jrd@cc.usu.edu (11/07/90)
The easy way to approach a mouse is with a large book in hand, such as "Microsoft Mouse Programmer's Reference", MS Press, 1989. This tome describes the calls one can make upon the standard MS mouse driver Int 33h interface. An advantage of seeing things from the book handler's side is not being bitten by the sundry ways physical mice talk to computers. Joe D.
dmurdoch@watstat.waterloo.edu (Duncan Murdoch) (11/09/90)
In article <1990Nov6.202400.41964@cc.usu.edu> jrd@cc.usu.edu writes: > > The easy way to approach a mouse is with a large book in hand, such >as "Microsoft Mouse Programmer's Reference", MS Press, 1989. This tome >describes the calls one can make upon the standard MS mouse driver Int 33h >interface. An advantage of seeing things from the book handler's side is >not being bitten by the sundry ways physical mice talk to computers. When I bought that book, I was extremely disappointed with it. It is not anywhere near the standard of the DOS tech ref manuals (and those aren't so great, either). For example: All calls are described in Basic, with parameters being called things like M1, M2, etc.; you have to wade through lots of conditional branches in the source code for the mouse interface routine to find which registers the Mx arguments end up in. The copy I have must be 3 or 4 years old now (I bought it 2 years ago, but it looked old then); does MS sell something useful now? Duncan Murdoch
jrd@cc.usu.edu (11/10/90)
My copy of the Microsoft Mouse book is brand new, and has all programming information in several languages, including assembler. It also has a diskette attached. I found this edition to be quite clear and useful, but limited to Microsoft mice (i.e., really two buttons) and clones. I used the assembler part roll my own mouse support material in v3.02 of MS-DOS Kermit (added last week) and it worked the first time with my MS mouse and with AT&T's Logitek mouse driver, and I'm told a trackball with compatible driver. The book seems to neglect one item (or I missed it) which is resetting the mouse driver can zap the activity of a running mouse program. It turns out to be trival to avoid by capturing the mouse state in a buffer and restoring it when done. No problems at all seeing which register does what. Joe D.