VMD-L Mailing List

From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Fri Dec 09 2005 - 09:54:11 CST

Hi,
  The old Spaceballs (like the 2003) are quite usable, easy to find at
cheap prices on EBay etc, and are fairly durable. I do plan to update
the Spaceball code for Unix to support the new 3DConnexion devices because
the old ones won't last forever, and 3DConnexion no longer supports the old
models with their latest drivers. I intend to keep VMD compatible with both
new and old devices when I get around to updating the code. I've already
gotten a patch from someone that supports some of the middle-aged USB
Spaceball models, but I don't know if it works with the new ones or not,
and I don't have a 4000FLX to test with so I haven't had an opportunity
to integrate that code into my Unix Spaceball drivers yet.

  John Stone
  vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu

On Fri, Dec 09, 2005 at 10:26:35AM +0100, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 08, 2005 at 04:39:36PM -0600, John Stone wrote:
>
> > The older serial spaceballs do indeed require a power supply unless
> > they are one of the special models that were directly attached to an
> > SGI machine. Most of the typical Spaceball 2003 models have an extra
> > power supply that connects by a Y-split serial+power cable that gives
> > a special mini-DIN connector at the Spaceball end, and DB9 serial and a
> > separate power connector at the host machine end.
>
> Thanks much. The older units look more ergonomic, anyway.
>
> > I can't comment on the new 3Dconnexion devices other than to tell you that
> > these new ones won't work with the Spaceball code I've written for the
> > various Unix platforms, but the Windows version of VMD should support them
> > just fine to my knowledge. (different code in VMD for Windows and Unix..)
>
> Hopefully, USB 6DOF devices will be supported on Linux as well at some
> point. The serial ports are increasingly considered legacy these days.
>
> --
> Eugen* Leitl leitl http://leitl.org
> ______________________________________________________________
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-- 
NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu                 Phone: 217-244-3349
  WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/      Fax: 217-244-6078