tabby v1.1
 
About
This program provides an X-Windows driver for the original Tabby graphics tablet. It runs as a stand-alone program and generates pointer and button events using the Xtest API. As a result it should run on pretty much any Unix/X11 computer that has a serial port.

The latest version of this program can be found on the tabby homepage. Comments are welcome, please send email to ahajnal@interport.net.

 
Background
The Tabby graphics tablet was produced by a British (?) company, Micrograf International, in the early 90s. It connected to the serial port on Atari ST series computers. Versions may have been produced for other platforms as well. A description of the serial protocol can be found here. An updated version, the Tabby 2, was later produced. It used a different protocol. Windows drivers for the Tabby 2 are available on the net. As far as I know there are no Unix drivers for the Tabby 2.
 
Usage
The tabby program runs from the commandline and takes as a single argument the path to the serial port that the tablet is attached to. To install, type "make install" (without the quotes) or simply copy the tabby binary to some- where in your path (e.g. /usr/local/bin). To start the driver, type:
tabby PORT
where PORT is the path to the serial port (e.g. "/dev/ttyS0" or "/dev/ttyUSB0").
 
Building from source
To build the tabby binary, simply run "make". You will need gcc and X11 headers (including those for the Xtest extension). You can edit the Makefile if you need to change the compiler or header locations. You may also need to specify your X11 header location by adding, for example, "-I/usr/X11R6/include" to the compiler commandline.
 
Tuning the driver
Although the driver works well for the tablet that I own, it may need some adjustments for optimal performance with other tablets. In the source, there are five main parameters that can be changed, three of which affect the proximity sensor and two of which affect the position sensor. If you change these values you will need to recompile the program before they take effect.

Since there is not a lot of precision in the proximity data a running average is used to improve the resolution of the proximity sensor. Unfortunately, the data is only accurate down to about a centimeter so some tricks (such as a weighted average) are used to reduce positional jumps when the stylus is raised and lowered. The tunable parameters are:
PROX_BUF_SIZE The size of the ring buffer. Must be a multiple of 2 because each set of data contains 2 proximity readings. A large sized ring buffer provides greater the accuracy at a cost of reduced responsiveness. Too low a value can lead to false stylus up and stylus down events.
The default value is 32
PROX_DOWN The proximity level (between 0 and 7) at which the stylus is considered to be down. Values between 4 and 4.5 are sensible
The default value is 4.3
PROX_UP The proximity level (between 0 and 7) at which the stylus is considered to be up. Values between 3 and 4 are sensible
The default value is 4.0
The X/Y position also tends to be noisy. The is a lot of low-level jitter (1 or 2 pixels) even when the stylus is not being moved. Occassionaly, a large jump (50 or more pixels) is erroneously reported. There are two paramters that can help alleviate this:
MIN_DISTANCE Motions of less than this distance will be ignored. The distance is the length of the motion vector measured in pixels. For example, a move of 3 pixels to the right and 4 up would have a distance of 5 (32 + 42 = 52). The default value of 2.5 can handle a jitter of about 2 pixels in either direction.
The default value is 2.5
MAX_DISTANCE Motions of greater than this distance will be ignored. Again, the distance is the length of the motion vector measured in pixels. This parameter should be set higher than the largest motion seen in normal usage. If it is set too low then the pointer will stop tracking the stylus when it is moved quickly.
The default value is 50

 
Troubleshooting
If only the right side of the tablet appears to be working, the serial port might not be in raw mode. To switch to raw mode, run the following before starting tabby:
stty -F PORT raw 9600
where PORT is the path to the serial port (e.g. "/dev/ttyS0" or "/dev/ttyUSB0").
 
Bugs
  • The program attempts to set the serial port to raw mode but this might not be working correctly.
 
History
  • v1.0 - First public release (February 15, 2005)
 
License
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of version 2 of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to:
  Free Software Foundation, Inc.
59 Temple Place
Suite 330
Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

 

Copyright © 2005 Alexander Hajnal

email: ahajnal@interport.net Home