
Project mouSTer – Mouse adapter for retrocomputers - retrohax
https://retrohax.net/project-mouster-the-ultimate-mouse-adapter-for-retrocomputers/
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cmrdporcupine
What a great project.

The ST's mouse was/is terrible. Unergonomic and brittle. Back in the 80s I
went several months without one, trying to use programs by using the alt-arrow
keys to move the cursor because mine broke (and I was broke, too). And then
they went and put the mouse/joystick connectors under the keyboard where they
were subject to torque and twisting that could cause the leads to break
internally, and were a constant hassle to change (lift machine up to swap
joystick... accidentally hit reset or power switch on something, or power
cable gets pushed out...)

Mice (and floppy drives) are really the weakest link on keeping old STs
running. There have been a few adapters around but they usually require either
a PS/2 mouse (getting harder to find), or need software drivers. This looks
like a great project.

Happy to see some Atari ST content here.

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englishrookie
The only trouble I ever had with my Atari ST mouse, which I used for about 10
years, was that the axles got dusty. Well, dusty is an understatement. It was
a mechanical mouse, with two axles and a ball with a plastic coating of some
kind. As you moved the mouse, the ball brought the axles into motion, thus
tracking your (more or less) exact movements.

Every few months I had to use my Swiss knife to scrape the accumulated dirt
and dust from the axles. With some finesse, so as not to damage the axles.

The mouse could take quite some abuse too. I used to play Arkanoid (also known
as Breakout) a lot, at some point. As well as other games which required a lot
of clicking and moving around.

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cmrdporcupine
Yeah I had a pretty dusty house and had to clean mine probably once a week :-)
Gunk collected on those axles pretty bad.

But I had buttons fail, and mouse ports break, both. I have a couple sitting
around here which still work, but man are they uncomfortable.

Replacement mice back then weren't cheap, either.

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wolfgke
I am not sure whether it is a good idea to use an SMD component for one of the
two connectors. Connectors are exposed to a lot of physical stress in
particular when plugging in and out. Through-hole connectors are more robust
with respect to this kind of stress.

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AlbertoGP
In this case the DB9 connector is not just surface-mounted, as it sits on the
board edge so the force when inserting it will be taken by the board, and the
surface-mounted solder points are at both sides of the board so the pull force
will not cause bending as it would in a plain surface-mounted connector.

My hunch is that all that makes up for it. I would be very surprised if it
breaks off. I’m however not an expert beyond having repaired several surface-
mounted connectors that broke off in my own computers.

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tyingq
SmallyMouse is another project in the same space:
[https://www.waitingforfriday.com/?p=827](https://www.waitingforfriday.com/?p=827)

The original target was Acorn computers, but it works on the AtariST as well:
[https://www.waitingforfriday.com/?p=827#Atari_ST](https://www.waitingforfriday.com/?p=827#Atari_ST)

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retrohax
yup, the difference AFAIK is that it only supports USB mice with PS/2 support
which becomes rare nowadays

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myelin
I'm pretty sure it supports normal USB mice:
[https://github.com/simoninns/SmallyMouse2/blob/master/Smally...](https://github.com/simoninns/SmallyMouse2/blob/master/SmallyMouse2/main.c#L358)

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eggsome
Does anybody know of a project like this for old PCs?

I want to plug a specific USB mouse into a 486 and the mouse chipset does not
have the PS/2 emulation layer included with most mice produced in the early
2000's :(

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ADent
There are a couple of KVMs that supposedly do USB to PS2.

ATEN CS82U and IOGEAR GCS1722 are two I looked at. About $55 on Amazon.

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eggsome
Thanks.

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netsharc
That giant "Mouse Lives Matter" image is a cheap and tasteless joke and you're
distracting from whatever cool hack you did.

Sorry for sounding like the PC police, but for me it's comparable to showing
off some plane autopilot system and saying "you can even program it to fly to
the nearest skyscraper"...

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cmrdporcupine
Yikes. I don't see it, did they take it down?

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netsharc
Looks like they did. It was just a "lolcat"-esque (nowadays aka "meme pic") of
a white mouse (the animal) with the caption as I quoted.

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DogRunner
Thats super awesome! Hopefully it will spread around. Thanks for creating this
adapter!

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teddyh
> _Amiga, Atari ST, joystick /gamepad_

No Commodore 1351 support?

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mondoshawan
Unlikely to be similar enough. The 1351 does some very strange things with
capacitors and analog output to the VIC.

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classichasclass
ITYM SID. The 1351 essentially looks like paddles, and those come in through
SID registers.

The article says 1351 compatibility "Commodore 64" is planned. However, any
joystick adaptor will be sufficient to emulate a 1350, which just looks like a
joystick anyway.

