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* [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual
@ 2021-08-05  0:51 John Floren
  2021-08-05  1:12 ` Henry Bent
  2021-08-05  2:10 ` Bakul Shah
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: John Floren @ 2021-08-05  0:51 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

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Having just been given a Depraz mouse, I thought it would be fun to get it working on my modern computer. Since the DE9 connector is male rather than female as you usually see with serial mice, and given its age, I speculate that it might have a custom protocol; in any rate, plugging it into a USB-serial converter and and firing up picocom has given me nothing.

Does anyone have a copy of a manual for it, or more information on how to interface with it? If I knew how it was wired and what the protocol looked like, I expect I could make an adapter pretty trivially using a microcontroller.

Thanks,

john

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual
  2021-08-05  0:51 [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual John Floren
@ 2021-08-05  1:12 ` Henry Bent
  2021-08-05  3:58   ` John Floren
  2021-08-05  2:10 ` Bakul Shah
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 20+ messages in thread
From: Henry Bent @ 2021-08-05  1:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: John Floren; +Cc: tuhs

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On Wed, 4 Aug 2021 at 20:52, John Floren <john@jfloren.net> wrote:

> Having just been given a Depraz mouse, I thought it would be fun to get it
> working on my modern computer. Since the DE9 connector is male rather than
> female as you usually see with serial mice, and given its age, I speculate
> that it might have a custom protocol; in any rate, plugging it into a
> USB-serial converter and and firing up picocom has given me nothing.
>
> Does anyone have a copy of a manual for it, or more information on how to
> interface with it? If I knew how it was wired and what the protocol looked
> like, I expect I could make an adapter pretty trivially using a
> microcontroller.
>

This might be of some help?

https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/technical-support/vintage-computer-hardware/74403-whitechapel-mg-1-depraz-mouse-grey-pinout#post904391

-Henry

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual
  2021-08-05  0:51 [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual John Floren
  2021-08-05  1:12 ` Henry Bent
@ 2021-08-05  2:10 ` Bakul Shah
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: Bakul Shah @ 2021-08-05  2:10 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: John Floren; +Cc: tuhs

On Aug 4, 2021, at 5:51 PM, John Floren <john@jfloren.net> wrote:
> 
> Having just been given a Depraz mouse, I thought it would be fun to get it working on my modern computer. Since the DE9 connector is male rather than female as you usually see with serial mice, and given its age, I speculate that it might have a custom protocol; in any rate, plugging it into a USB-serial converter and and firing up picocom has given me nothing.
> 
> Does anyone have a copy of a manual for it, or more information on how to interface with it? If I knew how it was wired and what the protocol looked like, I expect I could make an adapter pretty trivially using a microcontroller.

You'll likely need a couple of quadrature decoders as X1,X2 (& Y1,Y2) transitions encode the direction of movement in X (& Y) axis. This may help:
http://www.mcmanis.com/chuck/robotics/projects/lab-x3/quadratrak.html

On a 'Pi may be you can just wire it up to a few GPIO pins (but you will need to convert 5V signals to 3.3V to avoid damaging them).

-- Bakul



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual
  2021-08-05  1:12 ` Henry Bent
@ 2021-08-05  3:58   ` John Floren
  2021-08-05  4:12     ` ron minnich
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 20+ messages in thread
From: John Floren @ 2021-08-05  3:58 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Henry Bent; +Cc: tuhs

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 6:12 PM, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 4 Aug 2021 at 20:52, John Floren <john@jfloren.net> wrote:
>
> > Having just been given a Depraz mouse, I thought it would be fun to get it working on my modern computer. Since the DE9 connector is male rather than female as you usually see with serial mice, and given its age, I speculate that it might have a custom protocol; in any rate, plugging it into a USB-serial converter and and firing up picocom has given me nothing.
> >
> > Does anyone have a copy of a manual for it, or more information on how to interface with it? If I knew how it was wired and what the protocol looked like, I expect I could make an adapter pretty trivially using a microcontroller.
>
> This might be of some help?
>
> https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/technical-support/vintage-computer-hardware/74403-whitechapel-mg-1-depraz-mouse-grey-pinout#post904391
>
> -Henry

This looks great, thank you!

john

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual
  2021-08-05  3:58   ` John Floren
@ 2021-08-05  4:12     ` ron minnich
  2021-08-05  4:14       ` Bakul Shah
  2021-08-06 16:27       ` John Floren
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: ron minnich @ 2021-08-05  4:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: John Floren; +Cc: tuhs

John, you can see that "stick a bird on it" -> "stick an arduino on
it" -> "stick a pi on it" has gone as you once predicted :-)

On Wed, Aug 4, 2021 at 8:59 PM John Floren <john@jfloren.net> wrote:
>
> ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 6:12 PM, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 4 Aug 2021 at 20:52, John Floren <john@jfloren.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Having just been given a Depraz mouse, I thought it would be fun to get it working on my modern computer. Since the DE9 connector is male rather than female as you usually see with serial mice, and given its age, I speculate that it might have a custom protocol; in any rate, plugging it into a USB-serial converter and and firing up picocom has given me nothing.
> > >
> > > Does anyone have a copy of a manual for it, or more information on how to interface with it? If I knew how it was wired and what the protocol looked like, I expect I could make an adapter pretty trivially using a microcontroller.
> >
> > This might be of some help?
> >
> > https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/technical-support/vintage-computer-hardware/74403-whitechapel-mg-1-depraz-mouse-grey-pinout#post904391
> >
> > -Henry
>
> This looks great, thank you!
>
> john

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual
  2021-08-05  4:12     ` ron minnich
@ 2021-08-05  4:14       ` Bakul Shah
  2021-08-06 16:27       ` John Floren
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: Bakul Shah @ 2021-08-05  4:14 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ron minnich; +Cc: tuhs

The 'Pi that is running Plan9 or some Unix, not a separate one!

-- Bakul

> On Aug 4, 2021, at 9:12 PM, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> John, you can see that "stick a bird on it" -> "stick an arduino on
> it" -> "stick a pi on it" has gone as you once predicted :-)
> 
> On Wed, Aug 4, 2021 at 8:59 PM John Floren <john@jfloren.net> wrote:
>> 
>> ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>> On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 6:12 PM, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> On Wed, 4 Aug 2021 at 20:52, John Floren <john@jfloren.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Having just been given a Depraz mouse, I thought it would be fun to get it working on my modern computer. Since the DE9 connector is male rather than female as you usually see with serial mice, and given its age, I speculate that it might have a custom protocol; in any rate, plugging it into a USB-serial converter and and firing up picocom has given me nothing.
>>>> 
>>>> Does anyone have a copy of a manual for it, or more information on how to interface with it? If I knew how it was wired and what the protocol looked like, I expect I could make an adapter pretty trivially using a microcontroller.
>>> 
>>> This might be of some help?
>>> 
>>> https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/technical-support/vintage-computer-hardware/74403-whitechapel-mg-1-depraz-mouse-grey-pinout#post904391
>>> 
>>> -Henry
>> 
>> This looks great, thank you!
>> 
>> john


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual
  2021-08-05  4:12     ` ron minnich
  2021-08-05  4:14       ` Bakul Shah
@ 2021-08-06 16:27       ` John Floren
  2021-08-06 16:34         ` ron minnich
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 20+ messages in thread
From: John Floren @ 2021-08-06 16:27 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

I stuck an Arduino on it and with surprisingly little code I have it acting like a 3-button USB mouse.

The only problem is that the pointer doesn't move smoothly. It does OK left-to-right, and can move down pretty well, but going up is a problem. I think pushing the mouse forward tends to move the ball away from the Y-axis wheel, and the old spring on the tensioner just doesn't have the gumption to hold that heavy ball bearing in any more.


john

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 9:12 PM, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:

> John, you can see that "stick a bird on it" -> "stick an arduino on
>
> it" -> "stick a pi on it" has gone as you once predicted :-)
>
> On Wed, Aug 4, 2021 at 8:59 PM John Floren john@jfloren.net wrote:
>
> > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> >
> > On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 6:12 PM, Henry Bent henry.r.bent@gmail.com wrote:
> >
> > > On Wed, 4 Aug 2021 at 20:52, John Floren john@jfloren.net wrote:
> > >
> > > > Having just been given a Depraz mouse, I thought it would be fun to get it working on my modern computer. Since the DE9 connector is male rather than female as you usually see with serial mice, and given its age, I speculate that it might have a custom protocol; in any rate, plugging it into a USB-serial converter and and firing up picocom has given me nothing.
> > > >
> > > > Does anyone have a copy of a manual for it, or more information on how to interface with it? If I knew how it was wired and what the protocol looked like, I expect I could make an adapter pretty trivially using a microcontroller.
> > >
> > > This might be of some help?
> > >
> > > https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/technical-support/vintage-computer-hardware/74403-whitechapel-mg-1-depraz-mouse-grey-pinout#post904391
> > >
> > > -Henry
> >
> > This looks great, thank you!
> >
> > john

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual
  2021-08-06 16:27       ` John Floren
@ 2021-08-06 16:34         ` ron minnich
  2021-08-06 16:52           ` John Floren
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 20+ messages in thread
From: ron minnich @ 2021-08-06 16:34 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: John Floren; +Cc: tuhs

john, don't forget to mention the beer can

On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 9:29 AM John Floren <john@jfloren.net> wrote:
>
> I stuck an Arduino on it and with surprisingly little code I have it acting like a 3-button USB mouse.
>
> The only problem is that the pointer doesn't move smoothly. It does OK left-to-right, and can move down pretty well, but going up is a problem. I think pushing the mouse forward tends to move the ball away from the Y-axis wheel, and the old spring on the tensioner just doesn't have the gumption to hold that heavy ball bearing in any more.
>
>
> john
>
> ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>
> On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 9:12 PM, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > John, you can see that "stick a bird on it" -> "stick an arduino on
> >
> > it" -> "stick a pi on it" has gone as you once predicted :-)
> >
> > On Wed, Aug 4, 2021 at 8:59 PM John Floren john@jfloren.net wrote:
> >
> > > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> > >
> > > On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 6:12 PM, Henry Bent henry.r.bent@gmail.com wrote:
> > >
> > > > On Wed, 4 Aug 2021 at 20:52, John Floren john@jfloren.net wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Having just been given a Depraz mouse, I thought it would be fun to get it working on my modern computer. Since the DE9 connector is male rather than female as you usually see with serial mice, and given its age, I speculate that it might have a custom protocol; in any rate, plugging it into a USB-serial converter and and firing up picocom has given me nothing.
> > > > >
> > > > > Does anyone have a copy of a manual for it, or more information on how to interface with it? If I knew how it was wired and what the protocol looked like, I expect I could make an adapter pretty trivially using a microcontroller.
> > > >
> > > > This might be of some help?
> > > >
> > > > https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/technical-support/vintage-computer-hardware/74403-whitechapel-mg-1-depraz-mouse-grey-pinout#post904391
> > > >
> > > > -Henry
> > >
> > > This looks great, thank you!
> > >
> > > john

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual
  2021-08-06 16:34         ` ron minnich
@ 2021-08-06 16:52           ` John Floren
  2021-08-06 18:33             ` ron minnich
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 20+ messages in thread
From: John Floren @ 2021-08-06 16:52 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ron minnich; +Cc: tuhs

Ah, right. I opened the mouse because one of the encoders didn't seem to be working (it worked fine again this morning, who knows...) and discovered that there was something duct taped inside the plastic shell:

http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/inside.jpg

Peeling back the tape, I saw what I first took to be chunks of flattened beer cans:

http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/reveal.jpg

A closer look showed that they were the wrappers which cover the corks of wine bottles. Up into the 1980s, these were made out of lead, and by flattening five of them, a previous owner of the mouse was able to add quite a bit of extra weight to it:

http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/wrapper.jpg


john

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

On Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 9:34 AM, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:

> john, don't forget to mention the beer can
>
> On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 9:29 AM John Floren john@jfloren.net wrote:
>
> > I stuck an Arduino on it and with surprisingly little code I have it acting like a 3-button USB mouse.
> >
> > The only problem is that the pointer doesn't move smoothly. It does OK left-to-right, and can move down pretty well, but going up is a problem. I think pushing the mouse forward tends to move the ball away from the Y-axis wheel, and the old spring on the tensioner just doesn't have the gumption to hold that heavy ball bearing in any more.
> >
> > john
> >
> > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> >
> > On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 9:12 PM, ron minnich rminnich@gmail.com wrote:
> >
> > > John, you can see that "stick a bird on it" -> "stick an arduino on
> > >
> > > it" -> "stick a pi on it" has gone as you once predicted :-)
> > >
> > > On Wed, Aug 4, 2021 at 8:59 PM John Floren john@jfloren.net wrote:
> > >
> > > > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> > > >
> > > > On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 6:12 PM, Henry Bent henry.r.bent@gmail.com wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > On Wed, 4 Aug 2021 at 20:52, John Floren john@jfloren.net wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > Having just been given a Depraz mouse, I thought it would be fun to get it working on my modern computer. Since the DE9 connector is male rather than female as you usually see with serial mice, and given its age, I speculate that it might have a custom protocol; in any rate, plugging it into a USB-serial converter and and firing up picocom has given me nothing.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Does anyone have a copy of a manual for it, or more information on how to interface with it? If I knew how it was wired and what the protocol looked like, I expect I could make an adapter pretty trivially using a microcontroller.
> > > > >
> > > > > This might be of some help?
> > > > >
> > > > > https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/technical-support/vintage-computer-hardware/74403-whitechapel-mg-1-depraz-mouse-grey-pinout#post904391
> > > > >
> > > > > -Henry
> > > >
> > > > This looks great, thank you!
> > > >
> > > > john

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual
  2021-08-06 16:52           ` John Floren
@ 2021-08-06 18:33             ` ron minnich
  2021-08-06 19:16               ` Andrew Hume
       [not found]               ` <CAKzdPgzZvMUBjGuar9cygk2UCmzzEAXDoGjscKF1CcG_6XAV5A@mail.gmail.com>
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: ron minnich @ 2021-08-06 18:33 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: John Floren; +Cc: tuhs

The story of the mice, one of which I gave to John:

I ran a program called FAST-OS for LANL/Sandia for 6  years starting
2005. Think of it as "Plan 9 on petaflop supercomputers" -- it may
seem strange now, but in that era when some top end systems ran custom
kernels, there was a strong case to be made that plan 9 was a good
choice. By 2011, of course, the Linux tsunami had swept all before it,
which is why you no longer hear about custom HPC kernels so much --
though in some places they still reign. In any event, this program
gave me 6 years to work with "the Unix room", or what was left of it.
I had been in the Unix Room in 1978, and even met Dennis, so this
prospect was quite a treat.

We funded Charles Forsyth to write the amd64 compilers for Plan 9,
which if you used early Go you ran into (6c 6a 6l); we also funded the
amd64 port of Plan 9 (a.k.a. k10) as well as the port to Blue Gene.
That amd64 port is still out and about. You can find the Blue Gene
kernel on github.

I had lots of fun spending time in the Unix room while working with
the late Jim McKie, and others. I saw the tail end of the traditions.
They had cookie day once a week, if memory serves, on Thursday at 3. I
got to see the backwards-running clock, Ken's chess trophies, his
pilot's license, pictures of Peter everywhere, a "Reagan's view of the
world" map, the American Legion award for Telstar (which was rescued
from a dumpster!), and so on. The "Unix room" was more than one room,
all built on a raised floor, as I assume it was former old school
machine room space. If memory serves, it filled the entire width of
the end of the top floor of the building it was in (4th floor?) --
maybe 50 ft x 50 ft -- maybe a bit more. There was a room with desks,
and a similar-sized room with servers, and a smaller room containing a
lab-style sink, a very professional cappucinno machine, decades of old
proceedings, and a sofa. I fixed the heavy-duty coffee grinder one
year; for some reason the Italian company that produced it had seen
fit to switch BOTH hot and neutral, and the fix was to only switch
hot, as the neutral switch had failed; I guess in the EU, with 220v,
things are done differently.

It was fun being there. A few years later the whole room, and all its
history, was trashed, and replaced with what Jim called a "middle
management wxx dream" (Jim was never at a loss for words); Jim found
some yellow Police crime scene tape and placed it in front of the
doors to the new space. It was redubbed "the innovation space" or some
such, and looked kind of like an ikea showroom. Much was lost. I tried
to find a way to save the contents of the room; I had this dream of
recreating it at Google, much as John Wanamaker's office was preserved
in Philadelphia for so many decades, but I was too late. I have no
idea where the contents are now. Maybe next to the Ark.

One day in 2008 or so jmk took me for a tour of the buildings, and we
at one point ended up high in the top floor of what I think was
Building One (since torn down?), in what used to be Lab Supply. Nobody
was there, and not much supply was there either. Finally somebody
wandered in, and Jim asked where everyone was. "Oh, they closed lab
supply, maybe 4 years ago?"

Bell Labs had seen hard times since the Lucent split, and it was clear
it had not quite recovered, and Lab Supply was just one sign of it. I
think the saddest thing was seeing the visitor center, which I first
saw in 1976. In 1976, it was the seat of the Bell System Empire, and
it was huge. There was a map of the US with a light lit for every
switching office in the Bell Labs system. There was all kinds of Bell
Labs history in the visitor center museum.

The museum had shrunk to a much smaller area, and felt like a closet.
The original transistor was still there in 2010, but little else.The
library was, similarly, changed: it was dark and empty, I was told.
Money was saved. At that time, Bell Labs felt large, strangely quiet,
and emptied of people. It made me think of post-sack Rome, ca. 600,
when its population was estimated to be 500. I have not been back
since 2011 so maybe things are very different. It would be nice if so.

As part of this tour, Jim gave me 3 depraz mice. I took one, gutted
it, (sorry!), and filled its guts with a USB mouse innards, and gave
it back to Jim. He then had a Depraz USB mouse. jmk's mouse did not
have any lead in it, as John's did, however. The second I gave to
someone at Google who had worked at the labs back in the day. The
third mouse I gave to John, and he made it live again, which is cool.

In spite of their reputation, I found Depraz mice hard to use. I have
gone through all kinds of mice, and am on an evoluent, and as far as
Depraz go, I guess "you had to be there". I don't recall if jmk used
his "usb depraz" or it ended up on a shelf. Sadly, I can no longer ask
him.

I'll be interested to see what John thinks of the Depraz.

ron

On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 9:52 AM John Floren <john@jfloren.net> wrote:
>
> Ah, right. I opened the mouse because one of the encoders didn't seem to be working (it worked fine again this morning, who knows...) and discovered that there was something duct taped inside the plastic shell:
>
> http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/inside.jpg
>
> Peeling back the tape, I saw what I first took to be chunks of flattened beer cans:
>
> http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/reveal.jpg
>
> A closer look showed that they were the wrappers which cover the corks of wine bottles. Up into the 1980s, these were made out of lead, and by flattening five of them, a previous owner of the mouse was able to add quite a bit of extra weight to it:
>
> http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/wrapper.jpg
>
>
> john
>
> ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>
> On Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 9:34 AM, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > john, don't forget to mention the beer can
> >
> > On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 9:29 AM John Floren john@jfloren.net wrote:
> >
> > > I stuck an Arduino on it and with surprisingly little code I have it acting like a 3-button USB mouse.
> > >
> > > The only problem is that the pointer doesn't move smoothly. It does OK left-to-right, and can move down pretty well, but going up is a problem. I think pushing the mouse forward tends to move the ball away from the Y-axis wheel, and the old spring on the tensioner just doesn't have the gumption to hold that heavy ball bearing in any more.
> > >
> > > john
> > >
> > > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> > >
> > > On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 9:12 PM, ron minnich rminnich@gmail.com wrote:
> > >
> > > > John, you can see that "stick a bird on it" -> "stick an arduino on
> > > >
> > > > it" -> "stick a pi on it" has gone as you once predicted :-)
> > > >
> > > > On Wed, Aug 4, 2021 at 8:59 PM John Floren john@jfloren.net wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> > > > >
> > > > > On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 6:12 PM, Henry Bent henry.r.bent@gmail.com wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > On Wed, 4 Aug 2021 at 20:52, John Floren john@jfloren.net wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > > Having just been given a Depraz mouse, I thought it would be fun to get it working on my modern computer. Since the DE9 connector is male rather than female as you usually see with serial mice, and given its age, I speculate that it might have a custom protocol; in any rate, plugging it into a USB-serial converter and and firing up picocom has given me nothing.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Does anyone have a copy of a manual for it, or more information on how to interface with it? If I knew how it was wired and what the protocol looked like, I expect I could make an adapter pretty trivially using a microcontroller.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > This might be of some help?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/technical-support/vintage-computer-hardware/74403-whitechapel-mg-1-depraz-mouse-grey-pinout#post904391
> > > > > >
> > > > > > -Henry
> > > > >
> > > > > This looks great, thank you!
> > > > >
> > > > > john

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual
  2021-08-06 18:33             ` ron minnich
@ 2021-08-06 19:16               ` Andrew Hume
  2021-08-06 19:47                 ` William Cheswick
       [not found]               ` <CAKzdPgzZvMUBjGuar9cygk2UCmzzEAXDoGjscKF1CcG_6XAV5A@mail.gmail.com>
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 20+ messages in thread
From: Andrew Hume @ 2021-08-06 19:16 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ron minnich; +Cc: tuhs

i always liked the depart mouse. i fit my hand comfortably.
and i liked the click and feel of the buttons.

it was a good choice by bart locanthi and rob pike to do the mouse that way.

	andrew hume

> 
> I'll be interested to see what John thinks of the Depraz.
> 
> ron
> 


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual
  2021-08-06 19:16               ` Andrew Hume
@ 2021-08-06 19:47                 ` William Cheswick
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: William Cheswick @ 2021-08-06 19:47 UTC (permalink / raw)
  Cc: tuhs



> On Aug 6, 2021, at 3:16 PM, Andrew Hume <andrew@humeweb.com> wrote:
> 
> i always liked the depart mouse. i fit my hand comfortably.
> and i liked the click and feel of the buttons.
> 
> it was a good choice by bart locanthi and rob pike to do the mouse that way.
> 
> 	andrew hume

+1.

I think there is a market for custom-fitted mice carved out of fancy wood or various
metals.  The basic shape should follow the Depraz mouse.  Maybe a good idea
for Etsy.

ches


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual
       [not found]               ` <CAKzdPgzZvMUBjGuar9cygk2UCmzzEAXDoGjscKF1CcG_6XAV5A@mail.gmail.com>
@ 2021-08-06 21:49                 ` John Floren
  2021-08-06 21:54                   ` Rob Pike
  2021-08-06 21:53                 ` Rob Pike
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 20+ messages in thread
From: John Floren @ 2021-08-06 21:49 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 9189 bytes --]

I uploaded the high-resolution one to https://jfloren.net/content/unix_skeleton.jpg if anyone wants to check it out in all its glory.

Thanks, Rob, this is a great picture. I don't think things were *too* different by the time I visited for IWP9 in 2007, but it's been a long time and I guess I didn't take any pictures then.

john

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 2:44 PM, Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote:

> I sent a higher-res version in which you can read all the text but it was "moderated".
>
> This is the Unix room as of the year 2000 or so.
>
> -rob
>
> On Sat, Aug 7, 2021 at 4:34 AM ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The story of the mice, one of which I gave to John:
>>
>> I ran a program called FAST-OS for LANL/Sandia for 6 years starting
>> 2005. Think of it as "Plan 9 on petaflop supercomputers" -- it may
>> seem strange now, but in that era when some top end systems ran custom
>> kernels, there was a strong case to be made that plan 9 was a good
>> choice. By 2011, of course, the Linux tsunami had swept all before it,
>> which is why you no longer hear about custom HPC kernels so much --
>> though in some places they still reign. In any event, this program
>> gave me 6 years to work with "the Unix room", or what was left of it.
>> I had been in the Unix Room in 1978, and even met Dennis, so this
>> prospect was quite a treat.
>>
>> We funded Charles Forsyth to write the amd64 compilers for Plan 9,
>> which if you used early Go you ran into (6c 6a 6l); we also funded the
>> amd64 port of Plan 9 (a.k.a. k10) as well as the port to Blue Gene.
>> That amd64 port is still out and about. You can find the Blue Gene
>> kernel on github.
>>
>> I had lots of fun spending time in the Unix room while working with
>> the late Jim McKie, and others. I saw the tail end of the traditions.
>> They had cookie day once a week, if memory serves, on Thursday at 3. I
>> got to see the backwards-running clock, Ken's chess trophies, his
>> pilot's license, pictures of Peter everywhere, a "Reagan's view of the
>> world" map, the American Legion award for Telstar (which was rescued
>> from a dumpster!), and so on. The "Unix room" was more than one room,
>> all built on a raised floor, as I assume it was former old school
>> machine room space. If memory serves, it filled the entire width of
>> the end of the top floor of the building it was in (4th floor?) --
>> maybe 50 ft x 50 ft -- maybe a bit more. There was a room with desks,
>> and a similar-sized room with servers, and a smaller room containing a
>> lab-style sink, a very professional cappucinno machine, decades of old
>> proceedings, and a sofa. I fixed the heavy-duty coffee grinder one
>> year; for some reason the Italian company that produced it had seen
>> fit to switch BOTH hot and neutral, and the fix was to only switch
>> hot, as the neutral switch had failed; I guess in the EU, with 220v,
>> things are done differently.
>>
>> It was fun being there. A few years later the whole room, and all its
>> history, was trashed, and replaced with what Jim called a "middle
>> management wxx dream" (Jim was never at a loss for words); Jim found
>> some yellow Police crime scene tape and placed it in front of the
>> doors to the new space. It was redubbed "the innovation space" or some
>> such, and looked kind of like an ikea showroom. Much was lost. I tried
>> to find a way to save the contents of the room; I had this dream of
>> recreating it at Google, much as John Wanamaker's office was preserved
>> in Philadelphia for so many decades, but I was too late. I have no
>> idea where the contents are now. Maybe next to the Ark.
>>
>> One day in 2008 or so jmk took me for a tour of the buildings, and we
>> at one point ended up high in the top floor of what I think was
>> Building One (since torn down?), in what used to be Lab Supply. Nobody
>> was there, and not much supply was there either. Finally somebody
>> wandered in, and Jim asked where everyone was. "Oh, they closed lab
>> supply, maybe 4 years ago?"
>>
>> Bell Labs had seen hard times since the Lucent split, and it was clear
>> it had not quite recovered, and Lab Supply was just one sign of it. I
>> think the saddest thing was seeing the visitor center, which I first
>> saw in 1976. In 1976, it was the seat of the Bell System Empire, and
>> it was huge. There was a map of the US with a light lit for every
>> switching office in the Bell Labs system. There was all kinds of Bell
>> Labs history in the visitor center museum.
>>
>> The museum had shrunk to a much smaller area, and felt like a closet.
>> The original transistor was still there in 2010, but little else.The
>> library was, similarly, changed: it was dark and empty, I was told.
>> Money was saved. At that time, Bell Labs felt large, strangely quiet,
>> and emptied of people. It made me think of post-sack Rome, ca. 600,
>> when its population was estimated to be 500. I have not been back
>> since 2011 so maybe things are very different. It would be nice if so.
>>
>> As part of this tour, Jim gave me 3 depraz mice. I took one, gutted
>> it, (sorry!), and filled its guts with a USB mouse innards, and gave
>> it back to Jim. He then had a Depraz USB mouse. jmk's mouse did not
>> have any lead in it, as John's did, however. The second I gave to
>> someone at Google who had worked at the labs back in the day. The
>> third mouse I gave to John, and he made it live again, which is cool.
>>
>> In spite of their reputation, I found Depraz mice hard to use. I have
>> gone through all kinds of mice, and am on an evoluent, and as far as
>> Depraz go, I guess "you had to be there". I don't recall if jmk used
>> his "usb depraz" or it ended up on a shelf. Sadly, I can no longer ask
>> him.
>>
>> I'll be interested to see what John thinks of the Depraz.
>>
>> ron
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 9:52 AM John Floren <john@jfloren.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Ah, right. I opened the mouse because one of the encoders didn't seem to be working (it worked fine again this morning, who knows...) and discovered that there was something duct taped inside the plastic shell:
>>>
>>> http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/inside.jpg
>>>
>>> Peeling back the tape, I saw what I first took to be chunks of flattened beer cans:
>>>
>>> http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/reveal.jpg
>>>
>>> A closer look showed that they were the wrappers which cover the corks of wine bottles. Up into the 1980s, these were made out of lead, and by flattening five of them, a previous owner of the mouse was able to add quite a bit of extra weight to it:
>>>
>>> http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/wrapper.jpg
>>>
>>>
>>> john
>>>
>>> ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>>>
>>> On Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 9:34 AM, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> > john, don't forget to mention the beer can
>>> >
>>> > On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 9:29 AM John Floren john@jfloren.net wrote:
>>> >
>>> > > I stuck an Arduino on it and with surprisingly little code I have it acting like a 3-button USB mouse.
>>> > >
>>> > > The only problem is that the pointer doesn't move smoothly. It does OK left-to-right, and can move down pretty well, but going up is a problem. I think pushing the mouse forward tends to move the ball away from the Y-axis wheel, and the old spring on the tensioner just doesn't have the gumption to hold that heavy ball bearing in any more.
>>> > >
>>> > > john
>>> > >
>>> > > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>>> > >
>>> > > On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 9:12 PM, ron minnich rminnich@gmail.com wrote:
>>> > >
>>> > > > John, you can see that "stick a bird on it" -> "stick an arduino on
>>> > > >
>>> > > > it" -> "stick a pi on it" has gone as you once predicted :-)
>>> > > >
>>> > > > On Wed, Aug 4, 2021 at 8:59 PM John Floren john@jfloren.net wrote:
>>> > > >
>>> > > > > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>>> > > > >
>>> > > > > On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 6:12 PM, Henry Bent henry.r.bent@gmail.com wrote:
>>> > > > >
>>> > > > > > On Wed, 4 Aug 2021 at 20:52, John Floren john@jfloren.net wrote:
>>> > > > > >
>>> > > > > > > Having just been given a Depraz mouse, I thought it would be fun to get it working on my modern computer. Since the DE9 connector is male rather than female as you usually see with serial mice, and given its age, I speculate that it might have a custom protocol; in any rate, plugging it into a USB-serial converter and and firing up picocom has given me nothing.
>>> > > > > > >
>>> > > > > > > Does anyone have a copy of a manual for it, or more information on how to interface with it? If I knew how it was wired and what the protocol looked like, I expect I could make an adapter pretty trivially using a microcontroller.
>>> > > > > >
>>> > > > > > This might be of some help?
>>> > > > > >
>>> > > > > > https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/technical-support/vintage-computer-hardware/74403-whitechapel-mg-1-depraz-mouse-grey-pinout#post904391
>>> > > > > >
>>> > > > > > -Henry
>>> > > > >
>>> > > > > This looks great, thank you!
>>> > > > >
>>> > > > > john

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 12231 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual
       [not found]               ` <CAKzdPgzZvMUBjGuar9cygk2UCmzzEAXDoGjscKF1CcG_6XAV5A@mail.gmail.com>
  2021-08-06 21:49                 ` John Floren
@ 2021-08-06 21:53                 ` Rob Pike
  2021-08-06 23:33                   ` Phil White
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 20+ messages in thread
From: Rob Pike @ 2021-08-06 21:53 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ron minnich; +Cc: tuhs

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 9629 bytes --]

I sent a picture (actually two at different resolutions; keep reading) to
the list, but being images they are larger than the address space of a
PDP-11 so not allowed here.

Is it really necessary to have such a low message size limit in an era when
I can buy a terabyte of storage for less than a hundred bucks?

Here is a Google Drive link, for the adventurous.


 20180123-UnixSkeleton.jpg
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aS8ZmzwPUawIa8WXGoXOK9jDiYtJETGG/view?usp=drive_web>


-rob


On Sat, Aug 7, 2021 at 7:44 AM Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote:

> I sent a higher-res version in which you can read all the text but it was
> "moderated".
>
> This is the Unix room as of the year 2000 or so.
>
> -rob
>
>
> On Sat, Aug 7, 2021 at 4:34 AM ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The story of the mice, one of which I gave to John:
>>
>> I ran a program called FAST-OS for LANL/Sandia for 6  years starting
>> 2005. Think of it as "Plan 9 on petaflop supercomputers" -- it may
>> seem strange now, but in that era when some top end systems ran custom
>> kernels, there was a strong case to be made that plan 9 was a good
>> choice. By 2011, of course, the Linux tsunami had swept all before it,
>> which is why you no longer hear about custom HPC kernels so much --
>> though in some places they still reign. In any event, this program
>> gave me 6 years to work with "the Unix room", or what was left of it.
>> I had been in the Unix Room in 1978, and even met Dennis, so this
>> prospect was quite a treat.
>>
>> We funded Charles Forsyth to write the amd64 compilers for Plan 9,
>> which if you used early Go you ran into (6c 6a 6l); we also funded the
>> amd64 port of Plan 9 (a.k.a. k10) as well as the port to Blue Gene.
>> That amd64 port is still out and about. You can find the Blue Gene
>> kernel on github.
>>
>> I had lots of fun spending time in the Unix room while working with
>> the late Jim McKie, and others. I saw the tail end of the traditions.
>> They had cookie day once a week, if memory serves, on Thursday at 3. I
>> got to see the backwards-running clock, Ken's chess trophies, his
>> pilot's license, pictures of Peter everywhere, a "Reagan's view of the
>> world" map, the American Legion award for Telstar (which was rescued
>> from a dumpster!), and so on. The "Unix room" was more than one room,
>> all built on a raised floor, as I assume it was former old school
>> machine room space. If memory serves, it filled the entire width of
>> the end of the top floor of the building it was in (4th floor?) --
>> maybe 50 ft x 50 ft -- maybe a bit more. There was a room with desks,
>> and a similar-sized room with servers, and a smaller room containing a
>> lab-style sink, a very professional cappucinno machine, decades of old
>> proceedings, and a sofa. I fixed the heavy-duty coffee grinder one
>> year; for some reason the Italian company that produced it had seen
>> fit to switch BOTH hot and neutral, and the fix was to only switch
>> hot, as the neutral switch had failed; I guess in the EU, with 220v,
>> things are done differently.
>>
>> It was fun being there. A few years later the whole room, and all its
>> history, was trashed, and replaced with what Jim called a "middle
>> management wxx dream" (Jim was never at a loss for words); Jim found
>> some yellow Police crime scene tape and placed it in front of the
>> doors to the new space. It was redubbed "the innovation space" or some
>> such, and looked kind of like an ikea showroom. Much was lost. I tried
>> to find a way to save the contents of the room; I had this dream of
>> recreating it at Google, much as John Wanamaker's office was preserved
>> in Philadelphia for so many decades, but I was too late. I have no
>> idea where the contents are now. Maybe next to the Ark.
>>
>> One day in 2008 or so jmk took me for a tour of the buildings, and we
>> at one point ended up high in the top floor of what I think was
>> Building One (since torn down?), in what used to be Lab Supply. Nobody
>> was there, and not much supply was there either. Finally somebody
>> wandered in, and Jim asked where everyone was. "Oh, they closed lab
>> supply, maybe 4 years ago?"
>>
>> Bell Labs had seen hard times since the Lucent split, and it was clear
>> it had not quite recovered, and Lab Supply was just one sign of it. I
>> think the saddest thing was seeing the visitor center, which I first
>> saw in 1976. In 1976, it was the seat of the Bell System Empire, and
>> it was huge. There was a map of the US with a light lit for every
>> switching office in the Bell Labs system. There was all kinds of Bell
>> Labs history in the visitor center museum.
>>
>> The museum had shrunk to a much smaller area, and felt like a closet.
>> The original transistor was still there in 2010, but little else.The
>> library was, similarly, changed: it was dark and empty, I was told.
>> Money was saved. At that time, Bell Labs felt large, strangely quiet,
>> and emptied of people. It made me think of post-sack Rome, ca. 600,
>> when its population was estimated to be 500. I have not been back
>> since 2011 so maybe things are very different. It would be nice if so.
>>
>> As part of this tour, Jim gave me 3 depraz mice. I took one, gutted
>> it, (sorry!), and filled its guts with a USB mouse innards, and gave
>> it back to Jim. He then had a Depraz USB mouse. jmk's mouse did not
>> have any lead in it, as John's did, however. The second I gave to
>> someone at Google who had worked at the labs back in the day. The
>> third mouse I gave to John, and he made it live again, which is cool.
>>
>> In spite of their reputation, I found Depraz mice hard to use. I have
>> gone through all kinds of mice, and am on an evoluent, and as far as
>> Depraz go, I guess "you had to be there". I don't recall if jmk used
>> his "usb depraz" or it ended up on a shelf. Sadly, I can no longer ask
>> him.
>>
>> I'll be interested to see what John thinks of the Depraz.
>>
>> ron
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 9:52 AM John Floren <john@jfloren.net> wrote:
>> >
>> > Ah, right. I opened the mouse because one of the encoders didn't seem
>> to be working (it worked fine again this morning, who knows...) and
>> discovered that there was something duct taped inside the plastic shell:
>> >
>> > http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/inside.jpg
>> >
>> > Peeling back the tape, I saw what I first took to be chunks of
>> flattened beer cans:
>> >
>> > http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/reveal.jpg
>> >
>> > A closer look showed that they were the wrappers which cover the corks
>> of wine bottles. Up into the 1980s, these were made out of lead, and by
>> flattening five of them, a previous owner of the mouse was able to add
>> quite a bit of extra weight to it:
>> >
>> > http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/wrapper.jpg
>> >
>> >
>> > john
>> >
>> > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>> >
>> > On Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 9:34 AM, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > > john, don't forget to mention the beer can
>> > >
>> > > On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 9:29 AM John Floren john@jfloren.net wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > I stuck an Arduino on it and with surprisingly little code I have
>> it acting like a 3-button USB mouse.
>> > > >
>> > > > The only problem is that the pointer doesn't move smoothly. It does
>> OK left-to-right, and can move down pretty well, but going up is a problem.
>> I think pushing the mouse forward tends to move the ball away from the
>> Y-axis wheel, and the old spring on the tensioner just doesn't have the
>> gumption to hold that heavy ball bearing in any more.
>> > > >
>> > > > john
>> > > >
>> > > > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>> > > >
>> > > > On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 9:12 PM, ron minnich
>> rminnich@gmail.com wrote:
>> > > >
>> > > > > John, you can see that "stick a bird on it" -> "stick an arduino
>> on
>> > > > >
>> > > > > it" -> "stick a pi on it" has gone as you once predicted :-)
>> > > > >
>> > > > > On Wed, Aug 4, 2021 at 8:59 PM John Floren john@jfloren.net
>> wrote:
>> > > > >
>> > > > > > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > > On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 6:12 PM, Henry Bent
>> henry.r.bent@gmail.com wrote:
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > > > On Wed, 4 Aug 2021 at 20:52, John Floren john@jfloren.net
>> wrote:
>> > > > > > >
>> > > > > > > > Having just been given a Depraz mouse, I thought it would
>> be fun to get it working on my modern computer. Since the DE9 connector is
>> male rather than female as you usually see with serial mice, and given its
>> age, I speculate that it might have a custom protocol; in any rate,
>> plugging it into a USB-serial converter and and firing up picocom has given
>> me nothing.
>> > > > > > > >
>> > > > > > > > Does anyone have a copy of a manual for it, or more
>> information on how to interface with it? If I knew how it was wired and
>> what the protocol looked like, I expect I could make an adapter pretty
>> trivially using a microcontroller.
>> > > > > > >
>> > > > > > > This might be of some help?
>> > > > > > >
>> > > > > > >
>> https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/technical-support/vintage-computer-hardware/74403-whitechapel-mg-1-depraz-mouse-grey-pinout#post904391
>> > > > > > >
>> > > > > > > -Henry
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > > This looks great, thank you!
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > > john
>>
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 12673 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual
  2021-08-06 21:49                 ` John Floren
@ 2021-08-06 21:54                   ` Rob Pike
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: Rob Pike @ 2021-08-06 21:54 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: John Floren; +Cc: tuhs

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 9776 bytes --]

Thanks - our messages crossed in the post.

I keep forgetting that images are verboten here, because it makes no sense
to me.

-rob


On Sat, Aug 7, 2021 at 7:51 AM John Floren <john@jfloren.net> wrote:

> I uploaded the high-resolution one to
> https://jfloren.net/content/unix_skeleton.jpg if anyone wants to check it
> out in all its glory.
>
> Thanks, Rob, this is a great picture. I don't think things were *too*
> different by the time I visited for IWP9 in 2007, but it's been a long time
> and I guess I didn't take any pictures then.
>
> john
>
> ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> On Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 2:44 PM, Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> I sent a higher-res version in which you can read all the text but it was
> "moderated".
>
> This is the Unix room as of the year 2000 or so.
>
> -rob
>
>
> On Sat, Aug 7, 2021 at 4:34 AM ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The story of the mice, one of which I gave to John:
>>
>> I ran a program called FAST-OS for LANL/Sandia for 6  years starting
>> 2005. Think of it as "Plan 9 on petaflop supercomputers" -- it may
>> seem strange now, but in that era when some top end systems ran custom
>> kernels, there was a strong case to be made that plan 9 was a good
>> choice. By 2011, of course, the Linux tsunami had swept all before it,
>> which is why you no longer hear about custom HPC kernels so much --
>> though in some places they still reign. In any event, this program
>> gave me 6 years to work with "the Unix room", or what was left of it.
>> I had been in the Unix Room in 1978, and even met Dennis, so this
>> prospect was quite a treat.
>>
>> We funded Charles Forsyth to write the amd64 compilers for Plan 9,
>> which if you used early Go you ran into (6c 6a 6l); we also funded the
>> amd64 port of Plan 9 (a.k.a. k10) as well as the port to Blue Gene.
>> That amd64 port is still out and about. You can find the Blue Gene
>> kernel on github.
>>
>> I had lots of fun spending time in the Unix room while working with
>> the late Jim McKie, and others. I saw the tail end of the traditions.
>> They had cookie day once a week, if memory serves, on Thursday at 3. I
>> got to see the backwards-running clock, Ken's chess trophies, his
>> pilot's license, pictures of Peter everywhere, a "Reagan's view of the
>> world" map, the American Legion award for Telstar (which was rescued
>> from a dumpster!), and so on. The "Unix room" was more than one room,
>> all built on a raised floor, as I assume it was former old school
>> machine room space. If memory serves, it filled the entire width of
>> the end of the top floor of the building it was in (4th floor?) --
>> maybe 50 ft x 50 ft -- maybe a bit more. There was a room with desks,
>> and a similar-sized room with servers, and a smaller room containing a
>> lab-style sink, a very professional cappucinno machine, decades of old
>> proceedings, and a sofa. I fixed the heavy-duty coffee grinder one
>> year; for some reason the Italian company that produced it had seen
>> fit to switch BOTH hot and neutral, and the fix was to only switch
>> hot, as the neutral switch had failed; I guess in the EU, with 220v,
>> things are done differently.
>>
>> It was fun being there. A few years later the whole room, and all its
>> history, was trashed, and replaced with what Jim called a "middle
>> management wxx dream" (Jim was never at a loss for words); Jim found
>> some yellow Police crime scene tape and placed it in front of the
>> doors to the new space. It was redubbed "the innovation space" or some
>> such, and looked kind of like an ikea showroom. Much was lost. I tried
>> to find a way to save the contents of the room; I had this dream of
>> recreating it at Google, much as John Wanamaker's office was preserved
>> in Philadelphia for so many decades, but I was too late. I have no
>> idea where the contents are now. Maybe next to the Ark.
>>
>> One day in 2008 or so jmk took me for a tour of the buildings, and we
>> at one point ended up high in the top floor of what I think was
>> Building One (since torn down?), in what used to be Lab Supply. Nobody
>> was there, and not much supply was there either. Finally somebody
>> wandered in, and Jim asked where everyone was. "Oh, they closed lab
>> supply, maybe 4 years ago?"
>>
>> Bell Labs had seen hard times since the Lucent split, and it was clear
>> it had not quite recovered, and Lab Supply was just one sign of it. I
>> think the saddest thing was seeing the visitor center, which I first
>> saw in 1976. In 1976, it was the seat of the Bell System Empire, and
>> it was huge. There was a map of the US with a light lit for every
>> switching office in the Bell Labs system. There was all kinds of Bell
>> Labs history in the visitor center museum.
>>
>> The museum had shrunk to a much smaller area, and felt like a closet.
>> The original transistor was still there in 2010, but little else.The
>> library was, similarly, changed: it was dark and empty, I was told.
>> Money was saved. At that time, Bell Labs felt large, strangely quiet,
>> and emptied of people. It made me think of post-sack Rome, ca. 600,
>> when its population was estimated to be 500. I have not been back
>> since 2011 so maybe things are very different. It would be nice if so.
>>
>> As part of this tour, Jim gave me 3 depraz mice. I took one, gutted
>> it, (sorry!), and filled its guts with a USB mouse innards, and gave
>> it back to Jim. He then had a Depraz USB mouse. jmk's mouse did not
>> have any lead in it, as John's did, however. The second I gave to
>> someone at Google who had worked at the labs back in the day. The
>> third mouse I gave to John, and he made it live again, which is cool.
>>
>> In spite of their reputation, I found Depraz mice hard to use. I have
>> gone through all kinds of mice, and am on an evoluent, and as far as
>> Depraz go, I guess "you had to be there". I don't recall if jmk used
>> his "usb depraz" or it ended up on a shelf. Sadly, I can no longer ask
>> him.
>>
>> I'll be interested to see what John thinks of the Depraz.
>>
>> ron
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 9:52 AM John Floren <john@jfloren.net> wrote:
>> >
>> > Ah, right. I opened the mouse because one of the encoders didn't seem
>> to be working (it worked fine again this morning, who knows...) and
>> discovered that there was something duct taped inside the plastic shell:
>> >
>> > http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/inside.jpg
>> >
>> > Peeling back the tape, I saw what I first took to be chunks of
>> flattened beer cans:
>> >
>> > http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/reveal.jpg
>> >
>> > A closer look showed that they were the wrappers which cover the corks
>> of wine bottles. Up into the 1980s, these were made out of lead, and by
>> flattening five of them, a previous owner of the mouse was able to add
>> quite a bit of extra weight to it:
>> >
>> > http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/wrapper.jpg
>> >
>> >
>> > john
>> >
>> > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>> >
>> > On Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 9:34 AM, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > > john, don't forget to mention the beer can
>> > >
>> > > On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 9:29 AM John Floren john@jfloren.net wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > I stuck an Arduino on it and with surprisingly little code I have
>> it acting like a 3-button USB mouse.
>> > > >
>> > > > The only problem is that the pointer doesn't move smoothly. It does
>> OK left-to-right, and can move down pretty well, but going up is a problem.
>> I think pushing the mouse forward tends to move the ball away from the
>> Y-axis wheel, and the old spring on the tensioner just doesn't have the
>> gumption to hold that heavy ball bearing in any more.
>> > > >
>> > > > john
>> > > >
>> > > > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>> > > >
>> > > > On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 9:12 PM, ron minnich
>> rminnich@gmail.com wrote:
>> > > >
>> > > > > John, you can see that "stick a bird on it" -> "stick an arduino
>> on
>> > > > >
>> > > > > it" -> "stick a pi on it" has gone as you once predicted :-)
>> > > > >
>> > > > > On Wed, Aug 4, 2021 at 8:59 PM John Floren john@jfloren.net
>> wrote:
>> > > > >
>> > > > > > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > > On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 6:12 PM, Henry Bent
>> henry.r.bent@gmail.com wrote:
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > > > On Wed, 4 Aug 2021 at 20:52, John Floren john@jfloren.net
>> wrote:
>> > > > > > >
>> > > > > > > > Having just been given a Depraz mouse, I thought it would
>> be fun to get it working on my modern computer. Since the DE9 connector is
>> male rather than female as you usually see with serial mice, and given its
>> age, I speculate that it might have a custom protocol; in any rate,
>> plugging it into a USB-serial converter and and firing up picocom has given
>> me nothing.
>> > > > > > > >
>> > > > > > > > Does anyone have a copy of a manual for it, or more
>> information on how to interface with it? If I knew how it was wired and
>> what the protocol looked like, I expect I could make an adapter pretty
>> trivially using a microcontroller.
>> > > > > > >
>> > > > > > > This might be of some help?
>> > > > > > >
>> > > > > > >
>> https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/technical-support/vintage-computer-hardware/74403-whitechapel-mg-1-depraz-mouse-grey-pinout#post904391
>> > > > > > >
>> > > > > > > -Henry
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > > This looks great, thank you!
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > > john
>>
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 12784 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual
  2021-08-06 21:53                 ` Rob Pike
@ 2021-08-06 23:33                   ` Phil White
  2021-08-07  0:24                     ` Rob Pike
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 20+ messages in thread
From: Phil White @ 2021-08-06 23:33 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Rob Pike; +Cc: tuhs

I'm a little embarrassed to ask, but my curiosity demands I ask.  Who is
that in the framed photograph near the ceiling and between the "Protect
Your Password" and "UNIX International Member" posters?

-Phil

On Sat, Aug 07, 2021 at 07:53:48AM +1000, Rob Pike wrote:
> I sent a picture (actually two at different resolutions; keep reading) to
> the list, but being images they are larger than the address space of a
> PDP-11 so not allowed here.
> 
> Is it really necessary to have such a low message size limit in an era when
> I can buy a terabyte of storage for less than a hundred bucks?
> 
> Here is a Google Drive link, for the adventurous.
> 
> 
>  20180123-UnixSkeleton.jpg
> <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aS8ZmzwPUawIa8WXGoXOK9jDiYtJETGG/view?usp=drive_web>
> 
> 
> -rob
> 
> 
> On Sat, Aug 7, 2021 at 7:44 AM Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > I sent a higher-res version in which you can read all the text but it was
> > "moderated".
> >
> > This is the Unix room as of the year 2000 or so.
> >
> > -rob
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Aug 7, 2021 at 4:34 AM ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> The story of the mice, one of which I gave to John:
> >>
> >> I ran a program called FAST-OS for LANL/Sandia for 6  years starting
> >> 2005. Think of it as "Plan 9 on petaflop supercomputers" -- it may
> >> seem strange now, but in that era when some top end systems ran custom
> >> kernels, there was a strong case to be made that plan 9 was a good
> >> choice. By 2011, of course, the Linux tsunami had swept all before it,
> >> which is why you no longer hear about custom HPC kernels so much --
> >> though in some places they still reign. In any event, this program
> >> gave me 6 years to work with "the Unix room", or what was left of it.
> >> I had been in the Unix Room in 1978, and even met Dennis, so this
> >> prospect was quite a treat.
> >>
> >> We funded Charles Forsyth to write the amd64 compilers for Plan 9,
> >> which if you used early Go you ran into (6c 6a 6l); we also funded the
> >> amd64 port of Plan 9 (a.k.a. k10) as well as the port to Blue Gene.
> >> That amd64 port is still out and about. You can find the Blue Gene
> >> kernel on github.
> >>
> >> I had lots of fun spending time in the Unix room while working with
> >> the late Jim McKie, and others. I saw the tail end of the traditions.
> >> They had cookie day once a week, if memory serves, on Thursday at 3. I
> >> got to see the backwards-running clock, Ken's chess trophies, his
> >> pilot's license, pictures of Peter everywhere, a "Reagan's view of the
> >> world" map, the American Legion award for Telstar (which was rescued
> >> from a dumpster!), and so on. The "Unix room" was more than one room,
> >> all built on a raised floor, as I assume it was former old school
> >> machine room space. If memory serves, it filled the entire width of
> >> the end of the top floor of the building it was in (4th floor?) --
> >> maybe 50 ft x 50 ft -- maybe a bit more. There was a room with desks,
> >> and a similar-sized room with servers, and a smaller room containing a
> >> lab-style sink, a very professional cappucinno machine, decades of old
> >> proceedings, and a sofa. I fixed the heavy-duty coffee grinder one
> >> year; for some reason the Italian company that produced it had seen
> >> fit to switch BOTH hot and neutral, and the fix was to only switch
> >> hot, as the neutral switch had failed; I guess in the EU, with 220v,
> >> things are done differently.
> >>
> >> It was fun being there. A few years later the whole room, and all its
> >> history, was trashed, and replaced with what Jim called a "middle
> >> management wxx dream" (Jim was never at a loss for words); Jim found
> >> some yellow Police crime scene tape and placed it in front of the
> >> doors to the new space. It was redubbed "the innovation space" or some
> >> such, and looked kind of like an ikea showroom. Much was lost. I tried
> >> to find a way to save the contents of the room; I had this dream of
> >> recreating it at Google, much as John Wanamaker's office was preserved
> >> in Philadelphia for so many decades, but I was too late. I have no
> >> idea where the contents are now. Maybe next to the Ark.
> >>
> >> One day in 2008 or so jmk took me for a tour of the buildings, and we
> >> at one point ended up high in the top floor of what I think was
> >> Building One (since torn down?), in what used to be Lab Supply. Nobody
> >> was there, and not much supply was there either. Finally somebody
> >> wandered in, and Jim asked where everyone was. "Oh, they closed lab
> >> supply, maybe 4 years ago?"
> >>
> >> Bell Labs had seen hard times since the Lucent split, and it was clear
> >> it had not quite recovered, and Lab Supply was just one sign of it. I
> >> think the saddest thing was seeing the visitor center, which I first
> >> saw in 1976. In 1976, it was the seat of the Bell System Empire, and
> >> it was huge. There was a map of the US with a light lit for every
> >> switching office in the Bell Labs system. There was all kinds of Bell
> >> Labs history in the visitor center museum.
> >>
> >> The museum had shrunk to a much smaller area, and felt like a closet.
> >> The original transistor was still there in 2010, but little else.The
> >> library was, similarly, changed: it was dark and empty, I was told.
> >> Money was saved. At that time, Bell Labs felt large, strangely quiet,
> >> and emptied of people. It made me think of post-sack Rome, ca. 600,
> >> when its population was estimated to be 500. I have not been back
> >> since 2011 so maybe things are very different. It would be nice if so.
> >>
> >> As part of this tour, Jim gave me 3 depraz mice. I took one, gutted
> >> it, (sorry!), and filled its guts with a USB mouse innards, and gave
> >> it back to Jim. He then had a Depraz USB mouse. jmk's mouse did not
> >> have any lead in it, as John's did, however. The second I gave to
> >> someone at Google who had worked at the labs back in the day. The
> >> third mouse I gave to John, and he made it live again, which is cool.
> >>
> >> In spite of their reputation, I found Depraz mice hard to use. I have
> >> gone through all kinds of mice, and am on an evoluent, and as far as
> >> Depraz go, I guess "you had to be there". I don't recall if jmk used
> >> his "usb depraz" or it ended up on a shelf. Sadly, I can no longer ask
> >> him.
> >>
> >> I'll be interested to see what John thinks of the Depraz.
> >>
> >> ron
> >>
> >> On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 9:52 AM John Floren <john@jfloren.net> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Ah, right. I opened the mouse because one of the encoders didn't seem
> >> to be working (it worked fine again this morning, who knows...) and
> >> discovered that there was something duct taped inside the plastic shell:
> >> >
> >> > http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/inside.jpg
> >> >
> >> > Peeling back the tape, I saw what I first took to be chunks of
> >> flattened beer cans:
> >> >
> >> > http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/reveal.jpg
> >> >
> >> > A closer look showed that they were the wrappers which cover the corks
> >> of wine bottles. Up into the 1980s, these were made out of lead, and by
> >> flattening five of them, a previous owner of the mouse was able to add
> >> quite a bit of extra weight to it:
> >> >
> >> > http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/wrapper.jpg
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > john
> >> >
> >> > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> >> >
> >> > On Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 9:34 AM, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > > john, don't forget to mention the beer can
> >> > >
> >> > > On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 9:29 AM John Floren john@jfloren.net wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > > > I stuck an Arduino on it and with surprisingly little code I have
> >> it acting like a 3-button USB mouse.
> >> > > >
> >> > > > The only problem is that the pointer doesn't move smoothly. It does
> >> OK left-to-right, and can move down pretty well, but going up is a problem.
> >> I think pushing the mouse forward tends to move the ball away from the
> >> Y-axis wheel, and the old spring on the tensioner just doesn't have the
> >> gumption to hold that heavy ball bearing in any more.
> >> > > >
> >> > > > john
> >> > > >
> >> > > > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> >> > > >
> >> > > > On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 9:12 PM, ron minnich
> >> rminnich@gmail.com wrote:
> >> > > >
> >> > > > > John, you can see that "stick a bird on it" -> "stick an arduino
> >> on
> >> > > > >
> >> > > > > it" -> "stick a pi on it" has gone as you once predicted :-)
> >> > > > >
> >> > > > > On Wed, Aug 4, 2021 at 8:59 PM John Floren john@jfloren.net
> >> wrote:
> >> > > > >
> >> > > > > > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> >> > > > > >
> >> > > > > > On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 6:12 PM, Henry Bent
> >> henry.r.bent@gmail.com wrote:
> >> > > > > >
> >> > > > > > > On Wed, 4 Aug 2021 at 20:52, John Floren john@jfloren.net
> >> wrote:
> >> > > > > > >
> >> > > > > > > > Having just been given a Depraz mouse, I thought it would
> >> be fun to get it working on my modern computer. Since the DE9 connector is
> >> male rather than female as you usually see with serial mice, and given its
> >> age, I speculate that it might have a custom protocol; in any rate,
> >> plugging it into a USB-serial converter and and firing up picocom has given
> >> me nothing.
> >> > > > > > > >
> >> > > > > > > > Does anyone have a copy of a manual for it, or more
> >> information on how to interface with it? If I knew how it was wired and
> >> what the protocol looked like, I expect I could make an adapter pretty
> >> trivially using a microcontroller.
> >> > > > > > >
> >> > > > > > > This might be of some help?
> >> > > > > > >
> >> > > > > > >
> >> https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/technical-support/vintage-computer-hardware/74403-whitechapel-mg-1-depraz-mouse-grey-pinout#post904391
> >> > > > > > >
> >> > > > > > > -Henry
> >> > > > > >
> >> > > > > > This looks great, thank you!
> >> > > > > >
> >> > > > > > john
> >>
> >

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual
  2021-08-06 23:33                   ` Phil White
@ 2021-08-07  0:24                     ` Rob Pike
       [not found]                       ` <CAKzdPgyxM2xD3VKmsN2MXsobVCny5q0RHrqb14a7ObN91sWTaA@mail.g mail.com>
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 20+ messages in thread
From: Rob Pike @ 2021-08-07  0:24 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Phil White; +Cc: TUHS main list

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 10950 bytes --]

I don't think anyone knows. Nobody relevant, I believe.

-rob


On Sat, Aug 7, 2021 at 9:33 AM Phil White <cerise-tuhs@hockeyphil.net>
wrote:

> I'm a little embarrassed to ask, but my curiosity demands I ask.  Who is
> that in the framed photograph near the ceiling and between the "Protect
> Your Password" and "UNIX International Member" posters?
>
> -Phil
>
> On Sat, Aug 07, 2021 at 07:53:48AM +1000, Rob Pike wrote:
> > I sent a picture (actually two at different resolutions; keep reading) to
> > the list, but being images they are larger than the address space of a
> > PDP-11 so not allowed here.
> >
> > Is it really necessary to have such a low message size limit in an era
> when
> > I can buy a terabyte of storage for less than a hundred bucks?
> >
> > Here is a Google Drive link, for the adventurous.
> >
> >
> >  20180123-UnixSkeleton.jpg
> > <
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aS8ZmzwPUawIa8WXGoXOK9jDiYtJETGG/view?usp=drive_web
> >
> >
> >
> > -rob
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Aug 7, 2021 at 7:44 AM Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I sent a higher-res version in which you can read all the text but it
> was
> > > "moderated".
> > >
> > > This is the Unix room as of the year 2000 or so.
> > >
> > > -rob
> > >
> > >
> > > On Sat, Aug 7, 2021 at 4:34 AM ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> The story of the mice, one of which I gave to John:
> > >>
> > >> I ran a program called FAST-OS for LANL/Sandia for 6  years starting
> > >> 2005. Think of it as "Plan 9 on petaflop supercomputers" -- it may
> > >> seem strange now, but in that era when some top end systems ran custom
> > >> kernels, there was a strong case to be made that plan 9 was a good
> > >> choice. By 2011, of course, the Linux tsunami had swept all before it,
> > >> which is why you no longer hear about custom HPC kernels so much --
> > >> though in some places they still reign. In any event, this program
> > >> gave me 6 years to work with "the Unix room", or what was left of it.
> > >> I had been in the Unix Room in 1978, and even met Dennis, so this
> > >> prospect was quite a treat.
> > >>
> > >> We funded Charles Forsyth to write the amd64 compilers for Plan 9,
> > >> which if you used early Go you ran into (6c 6a 6l); we also funded the
> > >> amd64 port of Plan 9 (a.k.a. k10) as well as the port to Blue Gene.
> > >> That amd64 port is still out and about. You can find the Blue Gene
> > >> kernel on github.
> > >>
> > >> I had lots of fun spending time in the Unix room while working with
> > >> the late Jim McKie, and others. I saw the tail end of the traditions.
> > >> They had cookie day once a week, if memory serves, on Thursday at 3. I
> > >> got to see the backwards-running clock, Ken's chess trophies, his
> > >> pilot's license, pictures of Peter everywhere, a "Reagan's view of the
> > >> world" map, the American Legion award for Telstar (which was rescued
> > >> from a dumpster!), and so on. The "Unix room" was more than one room,
> > >> all built on a raised floor, as I assume it was former old school
> > >> machine room space. If memory serves, it filled the entire width of
> > >> the end of the top floor of the building it was in (4th floor?) --
> > >> maybe 50 ft x 50 ft -- maybe a bit more. There was a room with desks,
> > >> and a similar-sized room with servers, and a smaller room containing a
> > >> lab-style sink, a very professional cappucinno machine, decades of old
> > >> proceedings, and a sofa. I fixed the heavy-duty coffee grinder one
> > >> year; for some reason the Italian company that produced it had seen
> > >> fit to switch BOTH hot and neutral, and the fix was to only switch
> > >> hot, as the neutral switch had failed; I guess in the EU, with 220v,
> > >> things are done differently.
> > >>
> > >> It was fun being there. A few years later the whole room, and all its
> > >> history, was trashed, and replaced with what Jim called a "middle
> > >> management wxx dream" (Jim was never at a loss for words); Jim found
> > >> some yellow Police crime scene tape and placed it in front of the
> > >> doors to the new space. It was redubbed "the innovation space" or some
> > >> such, and looked kind of like an ikea showroom. Much was lost. I tried
> > >> to find a way to save the contents of the room; I had this dream of
> > >> recreating it at Google, much as John Wanamaker's office was preserved
> > >> in Philadelphia for so many decades, but I was too late. I have no
> > >> idea where the contents are now. Maybe next to the Ark.
> > >>
> > >> One day in 2008 or so jmk took me for a tour of the buildings, and we
> > >> at one point ended up high in the top floor of what I think was
> > >> Building One (since torn down?), in what used to be Lab Supply. Nobody
> > >> was there, and not much supply was there either. Finally somebody
> > >> wandered in, and Jim asked where everyone was. "Oh, they closed lab
> > >> supply, maybe 4 years ago?"
> > >>
> > >> Bell Labs had seen hard times since the Lucent split, and it was clear
> > >> it had not quite recovered, and Lab Supply was just one sign of it. I
> > >> think the saddest thing was seeing the visitor center, which I first
> > >> saw in 1976. In 1976, it was the seat of the Bell System Empire, and
> > >> it was huge. There was a map of the US with a light lit for every
> > >> switching office in the Bell Labs system. There was all kinds of Bell
> > >> Labs history in the visitor center museum.
> > >>
> > >> The museum had shrunk to a much smaller area, and felt like a closet.
> > >> The original transistor was still there in 2010, but little else.The
> > >> library was, similarly, changed: it was dark and empty, I was told.
> > >> Money was saved. At that time, Bell Labs felt large, strangely quiet,
> > >> and emptied of people. It made me think of post-sack Rome, ca. 600,
> > >> when its population was estimated to be 500. I have not been back
> > >> since 2011 so maybe things are very different. It would be nice if so.
> > >>
> > >> As part of this tour, Jim gave me 3 depraz mice. I took one, gutted
> > >> it, (sorry!), and filled its guts with a USB mouse innards, and gave
> > >> it back to Jim. He then had a Depraz USB mouse. jmk's mouse did not
> > >> have any lead in it, as John's did, however. The second I gave to
> > >> someone at Google who had worked at the labs back in the day. The
> > >> third mouse I gave to John, and he made it live again, which is cool.
> > >>
> > >> In spite of their reputation, I found Depraz mice hard to use. I have
> > >> gone through all kinds of mice, and am on an evoluent, and as far as
> > >> Depraz go, I guess "you had to be there". I don't recall if jmk used
> > >> his "usb depraz" or it ended up on a shelf. Sadly, I can no longer ask
> > >> him.
> > >>
> > >> I'll be interested to see what John thinks of the Depraz.
> > >>
> > >> ron
> > >>
> > >> On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 9:52 AM John Floren <john@jfloren.net> wrote:
> > >> >
> > >> > Ah, right. I opened the mouse because one of the encoders didn't
> seem
> > >> to be working (it worked fine again this morning, who knows...) and
> > >> discovered that there was something duct taped inside the plastic
> shell:
> > >> >
> > >> > http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/inside.jpg
> > >> >
> > >> > Peeling back the tape, I saw what I first took to be chunks of
> > >> flattened beer cans:
> > >> >
> > >> > http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/reveal.jpg
> > >> >
> > >> > A closer look showed that they were the wrappers which cover the
> corks
> > >> of wine bottles. Up into the 1980s, these were made out of lead, and
> by
> > >> flattening five of them, a previous owner of the mouse was able to add
> > >> quite a bit of extra weight to it:
> > >> >
> > >> > http://jfloren.net/content/depraz/wrapper.jpg
> > >> >
> > >> >
> > >> > john
> > >> >
> > >> > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> > >> >
> > >> > On Friday, August 6th, 2021 at 9:34 AM, ron minnich <
> rminnich@gmail.com>
> > >> wrote:
> > >> >
> > >> > > john, don't forget to mention the beer can
> > >> > >
> > >> > > On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 9:29 AM John Floren john@jfloren.net
> wrote:
> > >> > >
> > >> > > > I stuck an Arduino on it and with surprisingly little code I
> have
> > >> it acting like a 3-button USB mouse.
> > >> > > >
> > >> > > > The only problem is that the pointer doesn't move smoothly. It
> does
> > >> OK left-to-right, and can move down pretty well, but going up is a
> problem.
> > >> I think pushing the mouse forward tends to move the ball away from the
> > >> Y-axis wheel, and the old spring on the tensioner just doesn't have
> the
> > >> gumption to hold that heavy ball bearing in any more.
> > >> > > >
> > >> > > > john
> > >> > > >
> > >> > > > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> > >> > > >
> > >> > > > On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 9:12 PM, ron minnich
> > >> rminnich@gmail.com wrote:
> > >> > > >
> > >> > > > > John, you can see that "stick a bird on it" -> "stick an
> arduino
> > >> on
> > >> > > > >
> > >> > > > > it" -> "stick a pi on it" has gone as you once predicted :-)
> > >> > > > >
> > >> > > > > On Wed, Aug 4, 2021 at 8:59 PM John Floren john@jfloren.net
> > >> wrote:
> > >> > > > >
> > >> > > > > > ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> > >> > > > > >
> > >> > > > > > On Wednesday, August 4th, 2021 at 6:12 PM, Henry Bent
> > >> henry.r.bent@gmail.com wrote:
> > >> > > > > >
> > >> > > > > > > On Wed, 4 Aug 2021 at 20:52, John Floren john@jfloren.net
> > >> wrote:
> > >> > > > > > >
> > >> > > > > > > > Having just been given a Depraz mouse, I thought it
> would
> > >> be fun to get it working on my modern computer. Since the DE9
> connector is
> > >> male rather than female as you usually see with serial mice, and
> given its
> > >> age, I speculate that it might have a custom protocol; in any rate,
> > >> plugging it into a USB-serial converter and and firing up picocom has
> given
> > >> me nothing.
> > >> > > > > > > >
> > >> > > > > > > > Does anyone have a copy of a manual for it, or more
> > >> information on how to interface with it? If I knew how it was wired
> and
> > >> what the protocol looked like, I expect I could make an adapter pretty
> > >> trivially using a microcontroller.
> > >> > > > > > >
> > >> > > > > > > This might be of some help?
> > >> > > > > > >
> > >> > > > > > >
> > >>
> https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/technical-support/vintage-computer-hardware/74403-whitechapel-mg-1-depraz-mouse-grey-pinout#post904391
> > >> > > > > > >
> > >> > > > > > > -Henry
> > >> > > > > >
> > >> > > > > > This looks great, thank you!
> > >> > > > > >
> > >> > > > > > john
> > >>
> > >
>

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual
       [not found]                       ` <CAKzdPgyxM2xD3VKmsN2MXsobVCny5q0RHrqb14a7ObN91sWTaA@mail.g mail.com>
@ 2021-08-07 12:13                         ` John Foust via TUHS
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: John Foust via TUHS @ 2021-08-07 12:13 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: TUHS main list

At 07:24 PM 8/6/2021, Rob Pike wrote:
>I don't think anyone knows. Nobody relevant, I believe.

Indeed, a clipped and cleaned version in reverse image search on 
Google, Bing, Tineye and Yandex found nothing.  Feels like a 
head shot for a theater major.

- John


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual
  2021-08-06 23:48 Norman Wilson
@ 2021-08-06 23:57 ` John Cowan
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: John Cowan @ 2021-08-06 23:57 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Norman Wilson; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 769 bytes --]

On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 7:49 PM Norman Wilson <norman@oclsc.org> wrote:

He used to
> fill the envelopes with lead and drop them in the mail,
> in the hope that he would cost the party even more in
> excess postage than they were already spending to send
> the funding pitches.
>

Piker.  *Real* practitioners of this sport would attach a business-reply
label (basically a postcard you can affix to a package) to a *brick*, thus
easily sticking the recipient for US$5 or more, of course worth a lot more
backintheday.

For many years now, though, anything like either case is officially
classified as "waste", which means the USPS throws it out before it ever
gets anywhere, same as happens when you dump your trash into a mailbox.  I
suppose Canada Post does the same.

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual
@ 2021-08-06 23:48 Norman Wilson
  2021-08-06 23:57 ` John Cowan
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 20+ messages in thread
From: Norman Wilson @ 2021-08-06 23:48 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

The mouse with wine-bottle lead foil in the top may have
been my fault.  I did that to two of them--at home and in
my office--because I found a little more pressure made
the ball track better.

I've never been an alcohol-consumer; the lead came from
a friend, who used to save it (back in the 1980s) to
mail to Republicans.  Apparently he had, many years
before, registered to vote in a Republican primary solely
to oppose a particularly-poor candidate.  That somehow
got him on a GOP mailing list that sent him endless
funding appeals with post-paid envelopes.  He used to
fill the envelopes with lead and drop them in the mail,
in the hope that he would cost the party even more in
excess postage than they were already spending to send
the funding pitches.

By the time I was at Bell Labs, he had moved to Canada,
and was no longer receiving unwanted political funding
pitches, but he was glad to save a few bits of lead for
me when I thought of the trick and asked him.  Only too
glad, it turned out; he kept saving it and saving it
and saving it even though I neither needed nor wanted
any more.  Eventually I managed to get the message
through to him.

He has since moved back to the US.  He is still fond of
wine.  I don't know what he does with the cork wrappers.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2021-08-07 13:21 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 20+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2021-08-05  0:51 [TUHS] Depraz/Logitech Digimouse manual John Floren
2021-08-05  1:12 ` Henry Bent
2021-08-05  3:58   ` John Floren
2021-08-05  4:12     ` ron minnich
2021-08-05  4:14       ` Bakul Shah
2021-08-06 16:27       ` John Floren
2021-08-06 16:34         ` ron minnich
2021-08-06 16:52           ` John Floren
2021-08-06 18:33             ` ron minnich
2021-08-06 19:16               ` Andrew Hume
2021-08-06 19:47                 ` William Cheswick
     [not found]               ` <CAKzdPgzZvMUBjGuar9cygk2UCmzzEAXDoGjscKF1CcG_6XAV5A@mail.gmail.com>
2021-08-06 21:49                 ` John Floren
2021-08-06 21:54                   ` Rob Pike
2021-08-06 21:53                 ` Rob Pike
2021-08-06 23:33                   ` Phil White
2021-08-07  0:24                     ` Rob Pike
     [not found]                       ` <CAKzdPgyxM2xD3VKmsN2MXsobVCny5q0RHrqb14a7ObN91sWTaA@mail.g mail.com>
2021-08-07 12:13                         ` John Foust via TUHS
2021-08-05  2:10 ` Bakul Shah
2021-08-06 23:48 Norman Wilson
2021-08-06 23:57 ` John Cowan

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