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Lisa 2 mouse only works on one axis

Thanks guys.

It is indeed the photo.. I couldn't get a good shot of the whole thing with both IR light showing at same brightness, but in reality moving the phone around, they come out the same.

And yes these have little wheels on each side with holes cut to pass through. I did find a fair bit of dust and such but have since blown it all out.. at least from the wheel. I'm not sure yet how to safely remove the IR sensor to clean in there.
 
Okay this makes no sense at all.

I blew the mouse out with dry compressed air. I then plugged it into my Mac Plus, which was set up and at hand, and it worked great! Tada! Problem solved, right?

So then I plug it into my Lisa.. same problem again. Goes side to side, but otherwise seeks the top of the screen and remains pegged there.

While the Lisa is still on, I swap in the Mac plus mouse. No problem... everything works again.

I swap the Lisa mouse back.. nope.. back to the top of the screen, can only move side to side.

WTH

So then I take the Lisa mouse, plug it back into my Mac plus... and it works fine.

So the only time this Lisa mouse doesn't work is when it's plugged into an actual Lisa. And the Lisa will only work with a Mac Plus mouse.

I AM SO CONFUSED
 
I'm thinking this is some kinda physical thing with the port. Maybe one of the pins on the Lisa mouse makes better contact than the lisa Mouse does? Maybe the port has rust or something in it, and the pins on the mac mouse are just long enough to reach past it??
 
I think my hunch was correct.

I grabbed a straight through 9 pin serial cable (which I tested with DMM to make sure the pins didn't switch from one end to the other), and plugged the extension into my Lisa, and then my Lisa mouse into the other end of the extension. It worked.

So my guess on this is, it's something to do with how the pins on the Lisa mouse make contact with the port on the Lisa. Perhaps a bit of corrosion is in there, and the Lisa mouse pins for the X axis can't make good contact. To my eye, the pins on both the serial extension cable and on the Mac Plus mouse seem a tiny bit longer than the ones for the Lisa mouse.
 
Like I said before, that AMP connector is an awful design. There is a reason the Macintosh switched to a more traditional connector.
Unfortunately because Lisas are so rare and a Lisa mouse is far more rare you have no choice but to figure out either how to clean/renew the contacts in the connector, or replace it with another, which isn't easy because if you want to keep the original special connector AMP discontinued it many years ago.
 
Good work on finding the problem.

As you have now found, it is always worth investigating the problem first before getting the soldering iron out and ‘butchering’ something as rare as a Lisa mouse!

There could be some wear on the pin metalwork or (as you surmise) a length issue.

If it works OK with an adapter, I would be inclined to stick with the adapter for now until you have a plan.

Rather than using a cable, I would suggest two adapters (one on the Lisa and one on the mouse) and use these to connect/disconnect the mouse itself.

We do that with our expensive A/V equipment at Church. If something is going to break, it is going to be a GBP 1 adapter rather than an expensive projector or PC.

Dave
 
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