Making an On-The-Ball Plus

[microsoft windows]

I've been thinking for a while...is it possible to rig up an M13 to the tracking ball mechanism of an M5-2 or an M5-1, creating a sort of keyboard like an On-the-ball Plus?

If anyone's got an On-the-ball Plus, would they be able to show some pictures of the insides? That may shed some light on this.

[ch_123]

Short answer - not really.

In a board with a Unicomp pointing stick like the Endurapro, you have two controller boards - one for the keyboard (a standard 42H1292-style one) and one for the pointing stick, which is bolted onto the back plate. The PS/2 Y-cable is connected to the controller board of the pointing stick, not that of the keyboard. The keyboard's controller is connected to the pointing stick's controller, which acts as a pass through to the Y-cable. What this means is that the pointing stick can piggy-back onto a pre-existing design without having to modify that design to deal with it.

I've never seen the innards of an On The Ball Plus, but I'm going to bet it works like this - you you have a conventional M5-2 controller (which handles both keyboard and the trackball). You have a conventional pointing stick controller. The keyboard controller is hooked up to the pointing stick controller like normal. I'm not 100% if the On The Ball uses the same controller as the M5-2, but I can't see why they wouldn't, because unlike their pointing stick compared with the trackpoint, they haven't completely changed the underlying mechanism of the M5-2 trackball, in fact, it's probably the exact same.

Now, I'm not sure whether the pointing stick controller is designed so that you can hook up a keyboard controller that also handles a mouse without any extra effort, but if not, you can easily get around this by connecting the mouse output of the trackball to the PS/2 passthrough (Pointing Stick/Trackpoint keyboards generally have an external PS/2 passthrough port to let you use a mouse in conjunction with the integrated pointer) And that should take care of the issue.

The problem with the M13 is that the Trackpoint's controller logic is built into the keyboard's controller board. If you wanted to combine both an M13 and an M5, you'd end up with two keyboard controllers, and you'd have to figure out how to make them work together properly, which would be messy even if it was doable.

Apologies if my post is a bit rambly, it's late over here and I have insomnia.

[microsoft windows]

That was what I was thinking. If you've got an extra PS/2 plug lying around, try mapping the wires of the M5-2 tracking ball where it plugs into the mainboard. I think it has 4 wires, the same amount as on the PS/2 plug. So all it should take is mapping each wire to the correct position on the plug to make the standalone trackball.

IF YOU HAVE AN M13, PLEASE TELL US IF THERE'S A PS/2 PORT ON THE BACK FOR ANOTHER POINTING DEVICE. This information will be very useful.

[microsoft windows]

If it's got another PS/2 port, it should be relatively easy to make the M5-2 trackball into just a PS/2 trackball and plug it in. However, in order for it to perform reliably, it would probably need a USB converter because some PS/2 ports don't have enough power to power the trackball.

What we've got to find out next, however, is what happens to the mouse on the main controller. Does it just pass through or does it go through ROM chips and things?

[ch_123]

Oh come on, I suggested this in my M5-2 thread.

Yes, it's very, very doable. How exactly is best to do it remains to be seen. When I get my M13 I'll document how to do it, but I wouldn't be leaving it in that state.

Edit: and though I'm not sure of this, it looks like the M5-2 trackball is itself capable of being plugged into a PS/2 port and used that way (DON'T try that until it's confirmed), and that the M5-2 does in fact HAVE a mouse pass-through (in the literal sense, a passive connection to the SDL socket), though it is being used by the trackball itself

Oh, if the trackball is completely self-contained in terms of controller logic, then that makes things completely different. You should just be able to hook up the trackball to the PS/2 pass-through that the M13 has.

Only concern is that the pass-through seems to be a bit choosy about what it works with. It won't work with my L40 Trackpoint for example (on neither my M4-1 or my M13 that is)

If it's got another PS/2 port, it should be relatively easy to make the M5-2 trackball into just a PS/2 trackball and plug it in. However, in order for it to perform reliably, it would probably need a USB converter because some PS/2 ports don't have enough power to power the trackball.

USB provides less power than PS/2. Besides, the thing is designed to support an additional mouse. Is the trackball module on the M5-2 particularly power intensive?

On the flipside that could be what was causing my L40 problems.

[microsoft windows]

Your L40 problems are caused by lack of power from the PS/2 ports. I did some reading and found out that USB ports supply more power than PS/2's, thus eliminating those issues for the most part. I have had similar experiences with my Trackpoint L40. Sometimes, it causes a keyboard error because the PS/2's can't output enough power. The tracking ball on my M5-2 acts the same.

I figured that since the tracking ball on the M5-2 requires plenty of juice, that, a trackpoint, and a keyboard that draws up to 100 times the amperage some modern keyboards do might just be too much for some PS/2 ports. I think the best thing to do is convert the mice and keyboard to a few USB's so they can work reliably.

I think I'll do what Kishy did and first try a $1 converter off ebay. If that doesn't work I'll get one from Clickykeyboards. They've been in the business for 10 years so I'm sure they can help me out.

[microsoft windows]

Thanks for taking apart the keyboard so fast! I was going to do that today after church.

Now we know that the M5-2 tracking ball has 4 wires coming from it and we know what some of them do, minimizing the guesswork in mapping them to a PS/2 plug. I made a diagram of the plug based on some I found on-line.


I also took a photo of the plug with my scanner for reference.

[ch_123]

Your L40 problems are caused by lack of power from the PS/2 ports. I did some reading and found out that USB ports supply more power than PS/2's, thus eliminating those issues for the most part. I have had similar experiences with my Trackpoint L40. Sometimes, it causes a keyboard error because the PS/2's can't output enough power. The tracking ball on my M5-2 acts the same.

Depends really. The amount of power that USB devices consume is variable. I doubt that a USB-PS/2 adapter is going to be spec'd to provide the full whack of power that a USB port can provide.

Of course, you could try splicing a USB cable and wiring it up manually as a power cord for the keyboard.

I think I'll do what Kishy did and first try a $1 converter off ebay. If that doesn't work I'll get one from Clickykeyboards. They've been in the business for 10 years so I'm sure they can help me out.

Brandon's accessories tend to be quite overpriced. You're better off getting a Belkin adapter off eBay. I have yet to hear anyone having problems with them.

Btw, why are data and clock marked as NC?

[microsoft windows]

Btw, why are data and clock marked as NC?

They say Data and Clock in parentheses. That's what the diagrams I found on the Internet called them. I'm not too familiar with the mechanics of PS/2 devices yet, but I'm working on it!

[microsoft windows]

That is very strange...why would there be a short?

[ch_123]

They say Data and Clock in parentheses. That's what the diagrams I found on the Internet called them. I'm not too familiar with the mechanics of PS/2 devices yet, but I'm working on it!

Well, NC usually means "Not Connected" on circuit diagrams.

[microsoft windows]

Well, NC usually means "Not Connected" on circuit diagrams.

I see my mistake there. Thanks for telling me! (I'm not that experienced with electronics)

By the way, does anyone here know what each color on the ps/2 and USB cables means in terms of the pins?

[microsoft windows]

Right now I took apart a PS/2 plug. Does anyone here know what the green, red, orange, yellow, brown, and black wires do? I want to be able to use this cable to rig up my trackball to USB for a start.

[ch_123]

I don't think there's any standard for the colour of those wires. You might want to get a multimeter and trace the pin on the plug to the pin on the connector on the other end of the cable.

[microsoft windows]

I decided to instead cut open my space Model M5-2 Y-cable on the mouse end. I found four wires: brown, black, white, and red. Anyone on this forum know IBM's standard for those?

[ricercar]

There's a color standard for USB cables by Kensington, Elitegroup, Crystalfonts, Logitech, Cherry with a lot of informal evidence and no contrary evidence for the following color code:

• Black = GND
• White = DATA-
• Red = +5V
• Green = DATA+

[ch_123]

Well, red and black are pretty much a de facto standard for 5V and GND respectively. I'd be very surprised if a company like IBM went against that trend.

[microsoft windows]

I hacked up the mouse plug on my Y-cable and found that it seems to match Ricercar's chart above, but when I put it all together and hooked it up to the computer, the mouse didn't work. It just said it was an "unknown device".

[ricercar]

USB 2.0 official specification includes colors:



USB 3.0 official specification includes colors:



So with 3.0 we have low speed, high speed, full speed, and super speed USB. Isn't that intuitive.

By the way, I'm a USB professional. My USB is in your iPod.

[microsoft windows]

Well I'm lucky with colors then. I tried another chunk of USB cable I had lying around in my computer lab and I'm seeing how that works. If it doesn't work, I'll buy a passive adapter next. And if that doesn't work, I'll get a fancy adapter. Or, maybe I'll do some more fiddling around with it (which is probably what I'll do).

[microsoft windows]

Well, it popped up again as an unknown device. I'll probably do some work on it another day.

[timw4mail]

USB is already starting to become unweildy with backwards-compatibility. I can't imaging USB4 will make things any simpler.

[microsoft windows]

That could explain it!

Those four wires on the trackball look promising. If you have the time and some USB cable, would you be able to make it into a USB trackball? If that can work then we can have three plugs (2 PS/2, 1 for keyboard, 1 for trackpoint, and 1 usb for tracking ball) on the On-the-ball Plus, and still have a PS/2 pass-through for a mouse.

[microsoft windows]

It takes a lot of work to build a USB converter (Passive adapters are a different story). The best bet is to buy one.

Grafting the M5-2 trackball into the M13 case was the same idea I had in mind as well. Since the M13 has buttons in the front, it's best to let the holes for them be the original ones so they look smoother. It doesn't matter how rough the hole for the trackball is since it'll be all covered up.

The problem with consolidating both PS/2's into one USB is current. I don't know if one USB port can handle all the current an M5-2 trackball and a Model M draw together. I'm concerned about using the PS/2 pass-through on the keyboard for the same reason. They weren't included with M5-x keyboards probably because of all the power the trackball drew compared with the trackpoint, which was originally intended for battery-powered laptops. I think that for reliability's sake, having two PS/2s and 1 USB is our best bet.

[ch_123]

They weren't included with M5-x keyboards probably because of all the power the trackball drew compared with the trackpoint, which was originally intended for battery-powered laptops.

I think it's more likely that they wanted to use the same case as the 1391401 and didn't want to modify it. With the M13, they had to modify it anyway, so they made a new case design.

Trackpoints actually chew up a lot of power, and consequently tend to be quite unreliable with USB adapters.

[microsoft windows]

That's in interesting concept. I wonder if there's an easy way to measure the draw of the trackballs versus the trackpoints.