Apple II
Technical Notes
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                                                  Developer Technical Support


Mouse
#4:    Mouse Firmware Bug Affecting ServeMouse

Revised by:    Matt Deatherage                                  November 1988
Revised by:    Rilla Reynolds                                    January 1985

This Technical Note documents a bug in the mouse firmware on the AppleMouse 
card which affects the way ServeMouse works.
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There is a bug in the AppleMouse II 6805 firmware which may affect the way 
ServeMouse works in an application.  If the application takes more than one 
video cycle (normally about 16 ms) to respond to a mouse-generated interrupt, 
then ServeMouse will not claim the interrupt.  The 6805 returns an interrupt 
status byte of $00 (i.e., no mouse interrupt pending), and the 6502 firmware 
sets the carry bit (although the interrupt is also cleared by the ServeMouse 
call).  This situation can be confusing, and under ProDOS or Pascal it can be 
lethal.  We have identified the following solutions, any of which should work:

If you are not working under an established operating system (i.e., ProDOS or 
Pascal):

1.    Do not allow unclaimed interrupts to be fatal to your application.  
      Ignore them.
2.    Always service mouse interrupts within 1/60 of a second.  If you 
      are forced to disable interrupts for a longer period, first use 
      SetMouse to set the mouse mode to 0, then call ServeMouse to clear 
      any existing mouse interrupt.  After interrupts are re-enabled, 
      restore the mouse mode.

If you are working under an established operating system (i.e., ProDOS or 
Pascal) for which unclaimed interrupts are fatal and the mouse is not the 
only interrupting device:

1.    Write the mouse interrupt handler to claim all unclaimed 
      interrupts and make sure the mouse interrupt handler is installed 
      last, otherwise the interrupt will never get through to any 
      interrupt handlers which follow that of the mouse.

Note:    This solution may cause cursor flicker by delaying the 
application's response to VBL interrupts.

2.    Write a spurious interrupt handler (also known as a "daemon"), not 
      associated with any device, which claims all unclaimed interrupts 
      (i.e., clears the carry bit then exits).  For the reason just 
      mentioned, this interrupt handler must be installed last.

Note:    Under ProDOS, this limits the number if interrupting devices 
to three.

This bug exists in the AppleMouse card, therefore you must deal with it when 
you are writing eight-bit programs for the Apple ][+, IIe, IIc and IIGS which 
use the mouse.  The Apple IIGS does not have this bug in its internal mouse 
firmware, so sixteen-bit "native" mode programs are not affected by it.