First a little background. Philips released various pointing devices for use with CD-i, including a CD-i Mouse and a CD-i Trackball. Both consumer versions were released in a dark grey colour. However, Philips also released white versions of these devices: A white CD-i mouse (see above) and a white CD-i trackball (see below). The white CD-i mouse was for use with the white coloured professional CD-i players. The PCB of the white mouse (KY900032) differs slightly to the PCB of the dark grey mouse (KY900042). It has some free space for additional components (e.g. a chip and two more buttons). Philips used a similar design mouse for its PCs in that time under the model NMS1146 (without the dots and with a light coloured mouse pad with the same stripe pattern). All of them were built by Kun Ying Enterprises (known from the Genius brand).
Back to the question. it appears the white and dark grey CD-i mouses are not equal, and CD-i member Retrostuff found out recently something interesting: "The white mouse doesn't work at all with the CD-i 450, but the grey mouse (22ER9011) does.The grey mouse doesn't have TXD connected. But it has RXD ( -> 1KΩ -> some transistor) connected to pin 17 of the µC." To this end, CD-i member Omegalfa wonders: "[Is it true that] the SLAVE and IKAT may be the reason why the [white] CD-i mouse isn't working properly on the CD-i 450. [It appears that] only the buttons are working, but the movement is not functioning?"
But it is not that simple and in fact, the experts do not know the right answer yet. CD-i Fan: "No, it depends on which port of the splitter you connect it to. One port goes to the IKAT, the other one to the main cpu. I would suspect power issues [is the cause of this], the protocol hasn't changed AFAIK." The difference of these two mice would need to investigated deeper.
You can hook them up to a PC using serial, see if something's different there; if you apply 5V to the RTS line it'll just send the data. Maybe measure power usage as well, though in general those controller ports can output a decent amount (it's able to power the USB-to-CDi adapter, with a USB hub and two Magic NS dongles, according to TwBurn. Perhaps we come back on this topic in the near future.
- Writer/Editor: Morton
- Credits: TwBurn, CD-i Fan, Retrostuff
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