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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : WII Classic Controller Grid Cursor Test Program

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William Leue
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Joined: 03/07/2020
Location: United States
Posts: 405
Posted: 05:29pm 05 Oct 2020
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Here is another little test program I wrote to see how well the Wii Classic Controller does as a mouse substitute.

You use the LEFT joystick to maneuver the cursor around the grid. Click the A button to highlight the grid cell that the cursor is over. If you click another cell, the highlight in the previous cell will be erased.

My general feeling is that, although the Wii Classic Controller is miles better than the Nunchuk for a mouse substitute, neither one of them really is good enough. The self-centering spring on the joysticks makes it hard to accurately position the cursor on a given spot, and the small range of motion of the joysticks means that a minor twitch will move the cursor too much.

I have mentioned before that it would be great to have a real mouse or something like it with firmware support. I fully understand why Peter Mather does not want to make this kind of major change to the firmware, so I will shut up about it going forward.

-Bill


ClassicGridTest.zip
 
elk1984

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Joined: 11/07/2020
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 228
Posted: 05:42pm 05 Oct 2020
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  William Leue said  Here is another little test program I wrote to see how well the Wii Classic Controller does as a mouse substitute.

You use the LEFT joystick to maneuver the cursor around the grid. Click the A button to highlight the grid cell that the cursor is over. If you click another cell, the highlight in the previous cell will be erased.

My general feeling is that, although the Wii Classic Controller is miles better than the Nunchuk for a mouse substitute, neither one of them really is good enough. The self-centering spring on the joysticks makes it hard to accurately position the cursor on a given spot, and the small range of motion of the joysticks means that a minor twitch will move the cursor too much.

I have mentioned before that it would be great to have a real mouse or something like it with firmware support. I fully understand why Peter Mather does not want to make this kind of major change to the firmware, so I will shut up about it going forward.

-Bill


ClassicGridTest.zip


I'm sure someone has already done this, but is there a straightforward mapping between the pins on a PC Serial mouse and GPIO that could then be read?  (Looking for info to build this myself rather than ask someone else to do the lifting)...
Edited 2020-10-06 03:42 by elk1984
 
William Leue
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Joined: 03/07/2020
Location: United States
Posts: 405
Posted: 06:37pm 05 Oct 2020
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elk1984 said:

  Quote  I'm sure someone has already done this, but is there a straightforward mapping between the pins on a PC Serial mouse and GPIO that could then be read?  (Looking for info to build this myself rather than ask someone else to do the lifting)...


I really don't know. At least some of the serial mice used RS-232 voltage levels for the data. Additionally, they need power, ground, and a clock input. It looks as if the CMM2 data pins on the back ought to support all these.

I think maybe the software might be a bigger problem. Computers that support a mouse natively have O/S support at the interrupt. level. The ISR for a mouse keeps track of the mouse location and clicks, so an app needs only to make a system call to get the mouse position.

-Bill
 
mclout999
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Joined: 05/07/2020
Location: United States
Posts: 490
Posted: 06:43pm 05 Oct 2020
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  William Leue said  Here is another little test program I wrote to see how well the Wii Classic Controller does as a mouse substitute.

You use the LEFT joystick to maneuver the cursor around the grid. Click the A button to highlight the grid cell that the cursor is over. If you click another cell, the highlight in the previous cell will be erased.

My general feeling is that, although the Wii Classic Controller is miles better than the Nunchuk for a mouse substitute, neither one of them really is good enough. The self-centering spring on the joysticks makes it hard to accurately position the cursor on a given spot, and the small range of motion of the joysticks means that a minor twitch will move the cursor too much.

I have mentioned before that it would be great to have a real mouse or something like it with firmware support. I fully understand why Peter Mather does not want to make this kind of major change to the firmware, so I will shut up about it going forward.

-Bill


ClassicGridTest.zip

As an experiment I have removed the springs form a knockoff numbchuck stick and it is much easer to use for more precise control of a curser. It is a bit to floopy now and I am experimenting with how to add some friction to fix that with limited success.  I do not want to do it to a classic though.  I miss my old TRS80 COCO pro stick that had toggles on the bottom to deactivae or activat the springs for each axis. It was a wonderful design and rather ruggedly made.  I wrote a few drawing programs that used them very nicely.
 
TassyJim

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Joined: 07/08/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 6283
Posted: 09:40pm 05 Oct 2020
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I find that an Arduino PS2 to Wii converter works well as a means of using a mouse without any extra work on the CMM2.
The converter I made also outputs serial which gives finer control and is my preferred interface but needs a small SUB in your program to read it.

I have plenty of PS2 mice so it works for me.

Jim
VK7JH
MMedit
 
mclout999
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Joined: 05/07/2020
Location: United States
Posts: 490
Posted: 05:44am 06 Oct 2020
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  TassyJim said  I find that an Arduino PS2 to Wii converter works well as a means of using a mouse without any extra work on the CMM2.
The converter I made also outputs serial which gives finer control and is my preferred interface but needs a small SUB in your program to read it.

I have plenty of PS2 mice so it works for me.

Jim

That sound like a very good option.  Can you give a link to the converter device. Thanks.
 
TassyJim

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Location: Australia
Posts: 6283
Posted: 06:22am 06 Oct 2020
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  mclout999 said  
That sound like a very good option.  Can you give a link to the converter device. Thanks.

On my website. Scroll down to the bottom.

Jim
VK7JH
MMedit
 
mclout999
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Joined: 05/07/2020
Location: United States
Posts: 490
Posted: 04:10pm 06 Oct 2020
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  TassyJim said  
  mclout999 said  
That sound like a very good option.  Can you give a link to the converter device. Thanks.

On my website. Scroll down to the bottom.

Jim


I see the software but I am looking to source the device itself. Wait Just figured it out as I was looking at it. This is news stuff of me.  You just need any Arduino nano, correct.  Then my next question is how do I interphase it to the CMM2 and the PS2 Port to the Nano?  Bare in mind I have no experience with Arduinos or how to wire them up safely.
Edited 2020-10-07 02:13 by mclout999
 
TassyJim

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Joined: 07/08/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 6283
Posted: 09:24pm 06 Oct 2020
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  mclout999 said  
I see the software but I am looking to source the device itself. Wait Just figured it out as I was looking at it. This is news stuff of me.  You just need any Arduino nano, correct.  Then my next question is how do I interphase it to the CMM2 and the PS2 Port to the Nano?  Bare in mind I have no experience with Arduinos or how to wire them up safely.


// PS2 mouse pins
#define DATA_PIN 2
#define CLOCK_PIN 3

PS2 mouse also needs 5V and ground

Assuming you choose I2C1 for the CMM2 end:
On my nano, the I2C pins are
A4 connect to pin 3 on the CMM2 and
A5 connect to pin 5 on the CMM2

For the serial, I used a voltage divider to reduce the 5V on the nano to ~3.3V on the CMM2.
If you use COM1, connect the Tx pin via a divider to pin 10 on the CMM2.
For the voltage divider, I use 1.8k in series and 3.3k to ground or 1.2k/2.7k whichever I find first.

As far as I know nano's are all the same but I haven't used any of the other incarnations.
For programming, you will need to Google.

Jim
VK7JH
MMedit
 
William Leue
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Joined: 03/07/2020
Location: United States
Posts: 405
Posted: 07:05pm 09 Oct 2020
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I just ordered the HobbyTronics board and software; gonna try Peter Mather's idea.

-Bill
 
elk1984

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Joined: 11/07/2020
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 228
Posted: 08:09pm 09 Oct 2020
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  William Leue said  I just ordered the HobbyTronics board and software; gonna try Peter Mather's idea.

-Bill


I've just tried that setup and it's working great.  I just need to work out soldering it to a ribbon cable now!
 
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