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From: mckay@princeton.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro.6809
Subject: The Coco Mouse !!
Message-ID: <67@princeton.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 19-Sep-83 18:28:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: princeto.67
Posted: Mon Sep 19 18:28:51 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Sep-83 16:24:17 EDT
Organization: Princeton University
Lines: 39


	Yeah!! Finally a newsgroup form Coco and other 6809er's!

	Here's a short not terribly objective review of the mouse available
for the coco from Radio Shack.

	I've had my mouse for about two weeks now (for all you Bell Labs
sites the RS store in QB mall has a couple of them) and It's not too bad at
all.
	First the bad news.  The mouse it nothing more than a
"joystick-on-wheels" so to speak.  It plugs into the joystick port (you can
use two if you like) and has the same 6 bit resolution on each axis.  The
mouse seems to be a fairly straight forward mechanical device with a steel
ball extending from the bottom.  Although I have not taken mine apart yet,
it looks easy to do which is good 'cause mechanical mice get DIRTY inside
from what I've heard.  Also the cable seems a bit short but that can be
fixed pretty inexpensively.  Finally, it costs $50 which is cheap compared
to other mice I've heard of but still a lot on my budget.
	Now the good news.  The mouse tracks like a champ!  I've writen a
couple of "demo" programs in BASIC and I've been very impressed.  The level
of control the mouse gives you is much better than the joystick for drawing
tasks, and it makes pointing quicker and more accurate.
	Games, take on a whole new dimension when played with a mouse.  As
some of you may know many of the games available for the Coco use the
joysticks as if they were Atari-style "switch-sticks".  These games are HARD
to play with the mouse.  However, a few games like Intercolor's (?) version
of centipede DOES use the joystick's full range and is FANTASIC to play with
a mouse.  The feel is so accurate you can easily hit mites when they come
down the screen and chew up cetipede's which run into a posion mushroom and
come down at you. It's really neat!  I don't have a "missle command" variant
yet but that too should be very interesting to play with the mouse.
	Overall I'm pretty happy with my mouse, as long as you are aware of
the above mentioned limitations of the mouse's resolution I'd recommend it
as a worth while addition to your coco.

			Waiting for OS-9,
				Dwight McKay
					...princeton!mckay