready to be used.
 

Offline CodePoet

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Re: A-EON Boing Ball Mouse for Classic Amigas
« Reply #32 on: September 09, 2015, 12:39:25 PM »
@Leffmann

Hah, that's a brilliantly awful hack
 

Offline matthey

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Re: A-EON Boing Ball Mouse for Classic Amigas
« Reply #33 on: September 09, 2015, 08:33:20 PM »
Quote from: Oldsmobile_Mike;795306

TL;DR.  I don't want to deal with a clunky old slow ball mouse, so even with their imperfections I'll continue to use "modern" mice and Cocolino's on my Miggy's.   To each their own.  Cheers, now enjoy a 10 minute video of me drawing circles!  :)


My tests showed that I wasn't any better at drawing circles. There is probably something to what Thorham is saying but it doesn't affect smoothness as much as accuracy in some cases. It is much more usable than an old C= tank mouse but maybe not as good as a clean pregnant mouse. The Cocolino with optical mouse is lower maintenance without the need to clean. IMO, the biggest disadvantage of the Cocolino is the extra connection and long adapter sticking out from the back of the Amiga. The A-Eon mouse with builtin adapter would help this.

Quote from: Leffmann;795310
I see what they've done here. The Amiga mouse interface has two 8-bit  counters for horizontal and vertical movement, and they've simply  discarded the least significant bit in both sets of 8 bits, and used  them to signal the status of the mouse-wheel.

It reduces the  accuracy in half, and when you move the mouse slow it will snap into a  perfect horizontal or vertical motion. If you move it slow enough you  should be able to move the mouse across the whole desk without the  pointer moving a single pixel. In some situations, moving the wheel may also cause the pointer to move or jitter.


How did you figure that out? Do all Amiga PC mice adapters have this problem?

Quote from: Leffmann;795310

It's hardly the end of  the world, but it is an embarassingly poor solution. Why not just send  those signals in serial on a separate pin, just like the CD32 pad does  with all its extra buttons? That was Commodore's own working  solution, ready to be used.


Compatibility maybe? CD32 pads don't seem to cause many problems though.
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: A-EON Boing Ball Mouse for Classic Amigas
« Reply #34 on: September 09, 2015, 11:51:32 PM »
Quote
IMO, the biggest disadvantage of the Cocolino is the extra connection and long adapter sticking out from the back of the Amiga. The A-Eon mouse with builtin adapter would help this.

except the adapter is now simply built in within the plug, shich seems as huge as the adapter before, in order to house it. so what is the advantage now, except that you cant replace the mouse, and that you have the sticker, some people value?
 

Offline matthey

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Re: A-EON Boing Ball Mouse for Classic Amigas
« Reply #35 on: September 10, 2015, 01:02:20 AM »
Quote from: wawrzon;795369
except the adapter is now simply built in within the plug, which seems as huge as the adapter before, in order to house it. so what is the advantage now, except that you cant replace the mouse, and that you have the sticker, some people value?


Even if the new mouse plug is no shorter than the Cocolino adapter plus PC mouse plug, it is one less connection that can work its way loose. Maybe it would make people like Thorham, who don't like all the Amiga bolt-ons, happy if it wasn't a poor hardware interface design (not verified). It is a disadvantage not to be able to swap to another mouse in case of failure but I have had good luck with the cheap OEM style optical mice. The Amiga sticker doesn't bother me any more than the word Dell or whatever else as long as it is not Microsoft. I guess I am supposed to like the Amiga symbol but the newer Amiga symbols just make me feel depressed. Yea, we got new Amiga branded classic hardware but it is a PC mouse with an Amiga sticker. Amiga innovation at work again. Sigh.
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: A-EON Boing Ball Mouse for Classic Amigas
« Reply #36 on: September 10, 2015, 02:32:42 AM »
Quote from: matthey;795370
Even if the new mouse plug is no shorter than the Cocolino adapter plus PC mouse plug, it is one less connection that can work its way loose..


right, one bulky adapter less and one plug less, but its exactly the cable that likes to break especially on edges of such rigid clumsy plugs. id take an extra thought to buy it given the adapter as alternative. to be honest i dont like both that much..

Quote
The Amiga sticker doesn't bother me any more than the word Dell or whatever else as long as it is not Microsoft. I guess I am supposed to like the Amiga symbol but the newer Amiga symbols just make me feel depressed. Yea, we got new Amiga branded classic hardware but it is a PC mouse with an Amiga sticker. Amiga innovation at work again. Sigh.


its just a boing ball graphic. nothing much amiga about it, even if its contrary to what was intended.
 

Offline matthey

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Re: A-EON Boing Ball Mouse for Classic Amigas
« Reply #37 on: September 10, 2015, 05:53:52 AM »
Quote from: wawrzon;795376
right, one bulky adapter less and one plug less, but its exactly the cable that likes to break especially on edges of such rigid clumsy plugs. id take an extra thought to buy it given the adapter as alternative. to be honest i dont like both that much..


Don't you have a Deneb? I guess you can use a USB mouse directly. Are you using 68k AROS only these days? Is the AROS USB driver available before boot? Did you ever try putting the Poseidon input.device in a custom kickstart for AmigaOS? How does the functionality compare between these? Are many games compatible with a USB mouse?
 

Offline wawrzon

Re: A-EON Boing Ball Mouse for Classic Amigas
« Reply #38 on: September 10, 2015, 11:28:24 AM »
im using deneb setup mostly with aos, poseidon didnt work with aros yet.
 

Offline matthey

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Re: A-EON Boing Ball Mouse for Classic Amigas
« Reply #39 on: September 10, 2015, 06:28:13 PM »
Quote from: wawrzon;795392
im using deneb setup mostly with aos, poseidon didnt work with aros yet.


AROS has Poseidon built in though. Is the USB support buggy or are drivers missing for your Deneb? Have you tried the AmigaOS Deneb driver under AROS? I believe the communication for input (mouse, keyboard, gameport) would be Deneb driver to input.device. The Deneb driver should work with the minimal AmigaOS 3.x input.device of which the AROS input.device should be compatible. Poseidon for AmigaOS does include the MOS version of input.device (68k compiled and optional) which has new MOS style device commands which give some new functionality, especially for pre-boot like using the mouse or keyboard in the early startup menu. The AROS input.device decided to use the AmigaOS 4.x style device commands (actually only 1 for now) and modified their input.device and the AROS version of Poseidon for this. It is possible your Deneb device would partially work with AROS (as well as the AmigaOS 3.x input.device). It might be worth a try.

I recently sent Gulliver a new input.device I have been working on to test. It is currently compatible with the MOS style commands for AmigaOS Poseidon compatibility but could be changed to the AROS/AmigaOS 4.x style. This may allow for porting the AROS version of Poseidon back to AmigaOS 3.x and/or allow the new input.device to run under AROS (for test purposes and perhaps better optimization). As is, it should be a drop in replacement for the input.device included with Poseidon. It requires Remus to install in a custom kickstart. It saves some valuable kickstart space as this new input.device is 3768 bytes vs 5544 bytes for the Poseidon input.device. Let me know if you want to test it.
 

Offline Oldsmobile_Mike

Re: A-EON Boing Ball Mouse for Classic Amigas
« Reply #40 on: September 10, 2015, 07:05:23 PM »
Quote from: matthey;795386
Are many games compatible with a USB mouse?

I can't speak for Deneb or AROS or anything like that, but I'd imagine any system-friendly game (i.e., any game you can run from Workbench or that multitasks) would work fine with a standard USB mouse.  WHDLoad stuff, probably not so much.  That's where you'd need to use Cocolino...
Amiga 500: 2MB Chip|16MB Fast|30MHz 68030+68882|3.9|Indivision ECS|GVP A500HD+|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|Cocolino|SCSI DVD-RAM
Amiga 2000: 2MB Chip|136MB Fast|50MHz 68060|3.9|Indivision ECS + GVP Spectrum|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|AD516|X-Surf 100|RapidRoad|Cocolino|SCSI CD-RW
 Amiga videos and other misc. stuff at https://www.youtube.com/CompTechMike/videos
 

Offline matthey

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Re: A-EON Boing Ball Mouse for Classic Amigas
« Reply #41 on: September 10, 2015, 07:52:00 PM »
Quote from: Oldsmobile_Mike;795408
I can't speak for Deneb or AROS or anything like that, but I'd imagine any system-friendly game (i.e., any game you can run from Workbench or that multitasks) would work fine with a standard USB mouse.  WHDLoad stuff, probably not so much.  That's where you'd need to use Cocolino...


Most early games probably turned off multitasking and banged the hardware registers so there is no hope of a software solution to provide USB input to them from a USB card. Some games may use the lowlevel.library, intuition.library (provides input for a window), input.device, gameport.device, keyboard.device, potgo.resource, etc. If they don't turn off multitasking, a software solution could allow them to accept USB input (games which use the intuition.library and/or input.device may work with USB right now). An FPGA motherboard (hardware) could probably emulate the Amiga gameport/mouseport hardware. I expect the Mist FPGA board can get USB input and write to the hardware registers (while multitasking is turned off) which makes all the existing software function correctly with USB input.
 

Offline slaapliedje

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Re: A-EON Boing Ball Mouse for Classic Amigas
« Reply #42 on: September 21, 2015, 02:26:22 AM »
I have a Spider 2.0 card, and no not a single game I've played that doesn't run under workbench has worked with the USB mouse.  In fact, the one I ordered from Amigakit (which seems to be USB/Black version of the mouse this thread is about) has been kind of flaky in various computers I've tried it in.

I specifically ordered this mouse for two reasons, 1) the aforementioned compatibility with games, wanted an optical mouse that will work in games.  (haven't tried this yet) 2) Wanted to get the mouse wheel scroll working for browsers.  For some reason though, it's not working.  I have Freewheel in wbstartup++ folder, tried inside Enabled, and outside of it, but still no suck luck.

This is running on my A4000D with AmikitReal.

slaapliedje
A4000D: Mediator 4000Di; Voodoo 3, ZorRAM 128MB, 10/100mb Ethernet, Spider 2. Cyberstorm PPC 060/50 604e/420.
 

Offline Oldsmobile_Mike

Re: A-EON Boing Ball Mouse for Classic Amigas
« Reply #43 on: September 21, 2015, 03:18:43 AM »
Quote from: slaapliedje;796009
I have a Spider 2.0 card, and no not a single game I've played that doesn't run under workbench has worked with the USB mouse.  In fact, the one I ordered from Amigakit (which seems to be USB/Black version of the mouse this thread is about) has been kind of flaky in various computers I've tried it in.

Oh for the love of... it's not the mouse, it's the interface.  No hardware-hacking, bit-banging game from 1985 is going to support a mouse plugged into a USB port.  They didn't even have USB ports when most Amiga games were written.  That's why you get a Cocolino, or use system-friendly games.  Or the new version of this mouse that plugs directly into a 9-pin port.  *sigh*
Amiga 500: 2MB Chip|16MB Fast|30MHz 68030+68882|3.9|Indivision ECS|GVP A500HD+|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|Cocolino|SCSI DVD-RAM
Amiga 2000: 2MB Chip|136MB Fast|50MHz 68060|3.9|Indivision ECS + GVP Spectrum|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|AD516|X-Surf 100|RapidRoad|Cocolino|SCSI CD-RW
 Amiga videos and other misc. stuff at https://www.youtube.com/CompTechMike/videos
 

Offline slaapliedje

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Re: A-EON Boing Ball Mouse for Classic Amigas
« Reply #44 on: September 21, 2015, 03:46:53 AM »
Quote from: Oldsmobile_Mike;796010
Oh for the love of... it's not the mouse, it's the interface.  No hardware-hacking, bit-banging game from 1985 is going to support a mouse plugged into a USB port.  They didn't even have USB ports when most Amiga games were written.  That's why you get a Cocolino, or use system-friendly games.  Or the new version of this mouse that plugs directly into a 9-pin port.  *sigh*

Ha, I know all of this, I was answering questions that someone else had asked earlier in this thread about Deneb+mouse.  Of course they didn't have USB back in 1985, closest they had then was the Atari 8-Bit SIO port.  What I was saying that the the USB mouse version of the Amiga mouse itself was flaky with other systems (MacOSX, LInux, Windows, different computers, different USB ports) has been hit and miss.  

Main reason I had bought the USB version was to use with the Macbook Pro that my employer provided to me to use, and it didn't work with it.  Though it had a really flaky USB port, so it's possible that caused most of the issues I had with it.  It's working fine right now on a Linux install on my Zenbook.

Yes, I actually bought the mousepad and mouse to use at work on a macbook, just to advertise some Amiga love there.

slaapliedje
A4000D: Mediator 4000Di; Voodoo 3, ZorRAM 128MB, 10/100mb Ethernet, Spider 2. Cyberstorm PPC 060/50 604e/420.