6 Oct
2001
6 Oct
'01
12:46 p.m.
Tony Duell skrev:
[HP's 'qaudrature' adapter]
> >It's not as if the adapter takes the PS2
protocol, undoes the damage, and
> >gives you the quadrature signals back again.
>
> No, that sounds overtly involved.
Although I belive that such adapters do exist (I think
I came across them
for Amigas). Basically a microcontroller (probably a PIC) which you
connected a normal PS/2 mouse to one side, and a quadrature mouse port
to the other. THe microcontroller decoded the PS/2 mouse data and output
the right number of quadrature-style pulses.
They certainly exist for Amigas and Ataris, but what I thought was going a
bit over the top would be to decode PS/2 serial data into quadrature only to
re-encode it into HIL data, when you could probably go right at the serial
data instead.
> >You said 'trial and error', which I
took to mean something like 'Oh look,
> >this cable fits that (RS232) port at one end and the back of the printer
> >at the other. Let's use it for that'. Exit magic smoke...
>
> Well, if ports aren't labelled, there is no real way to find out.
My first reaction is to 'Read The Fine Manual'.
Alas most manuals these
days are anything but fine, and probably wouldn't contain the necessary info.
I've heard that today's manuals (mind you, I haven't bought a computer fresh
from a shop since 1993, and that was the only time ever
=) are only supplied
in computer-readable formats on a CD. Bloody lot of good that
will do you when
the CD drive is malfunctioning and the OS blown kingdom come.
In which case it's time to pull the cover and look
at the connections to
the socket. How many pins are wired, where are the grounds, and what sort
of chips does it connect to (TTL? LSI I/O devices (which are likely to use
TTL levels), known RS232/RS422/etc buffers? That should give some info as
to what the port is for.
I wonder if even I'd be able to do that, and then I consider myself a quite
knowledgeable computer user.
No, I think that you should be able to hook up things to the ports on your
computer without taking the top off and resorting to a multimeter. =)
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
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