1MOUSE(4) Linux Programmer's Manual MOUSE(4)
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6 mouse - serial mouse interface
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9 Serial mice are connected to a serial RS232/V24 dialout line, see
10 ttyS(4) for a description.
11
13 Introduction
14 The pinout of the usual 9 pin plug as used for serial mice is:
15 pin name used for
17 2 RX Data
18 3 TX -12 V, Imax = 10 mA
19 4 DTR +12 V, Imax = 10 mA
20 7 RTS +12 V, Imax = 10 mA
21 5 GND Ground
22 This is the specification, in fact 9 V suffices with most mice.
24 The mouse driver can recognize a mouse by dropping RTS to low and rais‐
26 ing it again. About 14 ms later the mouse will send 0x4D ('M') on the
27 data line. After a further 63 ms, a Microsoft-compatible 3-button
28 mouse will send 0x33 ('3').
29 The relative mouse movement is sent as dx (positive means right) and dy
31 (positive means down). Various mice can operate at different speeds.
32 To select speeds, cycle through the speeds 9600, 4800, 2400, and 1200
33 bit/s, each time writing the two characters from the table below and
34 waiting 0.1 seconds. The following table shows available speeds and
35 the strings that select them:
36 bit/s string
38 9600 *q
39 4800 *p
40 2400 *o
41 1200 *n
42 The first byte of a data packet can be used for synchronization pur‐
44 poses.
45 Microsoft protocol
47 The Microsoft protocol uses 1 start bit, 7 data bits, no parity and one
48 stop bit at the speed of 1200 bits/sec. Data is sent to RxD in 3-byte
49 packets. The dx and dy movements are sent as two's-complement, lb (rb)
50 are set when the left (right) button is pressed:
51 byte d6 d5 d4 d3 d2 d1 d0
53 1 1 lb rb dy7 dy6 dx7 dx6
54 2 0 dx5 dx4 dx3 dx2 dx1 dx0
55 3 0 dy5 dy4 dy3 dy2 dy1 dy0
56 3-button Microsoft protocol
58 Original Microsoft mice only have two buttons. However, there are some
59 three button mice which also use the Microsoft protocol. Pressing or
60 releasing the middle button is reported by sending a packet with zero
61 movement and no buttons pressed. (Thus, unlike for the other two but‐
62 tons, the status of the middle button is not reported in each packet.)
63 Logitech protocol
65 Logitech serial 3-button mice use a different extension of the Micro‐
66 soft protocol: when the middle button is up, the above 3-byte packet is
67 sent. When the middle button is down a 4-byte packet is sent, where
68 the 4th byte has value 0x20 (or at least has the 0x20 bit set). In
69 particular, a press of the middle button is reported as 0,0,0,0x20 when
70 no other buttons are down.
71 Mousesystems protocol
73 The Mousesystems protocol uses 1 start bit, 8 data bits, no parity, and
74 two stop bits at the speed of 1200 bits/sec. Data is sent to RxD in
75 5-byte packets. dx is sent as the sum of the two two's-complement val‐
76 ues, dy is send as negated sum of the two two's-complement values. lb
77 (mb, rb) are cleared when the left (middle, right) button is pressed:
78 byte d7 d6 d5 d4 d3 d2 d1 d0
80 1 1 0 0 0 0 lb mb rb
81 2 0 dxa6 dxa5 dxa4 dxa3 dxa2 dxa1 dxa0
82 3 0 dya6 dya5 dya4 dya3 dya2 dya1 dya0
83 4 0 dxb6 dxb5 dxb4 dxb3 dxb2 dxb1 dxb0
84 5 0 dyb6 dyb5 dyb4 dyb3 dyb2 dyb1 dyb0
85 Bytes 4 and 5 describe the change that occurred since bytes 2 and 3
87 were transmitted.
88 Sun protocol
90 The Sun protocol is the 3-byte version of the above 5-byte Mousesystems
91 protocol: the last two bytes are not sent.
92 MM protocol
94 The MM protocol uses 1 start bit, 8 data bits, odd parity, and one stop
95 bit at the speed of 1200 bits/sec. Data is sent to RxD in 3-byte pack‐
96 ets. dx and dy are sent as single signed values, the sign bit indicat‐
97 ing a negative value. lb (mb, rb) are set when the left (middle,
98 right) button is pressed:
99 byte d7 d6 d5 d4 d3 d2 d1 d0
101 1 1 0 0 dxs dys lb mb rb
102 2 0 dx6 dx5 dx4 dx3 dx2 dx1 dx0
103 3 0 dy6 dy5 dy4 dy3 dy2 dy1 dy0
104
106 /dev/mouse
107 A commonly used symbolic link pointing to a mouse device.
108
110 ttyS(4), gpm(8)
111
113 This page is part of release 5.12 of the Linux man-pages project. A
114 description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
115 latest version of this page, can be found at
116 https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
117Linux 2020-08-13 MOUSE(4)