Amstrad AMX mouse

[1024MAK]

Just be glad that I have never taken pictures of the mouse used with the company computer used by about 20 staff!

Or the keyboard for that matter 

And when I got a track-ball for my Atari ST, wow, it collects more err, stuff than the Atari mouse did 

Youngsters who have only used ball-less mice just don't know what they have missed 

Mark

[||C|-|E||]

Actually it was clean inside I think that it did not have much use at all but it was probably thrown somewhere. Talking about this with Bryce he found very strange that both the cable and a IC were not OK. He suggested that it was probably in a box, with many other things, and probably somebody took it from there pulling the mouse and breaking the cable. Then, it could have easily been that they tried to connect it to another machine frying the IC in the process 

[||C|-|E||]

So, I made a little and very crappy video showing how the adapter with my Logitech mouse works with some games. The quality is atrocious but, as you can see, there are no problems when playing     

[talrek]

I really like your video !!! it's great !

[Puresox]

Superb , thanks for making the video demo. I am impressed with how well it works . I am going to have to read this thread thoroughly now,Intrigued at getting something sorted.

[MissionComplete]

Well, CPC mouse are still useful indeed !!!! thanks to FutureOS and SymbOS !!!
By the Way, i must have some "Bryce"-USB-Mouse Adapters in stock in case someone is interested.

Do you still have one of those adapters? I'm interested! Please, send me a PM if you have someone. 

[TFM]

So, I made a little and very crappy video showing how the adapter with my Logitech mouse works with some games. The quality is atrocious but, as you can see, there are no problems when playing     

Thanks for the Video! It's great.    How does the mouse work with Symbos and FutureOS? Anybody had some experiences?




P.S.: This was my post #10.000. 

[Bryce]

Thanks for the Video! It's great.    How does the mouse work with Symbos and FutureOS? Anybody had some experiences?

I tested the mouse on both FutureOS and SymbOS back when I developed it. Both are very easy to use and accurate when it comes to menus / buttons etc.

Bryce.

[TFM]

I tested the mouse on both FutureOS and SymbOS back when I developed it. Both are very easy to use and accurate when it comes to menus / buttons etc.

Bryce.

Thanks for letting me know. Rennert uses this mouse adapter and his opinion is that it works very well with Symbos, but way too slow in FutureOS. However I would have serious problems to adapt my desktop manager, since in the corresponging ROM there are only 4 bytes free. 

[||C|-|E||]

Sorry guys, I am not at home these days, but in my hands the adaptor works well with both operating systems  the original AMX is very usable as well but slower

[TFM]

Where is that Like button when i need it?

[talrek]

Do you still have one of those adapters? I'm interested! Please, send me a PM if you have someone. 

Sorry i don't have left, i'm assembling a new batch of MF2 clones.
Then may be i'll build a new batch of 10 pieces if there are enough people interrested...

[rcmolina]

Sorry i don't have left, i'm assembling a new batch of MF2 clones.
Then may be i'll build a new batch of 10 pieces if there are enough people interrested...

No news for a new batch? 

[talrek]

Hi,
i'm going to launch a new batch assembly.
I should have some interfaces available in 4-6 weeks

[opticpow]

Hi,
i'm going to launch a new batch assembly.
I should have some interfaces available in 4-6 weeks

Bertrand.

Hi Bertrand, please put me down for one. PM me payment details.

Thanks Wayne.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[rcmolina]

Hi,
i'm going to launch a new batch assembly.
I should have some interfaces available in 4-6 weeks

Thanks a lot! take one for me.

[darkhalf]

Digging up an old thread with more info. I bought one of these recently (bit more than OP paid for his, shipped from the UK and only with the mouse).

Did some reverse engineering of the mouse and the CPC box. Diagrams attached.

1. The mouse itself using the 20 pin port was for the BBC Micro interface. There are IR receivers (adjustable) in the mouse which go through a 74HC14 buffer to the output plug (one wire for each direction, plus one wire for each switch via 3.3K pulldown to ground)

Interestingly enough this CPC box I found on UK ebay was a lot cheaper than the BBC version 

2. The CPC conversion box looking a bit more handmade contains...

CD4047BE multi-vibrator connects its trigger from CPC COMMON to latch resets on two CD4013 flip flops. The flip flops take the up, down, left, right inputs and clock these signals.

COMMON from the CPC port is also used to triggering a 74LS244 tristate buffer update for the buttons (X,Y,Z) and outputs from the flip flops, so it is timed with the keyboard scan cycle.

That is about it. I've got a Amiga => CPC adaptor (plus the buffer board) from ikonsgr a while ago, and used my existing Amiga adaptor with this. It works okay, but the up/down are a bit sensitive. I need to update the PIC for that
https://retroworkbench.blogspot.com/p/usb-mouse-adapter-for-amigaatari-st.html

This mouse seems to move quite smoothly in the AMX software and Symbos, but if you drag LEFT/RIGHT too quick it will go the opposite direction (!) probably something to do with exceeding the keyboard scan rate and how the flip flops work

The other thing I noticed is we have to use the CPC power connector (due to needing a shared ground). I was using external only power and since there was no actual ground via the joystick port, the movement was intermittent. This was not the case for other mice which definitely need external power due to the current usage of the parts and the MS mouse itself.

I'm keen to build this one, but would like just to get gerbers (or a premade PCB) to avoid stuffing around with making PCBs by hand
https://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/PS2Mouse#Using_The_Mouse_Adapter

[||C|-|E||]

Super interesting!