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[on:]

Looking to use a Blackberry Navigation Key / Joystick (from the 9800)  as a mouse input device tied to USB.  Anyone figured out the pinouts and/or signal protocols of this thing?   reference:  http://www.dealextreme.com/p/genuine-replacement-joystick-navigation-key-for-blackberry-9800-81000

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[Reply #1 on:]

Anyone?

[Reply #2 on:]

Bump - hoping someone may have some info on this?   Looking for any thoughts on pinouts, supported protocols etc.  When I get my order, I plan on tracing the connections and trying to power it then putting a scope on the other pins to see what sort of output signals are generated.  It would be great if this unit output similar signals that a scroll wheel or Apple MightlyMouse trackball put out (since I have one these to hack apart).

[Reply #3 on:]

I imagine this would be considerably more difficult to use than a blackberry trackball, and possibly outside of the capabilities of the arduino, as this is basically a low-res camera.  The process of reading in data from the cam, comparing the images, and determining motion likely happens on a chip on the blackberry motherboard, and not inside this sensor (camera) .

[Reply #4 on:]

Admittedly, I agree.  However, I'm stubborn, so I'm not giving up yet!  I pulled off something similar a while back on my EEE 901 using an Apple MightyMouse (http://www.plastibots.com/?p=37) - which is my backup plan for this project (already on order).   I have 2 of the BB trackpads on order and will attempt to see what makes them tic.  I think you are right though, I suspect the unit consists of an IR LED, some IR receivers and just transmits data to the BB mainboard for processing.  My hope is that the data that is being generated may be able to be interpreted somehow - possibly by the Arduino.  In my case I only care about scrolling up and down.

[Reply #5 on:]

There's been a hack of the sensors from optical mice used with Arduino, which are essentially the same thing, upside down (I would think).  Do a search in the forums for it, it's even been used via Processing as a really rough scanner.

I can't imagine the thing is anything more complex than a variation on the optical mouse theme...but I could be wrong and frequently am..