Amiga Mouse

TechnoFreek

Have a hankering to dig out the Amiga and play one of my faves Cannon Fodder.

Anyone know if there are any wireless mouse options for the Amiga?

I can see some very expensive solutions but they I find it hard to believe there are no cheap and cheerful options.

All ideas welcome

TechnoFreek

I can see some adaptors on eBay that concert Amiga mouse port to usb. Usb mice then work but they must support the ps2 protocol.

How would I find that out?

Andrew76

The chap on Adverts I got my A1200 from gave me one of those adapters. Just did a Google search for one and I see he has a website now. Here's the exact one I have: http://www.sordan.ie/product/39/amiga-usb-mouse-adapter-for-amiga-500-600-1200-4000/

No idea if that's a decent price or if the website is still in use, maybe fire him an email first.

Damien King

Andrew76 wrote: »

The chap on Adverts I got my A1200 from gave me one of those adapters. Just did a Google search for one and I see he has a website now. Here's the exact one I have: http://www.sordan.ie/product/39/amiga-usb-mouse-adapter-for-amiga-500-600-1200-4000/

No idea if that's a decent price or if the website is still in use, maybe fire him an email first.

im pretty sure i purchased a playstation controler to usb thingymibob off that guy, sound enough chap.

TechnoFreek

Andrew76 wrote: »

The chap on Adverts I got my A1200 from gave me one of those adapters. Just did a Google search for one and I see he has a website now. Here's the exact one I have: http://www.sordan.ie/product/39/amiga-usb-mouse-adapter-for-amiga-500-600-1200-4000/

No idea if that's a decent price or if the website is still in use, maybe fire him an email first.

Yeah, that's similar to what I was describing above. It says on the link that it will work with any usb mouse that also comes with the usb to ps2 converter.

SO I guess that what I need to look out for. Presume that would imply the usb mouse also has the ps2 protocol built in.

Andrew76

There are USB mouses out there that wouldn't work with a USB/PS2 adapter? Maybe wireless or bluetooth ones wouldn't, surely all wired USB ones would though. I have some cheapy optical mouse hooked up to it at the minute but I'll test out the Razor Naga if that's any use to you.

TechnoFreek

Thanks Andrew. Let me know what you find out!

Andrew76

Tested out all the USB wired mice I could find - not a single one of them worked. So ignore my post above! :pac:
Both Razor's and a Microsoft Intellimouse (which says PS/2 compatible underneath) didn't work. Think all three of them are laser versus the optical mouse that does work (Optical Mouse Model: AM-3055U).

Not sure how you can tell beforehand if one is going to work or not. If you're stuck you can always take a lend of mine. Think I have an A500/600 mouse knocking about also if you want to go the authentic route.

Stuck on Cannon Fodder for a few mins - poor ole Jools and Stoo didn't make it past Mission 2.

o1s1n

Bought my 1084s monitor from that lad, sound chap

Unfortunately I couldn't get the USB mouse adapter to work with the A1200 at all. In the end I just bought a decent Amiga ball mouse.

TechnoFreek

Thanks lads. From what I can gather those ps2 mice won't work if they need drivers installed, windows would normally take care of that. Obviously the Amiga can't fulfill that bit.

So somehow the usb mouse needs to have the ps2 protocol "built in" so no drivers on the machine side are required.

How the fcuk you can know that is beyond me!

TechnoFreek

Hmmm. A bit more digging and the following was unearthed.

There are two types of usb to ps2 dongles.

One is called an adapter. This is a passive device that requires drivers.

A USB to ps2 converter has a built in chip to do the processing so no drivers required.

No idea if this is true but certainly sounds reasonable.

So does that mean you need to find a USB mouse with the converter built in?

KeRbDoG

I got one of these kits and put it together myself - i wired the mouse directly into it (one of those optical microsoft intellimouse PS/2 jobies)
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111263720066

TechnoFreek

I have an Amiga mouse in good nick, an extension would be the simplest and cheapest solution.

TechnoFreek

SO I've had my Amiga a while but never really used it to any degree. It has whdload installed but very buggy. Might try fresh install.

Anyway, this is what is it and whats inside.



Note the switch on the back left



Switch connects inside to a blizzard 1220







And the compact flash hard drive solution

TechnoFreek

So a few questions:

What exactly does a blizzard 1220 do?
Anyone like to hazard a guess as to what the switch does? Turn on/off the blizzard?
Whats the max size cf card I can connect to the 1200?
How would I go about connecting Amiga to flat screen monitor (vga/hdmi) and having scanlines etc

New to Amiga modding so any help appreciated.

eddhorse

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/blizzard1260

Just some of the key features of the BLIZZARD 1260 Turbo Board:
• High-end accelerator card for the AMIGA 1200 with 50 MHz, 68060 processor with FPU and MMU for highest possible maximum performance
• 72-pin standard SIMM socket for expansion of main memory up to 64 MBytes (up to 192 MBytes if BLIZZARD SCSI KIT IV is installed)
• Automatic, self-connecting (auto-configuration) memory with optional
• mirroring of the operating system (MAPROM function, can be switched off) for additional
performance increase
• An extremely fast memory design allows maximum data throughput speed into the FAST RAM
• A DMA expansion bus permits the expansion of the BLIZZARD 1260 with expansion modules, e.g.
the BLIZZARD SCSI KIT IV
• Asynchronous design for full Genlock compatibility
• Can be switched back to 68820 processor via the keyboard for full
• compatibility with all software
• A battery-buffered clock is supplied as standard
• Solderless, easy installation in the expansion area on the underside of the AMIGA 1200
• High-quality production using the latest SMD technology
• Build under license from phase5 by dce computer in germany

TechnoFreek

But in noobish please......!!!!!

The Last Bandit

The 1220 is an accelerator and RAM card (4MB I think), its an old card but should work fine with WHDload.
You can easily use a 4GB card anything more needs a few driver changes I think and not really worth the hassle unless you absolutely need the storage.
Ya a clean install and new version WHDLoad might be in order, pick up a 4GB card and try out the classicwb installs - you can setup everything in WinUAE first to test it out and then transfer it to the CF card.

http://classicwb.abime.net/

TechnoFreek

Thanks Bandit, been messing around with winaue too.
I need a new 4gb compact flash card but I have winuae up and running, have a workbench adf with hdtoolbox on it as well.
Have a good tutorial to set it all up as well.

Sounds like it might be a nice little project to get my head around.

The Last Bandit

When you get the CF card, you can setup the card so that WinUAE can boot from it instead of the disk image and transfer all the apps and games you want to it.
Just make sure to set all the WinUAE acceleration stuff or you'll be watch it copy files for a loooooong time

TechnoFreek

Thanks, any thoughts on the best way to connect the amiga to a modern screen but retain as authentic an image as possible?

The Last Bandit

You can buy an Indivision AGA card, not cheap though...

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1088

TechnoFreek

Ouch. a crappy scart cable will have to do

Myrddin

TechnoFreek wrote: »

Ouch. a crappy scart cable will have to do

An RGB scart cable, coupled with a free/very cheap old 21" crt & that's about as authentic as you can get

The Last Bandit

Myrddin wrote: »

An RGB scart cable, coupled with a fre/very cheap old 21" crt & that's about as authentic as you can get

Yep I use an old 1084 monitor and its perfect.

TechnoFreek

When the kids are 18 and I can reclaim some of the house as my own I can look in to a crt!

Myrddin

TechnoFreek wrote: »

When the kids are 18 and I can reclaim some of the house as my own I can look in to a crt!

But by then CRT's won't be free or easy to get...do it now, save the future

TechnoFreek

I'll get a decent rgb scart for now.

The one I have at the moment is just a cruddy composite to scart

Andrew76

TechnoFreek wrote: »

I'll get a decent rgb scart for now.

The one I have at the moment is just a cruddy composite to scart

If you're bothered about scan lines then maybe add an SLG into the mix? Costs a few quid though + the power supply you need.

http://arcadeforge.net/Scaler-and-Strike-Devices/SLG-SCART::43.html

TechnoFreek

Compact flash card and reader ordered. Get that going first.

RGB Scart cable next month.

TechnoFreek

Made a bit of progress at the weekend. Got a 4gb cf card and a reader.
Through Winuae I divided the card in to three partitions, a small 200mb one for the OS and two larger ones for games.

Installed Classicwb lite. 8mb ram is recommended for full version but I've only 6mb.

Got that installed perfectly plus I also updated to latest version of whdload just in case.
Stuck a few games on there as well then transferred from pc and winaue to the amiga.

All working perfectly.

In terms of screen resolution its set to 640*512. That right?
TV set to 4:3 as well otherwise everything is stretched to widescreen.