Re: Oric Drives


"Euphoric" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:42dfc7d0$0$4969$636a15ce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Thierry Bestel indeed demonstrated his PC keyboard interface at a CEO
> meeting...
> He developed the interface around a 68HC05 microcontroller, and programmed
> it to talk to a PC keyboard and to simulate the Oric keyboard behavior (it
> might not work with all the different keyboard scanning routines found in
> games, but at least it works with the standard ROM keyboard routine)...

Cool, very cool.

> I've connected a PC serial mouse to an Oric serial extension...

Connected is one thing, did you actually manage the code to display a cursor
or dot wherever the mouse led?

>> What would be really cool would be a PC mouse interface that hooked up to
>> the same gadgetary as the Oric Lightpen (So that the emulator could
>> easily emulate it).
>
> Maybe the easiest solution would be to connect an Atari mouse to a
> joystick interface...

How does an Atari mouse differ from a PC mouse?
Does it behave in the same way?
Are the connections the same, ie. the pulses get fed onto the joystick pins
for left, right, up and down, then a count on the speed of the pulses will
approximate the positioning of a cursor.

I know that a PC style mouse (Maybe their is a better phrase for this) works
by transmitting two sets of pulses to the computer for each axis.
If one pulse leads (is infront of) the other, then it can be said that the
mouse is moving up, if the same pulse lags the other (is behind) then the
mouse is moving in the opposite direction.
The speed of either pulses will have a direct relationship to the speed the
mouse is currently moving in that direction.
So logically if an atari mouse behaves in a similar way, and that an Atari D
plug will have the same connections as a joystick, i suppose it stands to
reason that the horizontal axis pair of pulses will reside in the Left and
Right joystick switch pins, and the same idea for the vertical?
In addition, i would then assume the standard fire buttons would relate to
mouse left and right buttons?

But alas, even if all this is correct, a standard Oric joystick interface
would not be sufficient on it's own since any mouse will require a +5v power
supply.

I want go on, in fear that all this is smelly stuff.
Twi


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