Re: Optical mouse for DRO anyone? - not for WIRE!

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, "Tony Smith" <ajsmith@...> wrote:

> I also forgot to mention it's entirely possible that mice are crap at
> measuring distance anyway (they're designed to detect movement &
>direction).

That is what my researching and testing indicated it would certainly
only work over 100ft if you had an extremely consistent surface on a
microscopic level.

For whatever solution was gone for I would personally go for something
based on the parallax propeller, now that they have the protoboards
available at $25 they are just superb for this type of project. Easy
graphical interface to TV/VGA/LCD and drivers for PS/2 mice and
keyboard. I'm biased as I have been programming them for a while but
8 processors doing 20MIPS each is pretty cool and its a whole new and
exciting mind set for programming too:

http://www.parallax.com/detail.asp?product_id=32212

Graham