jonathan@jvc.UUCP (Jonathan Hue) (03/18/89)
Has anyone ever hooked up a graphics tablet to a UNIX workstation. For some strange reason, my boss wants me to connect a Summagraphics and a Numonics tablet to a Sun workstation. The problem is that I don't want the workstation to get hammered by interrupts from a continuous stream of tablet data. I can put the tablet into increment mode, where it only sends data when the puck is moved, or in point-switch mode, where it only sends data when a button is down. What I want is for it to send data only when the puck moves or a button is pressed (like the mouse). Unfortunately, the tablets don't support this mode. I modified my Sun X server so it uses the tablet in increment mode instead of the mouse. It works fine, but it won't see a button transition unless you move the puck a tiny bit at the same time. If I can't get some custom firmware from the tablet vendors which makes the tablet work the way I want, I might build a little "black box" which takes in continuous tablet data, and only sends tablet data to the host when the puck moves or a button is pressed/released (using some cheap microcontroller with built-in serial ports, and a tiny bit of ROM and RAM). There has to be a better way. Anyone have any suggestions? -Jonathan uunet!jvc!jonathan
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (03/19/89)
In article <471@jvc.UUCP> jonathan@jvc.UUCP (Jonathan Hue) writes: >... I don't want >the workstation to get hammered by interrupts from a continuous stream of >tablet data... If I can't get some custom firmware from >the tablet vendors which makes the tablet work the way I want, I might build >a little "black box" which takes in continuous tablet data, and only sends >tablet data to the host when the puck moves or a button is pressed/released... >(using some cheap microcontroller with built-in serial ports, and a tiny >bit of ROM and RAM). There has to be a better way. > >Anyone have any suggestions? Uh, what are you expecting in the way of suggestions? Either the tablet is sending a continuous stream or it's not. If there's no non-stream mode that will give you the information you want, it's going to have to send a stream and *something* will have to receive it. If you don't want your workstation to have to handle it, you need your black box. How else? -- Welcome to Mars! Your | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology passport and visa, comrade? | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu