A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

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Badwolf
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Re: A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

Post by Badwolf »

stephen_usher wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 1:29 pm I've looked on-line for the 20mm mouse balls that the Mk.II mouse uses and couldn't find anything I'm afraid.
I'm minded of our very own @GadgetUK164's video:



BW
DFB1 Open source 50MHz 030 and TT-RAM accelerator for the Falcon
DSTB1 Open source 16Mhz 68k and AltRAM accelerator for the ST
Smalliermouse ST-optimised USB mouse adapter based on SmallyMouse2
FrontBench The Frontier: Elite 2 intro as a benchmark
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rubber_jonnie
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Re: A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

Post by rubber_jonnie »

mrbombermillzy wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 1:42 pm I wonder if mark at Retro Clinic has any balls for an Archie mouse?

Where would someone buy a spare mouse ball from, these days??!?

If @stephen_usher says they are 20mm, I will attempt to find a suitable donor from somewhere if you dont have any joy in the meantime.
Cheers, I will see what I can find too in the meantime, but Apple mice and Atari mice are a no, as is the generic non-Atari Atari mouse connected to my MSTE!

I have another mouse, serial, but can't find it right now. Will keep looking. Other than that it's steel balls or gobstoppers!!
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
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Re: A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

Post by rubber_jonnie »

Badwolf wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 1:43 pm
stephen_usher wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 1:29 pm I've looked on-line for the 20mm mouse balls that the Mk.II mouse uses and couldn't find anything I'm afraid.
I'm minded of our very own @GadgetUK164's video:



BW
Nice, thanks, will watch that later for sure.
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
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mrbombermillzy
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Re: A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

Post by mrbombermillzy »

Badwolf wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 1:43 pm I'm minded of our very own @GadgetUK164's video:
BW
Just watched the vid and one of those mice balls look similarly opaque glazed like a gobstopper too. I wonder how they get like this?

As for the steel ball...wow, I bet thats very torquey. You might not be able to stop the thing once youve got it travelling! :lol:
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Badwolf
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Re: A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

Post by Badwolf »

mrbombermillzy wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 1:59 pm Just watched the vid and one of those mice balls look similarly opaque glazed like a gobstopper too. I wonder how they get like this?
Yeah. I'm guessing Acorn blew the budget on the keyboard so decided to make the mouse balls out of some old tubes of Araldite they found in the workshop!

BW
DFB1 Open source 50MHz 030 and TT-RAM accelerator for the Falcon
DSTB1 Open source 16Mhz 68k and AltRAM accelerator for the ST
Smalliermouse ST-optimised USB mouse adapter based on SmallyMouse2
FrontBench The Frontier: Elite 2 intro as a benchmark
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mrbombermillzy
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Re: A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

Post by mrbombermillzy »

Badwolf wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 2:02 pm
mrbombermillzy wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 1:59 pm Just watched the vid and one of those mice balls look similarly opaque glazed like a gobstopper too. I wonder how they get like this?
Yeah. I'm guessing Acorn blew the budget on the keyboard so decided to make the mouse balls out of some old tubes of Araldite they found in the workshop!

BW
:lol: Its pretty poor, at any rate.

Who would have thought that Atari, with all of Jack Tramiels penny pinching, would have superior mice balls and battery backup/RTC based solutions to many others (e.g.Acorn/Apple/C=)?? :)
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Re: A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

Post by rubber_jonnie »

Well, just to take a punt and see what happens I found a 20mm ball bearing and a 20mm Delrin (Hard plastic) ball on ebay, about £10 for both, so they've been ordered, lets see what happens.
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
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stephen_usher
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Re: A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

Post by stephen_usher »

I think the mouse balls are the same size as the Mk.I Apple ADB bus mouse.

Apparently the mice were made by Logitech (even the original ones), so blame them for the self destructing gobstoppers! :-)
Intro retro computers since before they were retro...
ZX81->Spectrum->Memotech MTX->Sinclair QL->520STM->BBC Micro->TT030->PCs & Sun Workstations.
Added code to the MiNT kernel (still there the last time I checked) + put together MiNTOS.
Collection now with added Macs, Amigas, Suns and Acorns.
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alexh
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Re: A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

Post by alexh »

Is it a 20mm mouse ball?
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Re: A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

Post by rubber_jonnie »

Trying to get hform onto floppy is proving troublesome, so I suspect there may be FDD issues too, I'd better make sure that all the tracks to the FDD socket are intact.

Pretty sure it isn't the drive itself, since I swapped for another drive and it's the same. I'm impressed by how many formats it offers, including some single sided options, ADFS, DOS and Atari out of the box.

I've ordered some spare 7406Ds too as that can fail apparently (It's a hex inverter).

Next up is to confirm the lines to the FDD socket. At least half are either NC or to GND, so it shouldn't take too long.
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
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