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Using Summagraphics Tablets in Unix?
WyldOne asks: "I've had this old Summagraphics II tablet around for awhile now. Now that I'm getting started with POVRAY I started to look for software that could see it as a digitizer and not a mouse. I used to have library for Turbo-C that could use it. and wrote a few programs for it. The library, of course, was proprietary (ouch). I've found very little on software that can use a digitizer as a digitizer. To make it worse, I can't find any protocol descriptions that would allow me to talk to the digitizer. Since a digitizer is very accurate (1000 DPI, IIRC) I would like to use it for what it was intended for. I used to work with one digitizer that had a 6ft bed square, and used for digital pattern input to a clothing CAD program for sizing. Since Calcomp took over Summagraphics, the support has been marginal. What I'm looking for is software that can speak to the tablet, source would be optimal. The protocol would also be OK."
Hmmm... Self-deleting posts. Very interesting.
It is a shame that there isn't a website where you can enter search words and find what you are looking for.
Now unless the Unix in this story means "Big Expensive Unix on non-IA-32 Architectures" it shouldn't be too tricky to get it working. Plus, you have the source code.
I picked up one of these a while back at a thrift store for $5, thinking "Oh, it'll be easy to find specs for that power/serial connector online".
I was wrong.
The unit has some RJ-45 port on the back that is responsible for bringing both power in, and taking data out (via serial) and I'm missing the magic adaptor. Does anyone out there know the pin-outs for this, so I can build a cable and put it to some use?
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
I also have a few of these tablets and looked around a couple of years ago for a driver. At that time there was a C file that claimed to be some sort of driver for it but it was largely uncommented and incomprehensible. I think there was some discussion on a list related to XInput about these devices but i don't know it anyone ever did any work on it.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
I am not sure what model and what brand I got (that was about 4 years ago). The one I had was grey, large (about 300mm x 300mm), had a 25 pin sub-D connector and no description for anything.
After opening it I found out which lines of this "serial connector" have power and which ones transmitted the RS232 signal.
I found some informations of how to initialize the board so it would send out some data (without initializing I always got the same data whenever and whereever I touched the pad with the pen). In a simple terminal program I could see data packets coming in then I moved the pen.
That was the easy part.
The part I tried to solve but did not succeed, was to get something useful out of it, something which I can decode into coordinates. I never found any documentation on the Internet about the protocol.
For a comparison, I had a "Spaceball" from Spacetec which acted as a 3D controller connected to the serial port. Took me some days to find out the protocol. Shortly later I was able to move 3D things. So I expected to solve the "tablet puzzle" fast. Only 2D after all. But I was wrong...
http://www.hof-berlin.de/tablet/tablets.html has quite a bit of info on support on various tablets in linux. Summagraphix has an entry there, but I'm not sure of the usefullness of it.
Good luck.
exactly, The support by calcorp/calgraph is terrible. My dad purchased a plotter right before they went under. They (calgraph) managed to get 150 bux outta my dad for some support fee only to have them tell my dad that they arent going to develop a driver for 2k/XP. I called them back and tried to at least get that cash back but they denied. Plus I think they are using monkeys for programmers as the person I was talking to tried to convince me to use a 98 based driver in 2k. buncha llamas...