User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:38 pm

For those that would really like to use a modern mouse with one of our DB9-equipped retro computers, easily the smallest, tidiest and most generally compatible device has landed: MouSTer.

This ingenious little doodad is said to work with the following computer systems:
  • C64
  • C128
  • Amiga 1000, 2000, 500, ... you get the idea.
  • MEGA65
  • Atari ST/STe series
  • Atari Falcon
  • Atari 65XE/130XE/800XE
  • Atari 600XL/800XL
  • Atari 5200
It also supports nearly all USB flash drives (config dump and upload), Playstation 4 controller, and nearly every USB mouse.
I have not test this yet, but can't wait to see if that's indeed true on our Amigas. Retrohax says it should work with nearly every USB mouse you throw at the thing, but to avoid power-hungry LED versions as there likely wouldn't be enough power for those.

The thing has been in development for a while, which I'd been following closely. The firmware is still in very active development as more devices are supported over time.

And guys the thing is small.
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I ordered mine off the Ebay store. Retrohax was super cool and immediately reached out to make sure I was cool with a possible wait of beyond 2 months. I said I was in no hurry.

It arrived in two weeks! Sometimes things just work. <3

Now, when you get it my understanding is you have do a little fiddling for USB drives to work. Doesn't sound like a big deal, but something to read the docs and work through.

Something else I read - which I've not confirmed (I just got it in the mail) - is this thing can actually support some USB Wacom tablets, too! Holy smoke!

Lots to learn and experiment with here. If you have a MouSTer already, I'd be very curious about your own experiments and tips. :boing:

User avatar
McTrinsic

Posted Thu Apr 22, 2021 1:38 am

Indeed, Retrohax is one of the most supportive shops for the stuff he develops and has.

Impressive guy, check his blog!!!

User avatar
JoeUser
Dallas, TX

Posted Thu Apr 22, 2021 5:43 am

Supports USB drives, as well? Hmm, now that has some potential... I'll have to make it a point to take a look at the driver code.

I'm currently using USB adapter cables, but it sure would be nice to ditch those. Thanks for the link!

User avatar
McTrinsic

Posted Thu Apr 22, 2021 12:42 pm

Hope you don’t expect mass storage for ‚drives‘. It allows to connect something to the joystick port.

User avatar
3D-vice
Germany

Posted Thu Apr 22, 2021 1:02 pm

Awesome device! Just ordered one. :)

User avatar
JoeUser
Dallas, TX

Posted Thu Apr 22, 2021 1:05 pm

McTrinsic wrote:
Thu Apr 22, 2021 12:42 pm
Hope you don’t expect mass storage for ‚drives‘. It allows to connect something to the joystick port.
Yeah, no - wasn't expecting anything beyond that :lol:

Got a little excited there for a second, though...

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Thu Apr 22, 2021 1:14 pm

It also supports nearly all USB flash drives (config dump and upload)
Re-reading that I realize it is trying to say it supports USB flash drives for firmware updates, nothing more. Which is totally fine. Makes life very easy in that department.

I also originally gleaned the idea USB sticks *might* be possible as storage based on one of the comments I found (which is a bit of a mess to really understand, and is why I easily misinterpreted his words).

The excited rambling:
Just got 2 of the mouSTers here, plugged into Amiga 500, didn’t work of course because need to fiddle with firmware. So, stuck in a USB drive, and …well, I knew this already, but for anyone else coming along:

Yes, the drive has to have a Fat32 filesystem on it. Ext filesystems (and likely, exFat, HFS+, Amiga FFS/SFS/PFS3 etc (: I have NO idea if the Atari Doslike filesystem will work.)

It also seems to need to be MSDos format; certainly not RDB Amiga partitioned (: But GPT partitioning does not work either. I set my partition to type $0C, WIN95 OSR2 FAT32, LBA-mapped.

If you don’t have the drive set up that way – i.e. “dumb Windows crap” (: the mouster will blink “SOS” at you. In Morse Code. Like the document says. This is AWESOME and totally proper way of doing it. Morse Code! f*n sweet.

I created a partition of 100MB or so, formated as fat32, and created the mouSTer directory; stuck the firmware in the root (as someone else indicated that is where it was actually looked for in another forum thread) and plugged it into my Amiga 500 (ACA500+ equipped, os 3.1.4)

Took the drive out, edited the document, changed it to Mouse only, Amiga mode. Noted all the other options. God damn I love scener created devices.

Stuck the USB back in, plugged the mouSTer back into the A500, mouSTer updated, took USB disk out and stuck in a Kensington Slingblade USB trackball. (Yes, that’s an expensive thing.)

FREAKING WORKS. OH HEYLL YES.

(I did NOT remove the ^M damage, it probably expects DOS mode, not Unix mode files – please confirm for all of us not using braindead Microsoft things – I’m sure some ST folks using mInt will agree here (: )

Loving the dates in the changelog.txt – the first public release in 1743 must have been really interesting (:

Ok, so, you KNOW I want to know if we can get this to freaking do a freaking tablet. I’ll bet it can do a freaking tablet with some changes. NOT NOW. Not that I’m not gonna try RIGHT THIS FREAKING MINUTE

holy freakin sh*t

it works with my Wacom ONE tablet. (as a mouse. obviously “all the buttons” do not have mappings. And the Wacom will need some tweaks with the settings in the INI. but holy sht I did NOT expect that to fn work)

(also tested a Logitech marble mouse; works.)

ok let’s try my Bamboo tablet

This fn works with my fn bamboo tablet.

Anyway, the fact it can now handle some Bluetooth mice and even Wacom tablets in mouse mode is total music to my ears.





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