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Using Summagraphics Tablets in Unix? 16

Posted by Cliff from the another-input-device-to-waste-desk-space dept.
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."
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Using Summagraphics Tablets in Unix? More

Using Summagraphics Tablets in Unix?

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  • If only... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hmmm... Self-deleting posts. Very interesting.

  • Easy answer (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dashslot ( 23909 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @04:25AM (#2777845)
    It is a shame that there isn't a website [google.com] where you can enter search words and find what you are looking for [google.com].

    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.
    • Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease... this is slashdot. The ONLY True Unix[tm] is Linux.

      (For the humor impared: yes, i know.)

      • Re:Easy answer (Score:1, Offtopic)

        by Shanep ( 68243 )
        Am I the only person who wants to download slashdot in .qwk format?

        No. Those were the days. Logging in to your local BBS, downloading the newest messages since your last visit and uploading your replies to the last batch, downloading some file called babe267.gif hoping it's a good one this time, playing some silly ANSI game to win a better download/upload ratio (to hopefully download more gif pr0n since babe267.gif was crap), looking at how many people have downloaded the C utils you uploaded, wondering what all these files were starting with "linux" that nobody was downloading and then logging off. ; )

        Man I loved .qwk! No worries with having to keep your connection alive with something like ping -i 900 www.google.com while you type long flames and hate mail, just take your time and login to upload whenever.

        Remember when some smart guy wrote a program that let you view a gif as it downloaded? Great for canceling the download half way when you realise it was either crap or you already had it under a different name, but to boot, you did'nt hurt your U/D ratio.

        Ahh, the memories! It's funny how technology seems to develop slow enough to take it for granted, until you think back 10 years to what you were putting up with, for me a 12k Rockwell MODEM (yes 12k, before 14.4 was done) a Trident 8900 with a whopping 1Mb frame buffer, i486DX33 with a whole 4Mb of 80nS RAM and a "Brand Technologies" 200MB IDE drive. At college, people thought I was exagerating about my 200MB drive and an Amiga owner was shocked at my 4MB RAM! I was using old IBM PS/2's with DOS and some Unix served off an RS/6000 for our Cobol studies.

        Having email at home was kinda cool in 1992 also, even though you pretty much did'nt know anyone with any email address, much less a FidoNet address, besides the guys in Zone3 Computing who want your blood.

        10 years before that it was C64's and Microbee's for me. Ahh man, remember the Vic20? Did'nt it have less than 100x100 resolution or something?

        I wonder what 2012 is going to be like? Will we all be using Microsoft Wireless Broadband (tm) @ $25/hour, with 3D cards that do real time ray tracing and radiosity rendering at 4096x3072 through our VR goggles with 256bit computing with TB's of RAM and PB's of secure ("you don't need to do that") online disk storage thanks to Microsoft (the World government), running on Microsoft BSD (after the Apple "buy out")?

        Oh God, does anyone know how to tie a noose?

    • Re:Easy answer (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      that seems to be using the tablet as a mouse, not as a high-res digitizer. google-smacks are only appropriate if they would have solved the person's problem...

  • Connector (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ameoba ( 173803 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @05:37AM (#2777964)
    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?

    • Re:Connector (Score:2, Interesting)

      by WyldOne ( 29955 )
      The one I have was a wedge for the db-25 serial port. It had a power connector that you would plug a small power supply into it.. Never did do a pinout on it.

  • Nope sorry (Score:3, Interesting)

    by smartin ( 942 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @01:54PM (#2779810)
    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.

  • 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.
    • I found a driver that hooks into X there. They apparently use it as a hack to GPM.

      Now It looks like I will have to hack it some. I want to be able to use both a mouse and the digitizer.

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