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Question about Atari ST mouse/joystick ports

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itsvince725

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I'm in the market for an Atari ST but the overwhelming majority of the ones for sale don't come with a mouse. Does the ST use some kind of ST-specific mouse protocol or is it shared with say, the Amiga? I have an Amiga mouse...
 
It uses the same type of mouse as the Amiga (functionally the same as a PC bus/InPort style mouse), but the pinout is different. Many 3rd party mice has a switch to go between ST and Amiga pinouts. You could wire a simple adapter to use an Amiga mouse if needed.
 
I've seen those adapters but none of them look like they'd work with the models that have the mouse ports under the keyboard instead of on the sides?
 
g4ugm said:
No ST has a mouse port on the side. STEs have analogue joystick ports but little software uses them. I guess you might need an extension cable ....

https://www.ebay.com/itm/383100307339

or you can make one with ribbon and a couple of IDC DB9...
Click to expand...

I'm confused, where is the mouse port on the original 520ST then? The models with built in floppy drives moved the port under the keyboard.
 
There are 2 joystick ports under the machine labeled 0 and 1. You can use the mouse on port 0.

atari st mouse port.jpg

These ports are the same standard as the common Atari 2600 sticks.
 
itsvince725 said:
I'm confused, where is the mouse port on the original 520ST then? The models with built in floppy drives moved the port under the keyboard.
Click to expand...

Sorry my bad. Some original STs had the mouse ports where the floppy drives are on the "F" models. I have never seen such a machine but oddly there appears to be at least one on E-Bay now..

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Atari-520ST-Computer-in-Working-Condition-with-Mouse/303243949097

at least there is no floppy drive light on the top of the keyboard and the add doesn't mention floppy. This one is described as an ST

https://www.ebay.com/itm/283538706242

does appear to be an STF or FM..

.. one thing to watch out for is that the early STFs had only a single sided 360K drive, and the 720K one makes transfering files to a PC much simpler.
 
There are many atari/amiga forums which have this topic, using atari mouse on amiga, using amiga mouse on atari. Even google know about that.

amigaatarimouseswap.jpg

By the way, Schneider Euro PC mouse is pin to pin compatibe with Atari mouse. Same mouse also used on Atari PC 1 - 3. It also should be possible to use other quatruple mice, like Microsoft Bus mouse, Olivetti Prodest PC1, Olivetti M24 keyboard mouse. It only depends on the adapter.
 
1ST1 said:
No, they are digital, they just support a lot of extra buttons. There you can use a Jagpad.
Click to expand...

Take a read here:-

https://gamesx.com/controldata/ejp_faq.htm

each port actually consists of a pair of analogue to digital convertors, as well as a number of digital input lines and digital
output lines. In principal, therefore, the EJPs can be wired up to form a quite sophisticated I/O port. A number of resolution
enhancers for the Falcon rely on this fact.
Click to expand...

So analog paddles or joysticks can also be connected...
 
g4ugm said:
Sorry my bad. Some original STs had the mouse ports where the floppy drives are on the "F" models.
Click to expand...


All Atari ST models, from 260/520 over STE, Mega ST, Mega STE, TT, STacy, Falcon, ATW 800, even PC1-3 use the same mouse. STBook is different, it has no mouse connector, only internal "VectorPad" which works quite similar to Thinkpad trackpoint. STacy is switchable between internal track ball and external mouse. Only the position of the joystick/mouse connector is different on the listed machines. All the "work" to check mouse is done by the keyboard controller. Like on Olivetti M24 keyboard mouse.

What you miss on the linked 520ST is the floppy drive, they don't have internal drive. But there was also 520STF which is similar to 1040STF, but just 512 instead of 1024 kB memory. Early floppy drives were single sided only, but also these one can be read by MS-DOS machines (after changing media descriptor byte in boot sector).
 
g4ugm said:
This one is described as an ST

https://www.ebay.com/itm/283538706242

does appear to be an STF or FM..
Click to expand...
That one has a built-in floppy drive. You can tell because the case is deeper and the sides of the vent area are squared off, versus the original floppyless ST where the case is shorter and the vents are angles at the sides.

And there was also the 520ST+, which confusingly came with 1 MB of RAM even though the external badges gave no indication of it being any different than the regular 520ST with only 512K of RAM. (Likewise with the 260ST model sold in Europe -- most of those actually had 512K of RAM, not 256K.)
 
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