Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Turn an Optical Mouse into a Scanner

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the because-you-can dept.

John H. Doe writes "This student was bored one day, so he decided to see what the world looked like from the bottom of his optical mouse. He jury rigged a few wires to his parallel port and wrote a program to take a look. And seeing as how one thing a mouse does is to detect motion, made it into a ghetto b&w handscanner. "

3 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. Well by Z00L00K · · Score: 5, Interesting
    At least this hack is a little funny. I have been wondering about a mouse with force-feedback and then I can't wait until I see the mouse wander over the edge of the table when infected by some strange virus...

    What resolution is it possible to get with the laser mice that you can get?

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  2. Re:But the real question is... by pesc · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Or turn a camera-equipped mobile phone into an optical mouse? Preferrably with bluetooth support using the built-in phone BT chip! It should only be some programming to get it to work, right? Finally a sensible use for cameraphones.

    --

    )9TSS
  3. Optical Mouse Chips by Stigmata669 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You can use the chips for optical navigation too. I played around with one for an introductory robotics class, here.

    --
    Yawn.