Hello,

--- On Sun, 6/7/09, Mac128DOTcom <[email protected]> wrote:

> Are you asking for more than informational purposes?

Yes.  I'm asking in the hopes of being able to use a (marginally) more modern 
ADB trackball in place of the stock Plus mouse.

I bring this up now, in 2009, because back when I first saw the Plus, the stock 
mouse was deemed perfectly acceptable (indeed, cutting edge).  But nearly a 
quarter-century later, I would greatly prefer an alternative to the stock 
mouse, seeing as how mouse technology has taken a huge leap forward since then 
(and my wrists have, um, not).

I have plenty of ADB-type trackballs, but no known way of hooking them up to 
the Plus I have recently acquired.

> They hybrid keyboards were either one or the other, they
> would not translate any signals. So an ADB mouse would not work with
> the RJ-10 connectors and vice-versa. The ADB Mouse had a different
> chip on it than the DB-9 which handled a two-way communication,
> whereas the ADB depended entirely on the logicboard. If one wanted a 
> better-looking mouse, there were many third party alternatives besides
> Apple at the time. The internals of an ADB & DB-9 mouse are similar
> enough that one could probably transfer them if they were determined
> enough.

Thank you for the explanation.  I was fairly sure that if a hack were possible, 
I would have seen/heard of one by now.  But as you say, if people wanted a 
different mouse at the time, there were third-party alternatives available.  
And nowadays, I suppose that the original mechanical mouse is considered part 
of the charm of using such a vintage machine.

I suppose I could attempt to gut the stock mouse and replace the electronics, 
but I do want to keep the Plus and its peripherals intact, as the person who 
was kind enough to sell them to me has taken such good care of them. :)  That 
being the case, I guess I'm stuck. [muses thoughtfully]

> But there were no converters, either for the keyboards or the mice.

Drat.  I suspected as much, but I did want to make sure before I spent a lot of 
time and trouble over this.

Thanks again for the reply.


Best,

James Fraser

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Vintage Macs group.
The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml and our 
netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to 
[email protected]
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs?hl=en
Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

Reply via email to