peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley) (06/22/83)
I hooked up a borrowed Mouse Systems optical mouse to my PC's rs232 port
and wrote some prototype driver software (this mouse normally comes with
PC driver sw, but the person I borrowed it from didn't buy it for use with
a PC). An optical mouse works by moving over a "mouse pad" which is made of
reflective material on which is printed horizontal and vertical lines.
The mouse reports how many lines it sees (with IR & visible sensors) going by.
Review: once the mouse is calibrated, which involved a fair bit of
frustration with the unit I had, it performed reasonably well, except for
two things: (1) some random, large, erroneous movement reports, which I
hesitate to attribute to the mouse because I wrote my own sw, but which I
suggest you look out for if auditioning this unit and (2) a definite bug,
probably related to calibration, that caused problems with reporting
rotational change in the mouse. More details on request.
I didn't ask Mouse Systems about these problems, though I would have if I
owned the mouse. The mouse has a good feel to it, the three buttons have
a good action, and mouse slides nicely on its pad. The pad is a good
size, but one must be aware of scaling mouse movements so that one doesn't
run off the pad. You really can detect rotational change with the unit,
as it actually has two sensors about 1/2" apart. At around US$330, with
IBM sw, it seems rather expensive compared to the Microsoft mouse (a mech-
anical unit) at US$195, though I have yet to see the latter.
If you have a mouse for your PC or other machine, I'd be grateful to
hear about your experiences with it and will post a summary to the net.
peter rowley, U. Toronto CSRG, utcsrgv!peterr@UW-BEAVER (ARPANet)
or {cornell,watmath,ihnp4,floyd,allegra,utzoo,uw-beaver}!utcsrgv!peterr
or {cwruecmp,duke,linus,lsuc,research}!utzoo!utcsrgv!peterr (UUCP)