peck@ral.rpi.edu (Joseph Peck) (01/10/91)
Does anyone have the pin-out specifications for a Koala Pad? It is a pressure sensitive drawing pad made for the old Atari computers. It was made by Koala Technologies Corp, and is model #004. Before anyone tells me that it has awful resoltion and that I should buy something better for my amiga, this is free and sitting in my lap at the moment.... But if you did know its resolution I wouldn't complain if you told me. :) My primary interest in hooking this up is to provide an easy to use drawing medium for 2 to 3 year olds..... and if the resolution isn't too awful, for doing some of my own drawings... Oh yeah, one last detail. It has a standard 9 pin joystick connector. Thanks for your help, Joe Peck peck@ral.rpi.edu
thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) (01/10/91)
peck@ral.rpi.edu (Joseph Peck) in <!KY^+F%@rpi.edu> writes: ^^^^^^^ (mailer garbage?) Does anyone have the pin-out specifications for a Koala Pad? It is a pressure sensitive drawing pad made for the old Atari computers. It was made by Koala Technologies Corp, and ^^^^^ ||||| Also for the C-64 Since some of the C64 peripherals (e.g. joysticks) work just fine on the Amiga, I would venture to guess you could just plug the Koala pad into the Amiga's joystick port and see what happens. The Koala "may" simply emulate a joystick. Point being: the +5 and ground pins and the (joy)stick "direction" pins seem to be the same else the C64 joysticks wouldn't work as well as they do on the Amiga. Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com ]
blgardne@javelin.es.com (Blaine Gardner) (01/10/91)
thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: >peck@ral.rpi.edu (Joseph Peck) in <!KY^+F%@rpi.edu> writes: > Does anyone have the pin-out specifications for a Koala Pad? > It is a pressure sensitive drawing pad made for the old > Atari computers. It was made by Koala Technologies Corp, and >Since some of the C64 peripherals (e.g. joysticks) work just fine on the >Amiga, I would venture to guess you could just plug the Koala pad into the >Amiga's joystick port and see what happens. The Koala "may" simply emulate >a joystick. I don't know anything about the Atari 800 or C-64, but the Koala Pad I had on my Apple IIe looked like an analog joystick to the system. So anything that reads the pot inputs on the Amiga would be a good place to start. I wouldn't be too surprised if you had to rearrange some of the pins though. -- Blaine Gardner @ Evans & Sutherland 580 Arapeen Drive, SLC, Utah 84108 blgardne%javelin@dsd.es.com ...dsd.es.com!javelin!blgardne (I hope) {decwrl, utah-cs}!esunix!blgardne DoD #0046 My other motorcycle is a Quadracer. BIX: blaine_g
871579l@aucs.AcadiaU.ca (Todd Lowe) (01/11/91)
In article <37819@cup.portal.com> thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: >peck@ral.rpi.edu (Joseph Peck) in <!KY^+F%@rpi.edu> writes: > > Does anyone have the pin-out specifications for a Koala Pad? > >Since some of the C64 peripherals (e.g. joysticks) work just fine on the >Amiga, I would venture to guess you could just plug the Koala pad into the >Amiga's joystick port and see what happens. The Koala "may" simply emulate >a joystick. > > >Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com ] The Koala Pad was based on variable resistance similar to an analog joystick. It uses the paddle ports on the C=64, and can be read with the Amiga, but I have not seen any software designed to use paddles (that's what the pad would replace) on the Amiga. -Todd PS: Our PNews has been acting up could someone let me know if they see this other than at Acadia.
peck@ral.rpi.edu (Joseph Peck) (01/11/91)
In article <37819@cup.portal.com> thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: >peck@ral.rpi.edu (Joseph Peck) in <!KY^+F%@rpi.edu> writes: > ^^^^^^^ > (mailer garbage?) Yeah, it is garbage. Why is it there though? Oh well, I guess I'll leave that to the mail gods.... > > Does anyone have the pin-out specifications for a Koala Pad? > It is a pressure sensitive drawing pad made for the old > Atari computers. It was made by Koala Technologies Corp, and > ^^^^^ > ||||| >Also for the C-64 > >Since some of the C64 peripherals (e.g. joysticks) work just fine on the >Amiga, I would venture to guess you could just plug the Koala pad into the >Amiga's joystick port and see what happens. The Koala "may" simply emulate >a joystick. Well, I recieved some mail from Jeff Lavin, and he has a little assembly language hack to drive the pad. Although he didn't actually say, enough other people have so it seems that the pad is a resistive type. A little proportional input reading should work just fine. I would like to thank everyone for their help, I only have one of these. I would have hated to have fried it by guessing..... Joe peck@ral.rpi.edu
jlavin@cie.uoregon.edu (Jeff Lavin) (01/11/91)
In article <1991Jan10.144203.9203@javelin.es.com> blgardne%javelin@dsd.es.com writes: >thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: > >>peck@ral.rpi.edu (Joseph Peck) in <!KY^+F%@rpi.edu> writes: >> Does anyone have the pin-out specifications for a Koala Pad? >> It is a pressure sensitive drawing pad made for the old >> Atari computers. It was made by Koala Technologies Corp, and > >>Since some of the C64 peripherals (e.g. joysticks) work just fine on the >>Amiga, I would venture to guess you could just plug the Koala pad into the >>Amiga's joystick port and see what happens. The Koala "may" simply emulate >>a joystick. > >I don't know anything about the Atari 800 or C-64, but the Koala Pad I >had on my Apple IIe looked like an analog joystick to the system. So >anything that reads the pot inputs on the Amiga would be a good place >to start. I wouldn't be too surprised if you had to rearrange some of >the pins though. >-- >Blaine Gardner @ Evans & Sutherland 580 Arapeen Drive, SLC, Utah 84108 >blgardne%javelin@dsd.es.com ...dsd.es.com!javelin!blgardne (I hope) >{decwrl, utah-cs}!esunix!blgardne >DoD #0046 My other motorcycle is a Quadracer. BIX: blaine_g I don't know about the Apple ][ version, but the C64 Koala Pad can indeed be hooked up to the Amiga. No pin changes are required, but 1 resistor internally must be changed because of the different sampling rate on the Amiga. The pad looks like a proportional joystick, and a little driver to make it produce input events from port 1 was fairly simple. The only problem was that Intuition, prior to 2.0, went right to the hardware looking for mousebuttons for its gadgets and menus. Except for this irritation, I have had the pad working with DPaint III, and under Release 2.0, the buttons aren't a problem anymore. Works fine on the 3000, too! If anyone wants to post the code, send me a disk, and I'll send back the driver and a schematic. Please use email to get my USnail address. Jeff- The Puzzle Factory, Inc. | Jeff Lavin -- jlavin@cie.uoregon.edu Veneta, Oregon |------------------------------------- Voice : (503) 935-3709 | Remainder of signature line Data : (503) 935-7883 | under construction.
danb20@pro-graphics.cts.com (Dan Bachmann, SubOp) (01/14/91)
In-Reply-To: message from thad@cup.portal.com
I'm pretty sure the Koala pad was read just like a paddle on the Commo
Commodore 64 and probably the Atari also.
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