Hey folks,
I just picked up my first black hardware. It's a beautiful mono slab, including display and keyboard in nearly perfect condition.
I just miss the mouse ;)
Please give me a ping if you happen to be able to give one away.
Cheers,
Henning
As an alternative I learned an old Bus mouse (Logitech or Microsoft InPort) could be modded/re-wired to fit the non-adb port since it provides basically the same signals. Any information to this solution would also help.
Henning
Quote from: dizco on December 30, 2022, 07:12:21 AMAs an alternative I learned an old Bus mouse (Logitech or Microsoft InPort) could be modded/re-wired to fit the non-adb port since it provides basically the same signals. Any information to this solution would also help.
Henning
Hello Henning: Welcome to the forums , here is the info on the conversion as NeXT Non ADB mice are getting hard to find
http://www.asterontech.com/Asterontech/Welcome.html let u know how the conversion works for you :)
Here's an overview of all bus mouse pinouts (
https://deskthority.net/wiki/Bus_mouse). The adapter that was available (I have one) adapted a Microsoft InPort mouse to the NeXT pinout, but it should work as well with an old Amiga or Atari ST mouse, which might be easier to find.
There's a howto to adapt a Logitech TrackMan Bus version available (
https://www.nextcomputers.org/NeXTfiles/Docs/Hardware/replacement_non-adb__mouse.pdf).
I also found a description of an adapter that works the other way round (adapting the NeXT mouse to work as a bus mouse) on my disk, but couldn't find the original web site. Please see the attached zip.
I seem to remember that a driver for serial (RS-232) mice was available for NeXTstep on black hardware, but I still can't find a link (and I noticed that I mentioned this in an ancient thread in this forum (
https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=4147)...).
Finally, you might still be able to order an adapter from kevra.org (
http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/NeXTProducts/NeXTHardware/NeXTMouseReplacement/NeXTMouseReplacement.html).
BusMouse_Conversion.zip
Ah, (no longer thanks to google...) good old Usenet archives. See this post for a link to a RS232 mouse driver (
https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.next.hardware/c/Rv-FtepskQc/m/ThjEvynBDncJ).
Amazingly, the ftp server linked from that 17 year old post is still running and has the file available for download:
ftp://anonymous@ftp.informatimago.com/pub/free/develop/nextstep/mouse-20050708.tar.bz2 (ftp://anonymous@ftp.informatimago.com/pub/free/develop/nextstep/mouse-20050708.tar.bz2) (attached here for convenience).
However, this driver 1. was written for OpenSTEP 4.2 and 2. doesn't work yet according to the author. But maybe it's a start - I'll give it a try. Serial mice are probably easier to find than bus mice.
[Edit: Now bz2 attachments work - thanks Nitro!]
mouse-20050708.tar.bz2
Thank you all for the great input!
Actually I want to use as much native processing from the NeXT hardware as possible. So I will likely look into modding one of the old bus mice. I can get a Logitech P7-3F for a reasonable price.
I will keep you updated, maybe open another thread in the Work Log section.
Cheers
Henning
Instead of the Logitech, I got hold on a Microsoft InPort Mouse, including the Bus to Serial converter. Check out this Work Log (
http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=4870.0) for some basic soldering action to make the mouse work on the NeXT.