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Help with USB Trackball/Mouse — Parallax Forums

Help with USB Trackball/Mouse

mynet43mynet43 Posts: 644
in Propeller 1
I need to interface a USB trackball/mouse with the Propeller.

Does someone know if there is a driver available that will track the position and buttons?

Alternatively, do you know if a USB to PS/2 dongle will convert the signals so they can be read by the older drivers?

Thank you for your help and support.

Jim

Comments

  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    Some, if not most trackballs use the same communications protocol as a mouse. If you can plug it in to a PC and have it move the cursor then a USB to serial or PS2 adapter should work.
  • mynet43mynet43 Posts: 644
    I have two trackballs. An old Logitech and a new Kensington SlimBlade. The Logitech is several years old.

    I connected the wires to +5V,Gnd,and two prop pins. I then used Chip's mouse driver to read the data and display it on the debug screen.

    With the old Logitech trackball, it works perfectly. With the new Kensington trackball, it doesn't work at all. I have the prop wires connected to a female USB connector, so I just unplug one trackball and plug in the other. They both work fine on my PC.

    I'm not that familiar with USB protocol. Does anyone know why the two trackballs would be different? Has the USB spec changed or what? I need to use the new one. :)

    Thank you for your help and support.

    Jim
  • msrobotsmsrobots Posts: 3,709
    There was a time where all USB mice and Keyboards still supported the PS2 protocol.

    That was done over a passive PS2/USB adaptor using existing lines on the USB adapter. But newer Keyboards/Mice/etc. skip the PS2 protocol sadly.

    @Peter J. the Tachyon Forth guy recently posted about using a quite cheap PIC as USB/HID serial adaptor.

    There was some work going on allowing the P1 to do a USB low speed Host but needed higher clocking and more then one cog to run.

    And then there is that Vinculum(?) chip providing access as USB Host from the propeller. Some drivers in the OBEX. Can give you access to HUD devices and USB sticks as drives.

    I never tried either.

    Mike
  • mynet43mynet43 Posts: 644
    @Mike,

    That's what I suspected. The way I had it wired was the PS/2 equivalent. This probably explains why the old trackball works and the new one doesn't.

    Actually, I have to design a new board anyway for this trackball interface. So I don't mind using the Vinculum chip you mentioned. That's a great idea if I can figure out how to interface it to the prop. If anyone has experience with this, I would appreciate any help you can suggest. It looks like it has a serial interface, which would be fine.

    Thank you for the help.

    Jim
  • msrobotsmsrobots Posts: 3,709
    edited 2016-01-01 03:14
    @mynet43,

    The Vinculum chip may be overkill, except you need USB sticks. It is not cheap. There is software in the OBEX to use it (look for the Data Logger Projects).

    The chip @Peter Jakacki mentioned is a very small PIC as far as I remember. less then 50 cents or so.

    But able to do a USB Host for HUD devices and having serial to connect to the Prop.

    Never did anything with PICs so I do not know how complicated it is to program them, Peter said something about some small effort to do so. But that is a small effort for him. Not sure if it would be a small effort for me.

    Enjoy!

    Mike .
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    You can also look a bit deeper into the trackball circuit. Typically they have an X and Y roller connected to a quadrature encoder. Perhaps you could use those signals instead. That would require different software though.
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