VAXstation 4000/vlc mouse issue

[Paul Koning]

> On Jun 1, 2021, at 12:27 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
> On May 31, 2021, at 8:08 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>> 
>> I’m using a VSXXX-AA mouse (Hocky Puck), and when I use the middle-button on the mouse, it messes up DECwindows, and I’m no longer able to use the other buttons, which means I can’t change to another window, or access menus.  It remains like this until I either logout, or reboot.
>> 
>> Does this sound familiar to anyone?
> 
> I’ll answer my own question.  This morning I booted up using my other VSXXX-AA mouse.  And it works as expected, so the problem is the mouse.  Of course the bad mouse is the nice one, the good one is disgusting. :-(  Time to shutdown and try and clean it up. 

It would be interesting to attach a UART to the comm link (4800 bps, RS-232 signal levels) and capture what happens.  It's quite strange to see a system failure caused by pressing a button.  I suppose it could be a bug in the system software mishandling a protocol error on the mouse to system link.  Or perhaps the mouse embedded controller has failed so that pressing the button in question crashes the controller and makes it stop talking to the host.  In that case you'd think that unplugging and replugging the mouse would cure the issue, though.

	paul