[rescue] Spaceballs.

[Corda Albert J DLVA]

I don't know about the newer spaceballs, but I've played
a little bit with the (oldest?) SGI spaceball... The large
one with the tan contoured base that curves around the ball...

It has a serial interface, and while I was tinkering with it,
I set up 2 cu sessions to( and from) the serial port it was connected
to, so I could watch/capture the output... I was quite suprised
when, on a lark, I sent the ball an ascii "h", and it
immediately responded with a "readable" ascii help menu,
displaying all the commands it accepts... the menu was short
and cryptic, but it was readable! I don't know if the
newer balls will do this, but it might be worth trying, and
would considerably ease the task of trying to reverse-engineer
the spaceball protocol... I imagine the protocol must not
have changed that much across models, in order to insure
driver compatibility...


-al-
-acorda at 1bigred.com


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joshua D Boyd [mailto:jdboyd at cs.millersville.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2001 4:29 PM
> To: rescue at sunhelp.org
> Subject: [rescue] Spaceballs.
> 
> 
> Does anyone know anything about getting the spaceballs (some 
> are branded 
> Labtec, others spacetek, other HP, other IBM, other SGI, all 
> appear to have
> the same model numbers, 2003, 3003, 4000FLX, and be the same) 
> working with 
> linux?  (Or an OS other than HP-UX, AIX, Irix, or windows)
> 
> The 4000FLX models appear to have an XInput driver for XFree, 
> and there
> also appears to be a driver in the linux joystick system for 
> the 4000FLX.  But
> that is all I've been able find.  The 4000flx drivers appear 
> to specifically
> not work with the earlier models
> 
> I'm mainly intersted in the 2003s and the 3003s since they 
> are cheaper, and 
> I think they look cooler also.  They are serial devices.  
> I've never tried 
> writing serial drivers before, but I would think that the 
> devices shouldn't be
> too hard, unless someone went and intentionally obfuscated 
> the protocol (can't
> put that past companies, especially small/cheap ones like labtec).
> 
> Also, on a related note, what are the chances of being able 
> to use serial 
> devices like palmpilots, wacom tablets, digital cameras, and 
> spaceballs off of
> a gadget like a xyplex?  So far the reports haven't been good 
> for USB to serial
> converters, or I'd try those.  I still trying to figure what 
> to do about 
> wanting a digital camera, a wacom tablet, a spaceball, a palm 
> pilot, and a null
> modem cable on one 2 serial port machine.  At the moment I'm 
> reaching around
> and swapping cables fairly frequently.
> 
> -- 
> Joshua D. Boyd
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