Subject: Re: Serial mouse on Sparc
To: None <port-sparc@netbsd.org>
From: Volker Borchert <bt@insiders-fs.com>
List: port-sparc
Date: 10/15/2001 09:11:33
In message <20011013231400.15406.qmail@mail.netbsd.org> you write:

|> SPARCs do not use XFree86.  They use the Xsun server.  That server uses a
|> specific protocol to get keyboard and mouse events from the kernel.

AFAIR (it's now nearly ten years since I worked in this area), it
simply opens /dev/mouse and select()s on and read()s from it.

|> So messing around with XF86Config won't help any.

The configuration file for the mouse with Xsun is called sunMouse.c
and is located somewhere below $X11R6_BASE/xc/programs/Xserver. ;-)

|> If you want to use a mouse on a serial port, you either need a mouse that
|> uses the same communications protocol as Sun mice do, or write a driver
|> that translates whatever protocol the mouse uses to firm events.

I ported the X11R5 MIT server to an OS-9/68000 box using a Microsoft
compatible serial mouse for my diploma thesis. Drop me a note and I'll
try to dig out the *Mouse.c I wrote then. It should work for X11R6 on
SPARC with some easy work (mostly device special file name, serial
port ioctls and such things).

Should somebody want to publish this or to put it into mainline BSD
src-es or pkgsrc-es, I would think it advisable to ask the Universität
Karlsruhe for permission.

	vb