🚀 go-pugleaf

mste...@enter.net (Mark Stephen) wrote:

>My apologies to all who consider this nouveau tech; this peripheral
>isn't much more than ten years old.

>I picked up a Summagraphics Summmasketch Professional drafting board a
>couple of days ago. It has three connectors, two to a power supply and
>one to a nice-looking mouse with four buttons and a ring of copper wire
>around cross-hairs. As far as I can see, there is no way to attach it
>to any computer. It appears, from various scribbles on the board, to
>have been part of a dedicated CAD system. (The mouse has a telephone
>connacker -- is it meant to be connected via a modem????).

>Is there any way for me to use this with my OS/2, Linux, Win95 PC's? If
>not, I'd appreciate a description of the hardware before I part with it
>for the price of postage.

Hi there,

The Summasketch I have has an RJ11 type 'phone plug for the puck or
stylus and a captive lead going to a 25 way D-type. The D-type has two
leads, one to the tablet and the other to a 4 pin plug that connects
to the power supply. The puck has four coloured buttons and a sense
coil with cross hairs as described, and the stylus has a button and a
press down tip.

We bought it to use with a PC running a CAD package about 10 years ago
and still use it. It came with a disk containing the drivers, and most
usefully a driver that makes it look like a Microsoft mouse to the PC.
I haven't tried it with Windows 95 but it did work with Windows 3. It
wasn't really very convenient as a normal day-to-day mouse as it is
always directly position related to the screen, meaning you get wrist
strain with all the moving about.

Chris.

(opinions are my own, not necessarily those of my employer)
reply to: christopher_dot_hall_at_bbc_dot_co_dot_uk