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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Fri Dec 07, 2018 8:04 pm

In anticipation of the upcoming magnum opus of Eye of the Beholder for the C64 by Anreas Larrsson (aka JackAsser), I knew I had to find a 1351 mouse.

And this was especially true after he said he would not only support number-pad movements on machines like the C128, but the 1351 mouse specifically for those who have one.

I have two 1350 mice, and for those that know they pretty much suck if used as a mouse. They look like a mouse and smell like a mouse, but they are joysticks wearing mouse camouflage.

Unless you're playing a game on the C64 that was written for a trackball (e.g. Marble Madness), or frankly just a joystick, you're wasting your time with the 1350. It's really a trackball-wannabe peripheral. So to the uninitiated it feels... well, it feels really weird. Woe be the sorry soul who fires up GEOS and tries to use a 1350 mouse for navigation. It's a tragic sight, if not downright hilarious.

But the 1351 is a true mouse. There's not a ton of software written for it, but there are some standouts including GEOS, Faery Tale Adventure, Operation Wolf, some application/drawing programs, and now Portal and eventually Eye of the Beholder.

So I had to find one.

And find one I did! I snagged a NOS, never opened (until now) .

I hope you enjoy this unboxing as much as I did:
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You might feel a little pinch.

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Found a little bit of old original plasticky/glue residue I'm going to want to try and remove soon.

Note: While the Commodore 1351 Mouse looks like an Amiga tank in every single design aspect except for the plug, the truth is it is not compatible.

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McTrinsic

Posted Sat Dec 08, 2018 3:25 am

Great find!

Indeed with new games such as Portal and the EotB conversion I do feel tempted to get one as well. However, I first need to finish my C64 project to play it on real hardware :) .

Glad you mentioned the incompatibility with the Amiga. It's sad it doesn't work to just exchange them.

It really made me smile when I saw the boxtext talking about 'how does a mouse work' and so on. Ah, those were the days...

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Dynamic_Computing

Posted Sat Dec 08, 2018 5:32 pm

Amigakit has the PS/2 adapters back in stock that let you use a PS/2 mouse on an Amiga or 64/128. They are manufactured by Individual Computers, so you know they are good. And they emulate a 1531. They are about $30 or so. I think I need two of them...

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Mr.Toast
Roseville, CA

Posted Sun Dec 09, 2018 10:44 am

Alrighty, where are these NOS units hiding on teh interwebz?

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Bulletdust

Posted Fri Dec 14, 2018 1:33 am

The exact 1351 I've had since I was a kid, works a treat with 'The Final Cartridge III' GUI!

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Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Wed Dec 19, 2018 2:09 pm

Holy goodness who still had a NOS mouse? That's super cool!

Fortunately I still have my original Mouse, Manual and Disk. I must have chucked the box decades ago though.

I agree with you 100% the 1350 was a wannabe. The 1351 can still function in that mode, if need be but not sure why you would want to. Maybe for old joystick only programs? I think I remember trying it out a few times back then and well it must not have been memorable.

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A1-X1000
Toronto, Canada

Posted Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:11 pm

well what do you know..tonight I was looking for an Amiga mouse to finally setup and mess with my original early Amiga 500 with Commodore & Amiga keys and low and behold when I saw it wasn't working on the 500 I flipped her over and wow it was my good ol 1351 I bought in the mid to late 80's to use with my 80 column card and word processor that came with GEOS..thing looks and feels identical to Amiga mice <3

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Hedley

Posted Sun Oct 25, 2020 9:30 am

I designed the 1351. It was a fun hack. Out of it I got my first patent (for the method it uses to communicate 2 7-bit values from the mouse to the pot registers every video frame), my first custom chip (okay, a 252 gate gate-array, but still) and my first trip to Hong Kong out of the deal. And here we are 30 years later and you have a brand new one. Wow. Your post made me happy. Thanks.

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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Sun Oct 25, 2020 10:40 am

@Hedley, you designed the mouse? Wow! Did you design any other Commodore hardware as well?

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Christian

Posted Sun Oct 25, 2020 9:16 pm

I still have an A2024 monitor with the chip that you designed. It's just cool to see 1024x800 on an Amiga 1000 (or 1024x1024 on a PAL A1000).





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