Return to BSD News archive
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!wupost!usc!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!hamblin.math.byu.edu!news.byu.edu!ns.novell.com!gateway.univel.com!fcom.cc.utah.edu!cs.weber.edu!terry
From: terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C)
Subject: Re: PS/2 mouse driver for 386bsd?
Message-ID: <1993Apr9.161810.7891@fcom.cc.utah.edu>
Sender: news@fcom.cc.utah.edu
Organization: Weber State University (Ogden, UT)
References: <ofl_K_j0Bwx20kvXMI@transarc.com>
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 93 16:18:10 GMT
Lines: 42
In article <ofl_K_j0Bwx20kvXMI@transarc.com> Pat_Barron@transarc.com writes:
>I am looking for a driver to talk to a mouse on a PS/2-compatible mouse
>port (the kind that talks to the system via the keyboard controller).
>I want to make it look like a serial mouse (i.e., /dev/mouse looks
>like a tty-ish device, and passes back the bytes that a serial mouse
>would pass back), since I want to use it with XFree86 which apparently
>only knows about serial Logitech and Mouse Systems mice. Has anyone
>done this? If not, I'll probably end up doing it myself....
I don't know if it has been /dev/mouse'ed, but this has been done; in the
XFree86 FAQ, they say that someone ported the Linux PS/2 mouse driver.
I'd like to see a /dev/mouse which would be similar to Sun's, as well as a
/dev/keyboard for scan-code operation of the console and a split keyboard
and console driver interface; I personally just don't have time to do the
code; I'd need over a year for everything I'd like to do, and that doesn't
pay bills.
The PS/2 driver has no availability and no contact information; if it's
Linux derived, there's a high probability that it's copyleft. The lack
of a split keyboard/console driver also makes it less than ideal, since
the kernel debugger basically needs to take it's I/O above the split if
keyboard layout is to stay the same and a mouse move after a crash is
to no screw up subsequent keyboard input; it also means that the driver
will still have to be hacked for every console driver, since the console
drivers are too close (conceptually) to the keyboard hardware.
I hope you go forward with your own driver, since the ported Linux one
can't be addressing these issues for 386BSD from it's description.
Terry Lambert
terry@icarus.weber.edu
terry_lambert@novell.com
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I have an 8 user poetic license" - me
Get the 386bsd FAQ from agate.berkeley.edu:/pub/386BSD/386bsd-0.1/unofficial
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------