Mouse controller questions!

[macabre]

Hi! I've had an idea floating in my head for a while, but just don't know if its possible.

I've been reading and looking into how a mouse transmites data, in hopes that I can hack up either an optical or laser mouse to be used on a sega dreamcast.

Will the work by using a controller-style hack? As in, solder connections to an official dreamcast mouse & use it in a project box?

Being that the system runs windows, I was hopping that there would be some ease in working this. Is there much information about how the dreamcast mouse works / transmits data?

This would be taking the signal from a mouse with a USB cable. I'm not sure if there is any "industry standard" pin outs for this sort of thing.

[Lawrence]

I doubt you'll have a lot of success at a simple swapping wires level.  Modern mice are typically one-chip designs, with the optical scanner built in to the chip.  There's nothing to intercept, you'll have to decode one communications system and encode the dreamcast one. 

[ulao]

Working with the DC maple bus is not a picnic.  I have done it to create my dc usb adapter and used it to support the rumble feature.  Its important to note there is only one thins in common with the maple bus and usb, that is, the number of wires used ;P In other words its nothing a like.  So to get a mouse to produce a maple but "signal" if you will, your SOL. Swapping out hardware would be far better.  So you need to open the wireless receiver and figure out how it reads the x,y and make it work with the dc mouse hardware.  I think you will need to use a pic are some other mcu.

http://mc.pp.se/dc/maplewire.html

[macabre]

Thanks for the replies!

I'm going to give this a try;

http://www.hkems.com/product/dc/dc-tc5.htm

And see if I can get any wireless ps/2 mouse (and possibly keyboard) hardware to work with that.

I've never seen nor heard of that adapter till two days ago, do you all think it might work ok? Or will it probably drain too much power from the dreamcast if I try and use a wireless receiver?

If that fails, then I'll try and figure out the coding of the entire thing.

[ulao]

Wow that device looks cool let us know.

If that fails, then I'll try and figure out the coding of the entire thing.

Ok, but be warned the experience is similar to that of jumping on a bike with no seat.

[macabre]

Tested and confirmed*

*on my system, which has had the controller port resistors removed & their connections bridged.

Pictured is a wireless IR keyboard with a built in trackball & 2 button mouse, that has a pair of old (pre-usb) ps/2 plugs.

When using that with the two "Total Control 5" adapters (pictured small plugs in the dreamcast), the receiver of the keyboard/mouse combo functions normally, and I was able to play Unreal Tournament with the unit successfully.

I sucked at it, because the mouse was spread across the keyboard, and the arrow-keys on this particular keyboard are stiff/sucky.

But, confirmed that it works.

There doesn't seem to be any power drain issues, as I played with a stock official controller in port 4 - for vmu access to the game, and played for over 30 minutes. The normal power drain issues didn't occur (vmu's not being registered, or random power-down of the system), but I'll be using this keyboard with PSO online play for a while to re-evaluate its long-term usage.



I have a pair of USB to PS/2 adapters coming in the mail shortly, and will be testing to see if current generation USB mouse / keyboards function normally, as I'm not happy with the stiffness of this Earthwalk keyboard. I read a report that someone had an optical mouse working with that "Total Control 5" adapter, and am curious to see if it can be replicated.



What I would really like to do is gut the transmitter out of the Earthwalk Keyboard and somehow put it in the japanese clear official dreamcast keyboard, and add the necessary power supply, so that its a semi-official wireless dreamcast keyboard. I then want to take a sega Saturn mouse shell, and build in the optical components out of a mouse, and if possible make it wireless, or possibly wired to the keyboard (a more likely scenario).


Does anyone here know if much of that is possible? I can take apart the keyboard and take some very high-definition pictures of the transmitter part of the pcb, if that would be at all helpful.

I'm not very good at electronics, and as in this case, I'm the guy that finds adapters. I really would like to put the transmitter and a power supply in my official keyboard, and also add the transmitting data from a mouse, but am not sure how.