From: gregp@gpsoft.adsp.sub.org (Dr Greg Perry)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware,comp.sys.amiga.multimedia
Subject: Re: Touch screen input?
Date: 1 Jan 93 06:39:55 GMT
Organization: GP Software, Australia
X-NewsSoftware: GRn 1.16e (7/4/92) by Mike Schwartz & Michael B. Smith

In article <ping.03qv@ping.actrix.gen.nz> ping@ping.actrix.gen.nz (Peter Ingham) writes:
> Eugene Pang (epang@fraser.sfu.ca) wrote:
> 
> > Playing around with a MicroTouch touch screen (without driver/documentation)
> > I don't see how the MicroTouch can support finger dragging--it only outputs
> > the initial coordinates of a touch (checked this with VLT), and doesn't
> > output new coordinates unless you withdraw your finger momentarily.  Which
> > IMHO makes it kinda useless as a mouse replacement, unless...  Does anyone
> > know if (and how) it can be made to output a continuous stream of data?

This is actually incorrect. The Microtouch hardware (latest ASIC versions)
supports a wide selection of operational modes. Some of these include

	point mode:	single event on touch down
	down/up mode:	event on touch and event on lift off
	stream	mode:	continuous events - touch down, then stream while
			finger is in contact, then touch up when finger lift
			off.
	polled mode:	hardware buffers last event until requested then
			sends values to computer.

	Plus some other modes such as Tablet etc. All output from the hardware
	can also be generated in hex or decimal with optional status reporting
	touch down /touch lift off/ continuous touch etc. 

	All events from the hardware are reported from 1024 x 1024 screen
	matrix.

Unfortunately I cannot provide specific details	because of agreements with
Microtouch but any developer should be able to obtain details from Microtouch
direct.  The manuals which accompany the screen do provide sufficient info
for most people to get something running.  On the other hand, you should be
able to purchase our GPTouch software direct from MicroTouch agents (or
direct from us if necessary)

> 
> I use a Microtouch (also without docs) that was bought by another company (who 
> cannot locate the docs for it).
> 
> The two progs that were with it are GPTouch (the driver) and ??GPPrefs?? (the 
> configurer).
> 
>  
> If anyone can help with docs, I'd love to hear from you...
> 
> A problem I have at the moment is the sampling rate.  The finger drag runs very 
> slowly with various apps due to the large number of small-increment mouse movements
> the driver appears to be simulating.  I've played with the "sensitivity" 
> control but this not appear to make much difference.
> 
>     Peter S. Ingham              ping@ping.actrix.gen.nz
>     Lower Hutt,  New Zealand     3:771/220.5


Please be aware that we have recently upgraded GPTouch and associated 
Touch_Preferences program to provide full WB2 overscan support and in the
process of the re-write have changed the method of accepting responses from
the hardware so that the screen response is now considerably faster.

In the early versions of GPTouch the problem was, in fact, that the screen
hardware was generating TOO MANY events per second (up to 100!!) so that
the Amiga's performance was slow for 'drag' operations. We have changed this
to receive less events per second thus the subjective performance is a lot
better. We have also added several other operational modes such as single
point touch for better use with mumtimedia programs where only single events
are of interest.  Other new features include the ability to adjust the
operating frequency of the screen hardware to minimise noise caused by
resonance btw the monitor frequency and the touch screen hardware.

Anyone using early versions of GPTouch should contact us about upgrade details.

-- 
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