[SunRescue] Wacky devices + other questions

[James Lockwood]

On Sun, 12 Mar 2000, sparcy wrote:

> 1. When I bought the machine there was a box with all kinds of cables and
> stuff, after grabbing a type-5 keyboard and a mouse I grabbed some more
> cables, I don't have a clue what I took, but since I'm not familiar with
> Sun, I though better be safe than sorry and take some more stuff.
> Anyway one of these things is a tiny square box (about 4x4x2 cm) with
> a sun logo on the front, and an opening in the back, when you open it
> there's a flat battery in it (looks like a cmos-battery type thing from
> your ordinary PC) there's also a cable coming out from it which ends in
> a walkman phone jack - what the heck is this ? 

Microphone.  They originally came with little brackets that could be
attached to a monitor.

> 2. The mouse is optical (are all sun mice optical ?) I like it, no more

All older Sun mice are optical.  It appears that the type-5 optical mouse
has been discontinued, a great pity.

> roller ball which gets dirty (== non functioning) - It kinda, sorta works on
> a standard mouse pad. But I guess I need a special mouse pad for it, where
> could I buy one, or could I print out something which would also do the
> trick (I'm guessing the mouse needs some 'reference' on the mat to track
> it's position)

What kind of mouse is it?  Is it boxy and white with long oval buttons
("type-4") or rounded with rectangular blueish buttons ("type-5")?
There's also the hourglass figure "type-6" available now, but only in
an optomechanical version.

The type-5 mousepads are available new from Sun for $12/ea or so.  The
type-4 pads are more common on the used market but not available new as
far as I know.  The two types are not interchangable.

-James