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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Received on Sat Oct 06 2001 - 19:46:57 BST