# ADB Wacom Tablet



## kraneo (Jun 24, 2002)

Hi people, I'm new in the block!
Anyone knows a way to make active an old Wacom tablet artz II (ADB port) Under Mac OSX ?
It seems that ol the serial devices may be lost forever for the OS X...
Anyone knows if connecting the tablet with an USB adapter could work?
New USB drivers from Wacom could recognize it?

TIA!!!


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## gibbs (Jun 25, 2002)

Serial to USB adapters DO exist. The question is whether your mac will recognize the device once its plugged in. I would fire off an email to Wacom support and ask, although I fear you may get a "no, buy one of our newer tablets" responses.

Good luck brother.


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## kraneo (Jun 25, 2002)

I`m afraid that that's Wacom Policy, but....
I'll try.

Thanks fellow


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## ladislav (Jan 8, 2003)

Hello, well, i do have two wacom tablet, with adb connectors, the first thing you should know is that they are called UD.
Unfortunatly, wacom replyed that they do not intend to support UD tablets on MAC OSX
My tablets are doing fine on OS9 plus the Imate... (ADB TO USB connector)
the right link to get all drivers from wacom is 
http://www.wacom-europe.com/uk/downloads/driver/index.asp
All we can hope is for the Linux /  Open source communauty to get a driver working, witch will mean we will have to get are hands under the hood, and maybe install the xwindows...
But your tablet is not going to the discarded hardware basement we all have as mac users, the driver for Windows XP 2K 98 and ME exist ... 
I know, hardware manufacturer are weird people...  
I do have two A5 tablett, one for each of my display, it works great (on Mac OS 9)...


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## adambyte (Jan 8, 2003)

Yeah, me too. I've got an old Wacom tablet, and an iMate adapter. You can use it to move around the cursor, but don't get any special features like button functions, pressure, or anything like that. 

Oh well.  Some things are just too old.


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## strobe (Jan 8, 2003)

You can write ADB HID drivers for Mac OS X. This isn't a limitation of the OS. There are 3rd party ADB drivers. For example there is a Thrustmaster ADB joystick driver for Mac OS X.

I could write the driver myself but I don't know the protocol Wacom uses. Somebody would have to reverse engineer this using ADB prober or something.


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## slur (Jan 8, 2003)

You're in luck, strobe! The Wacom protocols are documented in the Developer section of Wacom's web site. Not only that, but...

I have fully implemented the Wacom UD protocol in a REALbasic application that reads a _serial_ Wacom tablet, dynamically displays the state in a window, and allows you to send commands to the tablet to change its mapping, etc. It even lets you draw lines in a little graphics control.

If you would like a copy of this application and believe that you can write an HID driver I would be most interested in assisting you. I believe some hooks to the IOKit will be required to communicate with the (POSIX) serial port, meaning it would likely have to be implemented in the limited subset of C++ required for IOKit drivers.

From my investigations I've determined that the most promising course for making serial and ADB UD tablets work on Mac OS X is to make the Wacom tablet appear to the OS as if it was a newer USB Wacom tablet, and then the Wacom drivers would happily do the high-level interpretation. (The UD protocol has only been extended, not altered.) So all we'd really need to implement is a serial-USB bridge.

Are you familiar with IOKit? Do you have the skillz required to pull this off? Folks like me would be most grateful if this could be made to work! I've contacted Wacom about this but they have no interest in "supporting" older tablets. A developer I spoke to at Keyspan seemed to think the idea of a serial-USB bridge was fairly promising. I just haven't had the time or inclination to get down with IOKit since I've been so busy with SDL / OpenGL.

*adambyte*: Is your tablet being detected in Mac OS X without having the Wacom driver installed, or do you mean it (almost) works under 9?


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## adambyte (Jan 8, 2003)

Oh yeah.... I have an ADB Wacom tablet..... plugged into my iMate adapter.... which is plugged into my PowerBook's USB port. And my PowerBook is running Mac OS X.... and I can use the tablet in a very VERY limited manner....

 The "eraser" thingy and second button don't do anything special... and rather than making the tablet proportional to the screen, it's more of a "real time" thing... and you end up picking up the pen and moving it over and over, much as you would pick up and move a mouse when you run out of room on your desk... kind of a pain in the butt..... well, arm and wrist, actually....

It seems to me that USB provides very basic mouse driver functions, and the iMate adapter is probably providing those basic functions. I dunno. I'm no programmer.

If you could create a driver and software for old Wacom tablets, I bet a lot of cheapskates with adapters would be VERY happy. I know I would.


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## slur (Jan 9, 2003)

I hope we can get something together, Adam. We can only pity poor Wacom, which is too shortsighted to appreciate the value of its longtime cheapskate customers.


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## framistan (Jan 25, 2003)

I have a B&W G3 which has usb and and adb port and a Wacom Digitizer II. Is there any way I could get the tablet to work plugged into the adb port under os x?


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## slur (Feb 3, 2003)

WACOM has no plans to support serial or ADB tablets under Mac OS X. Hopefully someone at least as skilled as Strobe will remedy this situation.


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## Lord-Chin (Nov 24, 2003)

Wacom is trying to get everyone to buy thier new equipment, and not everyone can afford it! They can kiss my shiny behind if they think they can bully me into wasting my money!
The ADB tablets will work just as fine in due time.
You can be sure someone will come out with a Driver or Hack. I wouldnt be surprised if it becomes better then wacom's own implementation! Wacom drivers never worked real well anyway!

I don't know, but after spending loads of cash on the ADB tablet + the iMate (which Apple forced us to buy because the new macs had no ADB port) Im pretty pissed off! I could, without question, understand Apple's move. Though they should have done it gradually. But now, with the whole OSX not supporting old ports as well as Wacom trying to get people to upgrade. I can't help but to be extremely dissapointed at the lack of compassion and support for thier long time customers.


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## Lord-Chin (Jan 1, 2004)

Here is a link to a sourceforge project website which "manages the libraries, configuration, and diagnostic tools for Wacom tablets running under Linux. It also maintains updated linux kernel drivers and XFree86 XInput drivers."

http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxwacom/

I think this could be very helpful to the OSX developer who wants to create OSX drivers for the ADB tablets.


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## symphonix (Jan 1, 2004)

There are reasons why the ADB based Wacom adapters don't work under Mac OS X, and it goes right down to the data transfer libraries that drive the operating system. Wacom have made it clear that they simply cannot support any ADB devices under Mac OS X, and they've made it up to users by offering a cost-only upgrade to all ADB wacom tablets that have a separate logic board (which is most of the larger sized tablets). Since this involves replacing the logic board it will be pricey, but is still cheaper than buying a new tablet in the case of the larger sizes. Full info on this is on the Wacom support site.


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## Lord-Chin (Feb 9, 2004)

Well, Wack-com wants $164 plus shipping to do the upgrade, and it's only available to owners of "Intuos and Intuos2 12x12 & 12x18 tablets". Not much help to the majority of users with the Artz tablets. But it dose provide a cheaper path to owners of the mentioned tablets. However, thats a steep price for what it is!

Griffin technology have created drivers to make their imate work under OSX.
http://griffintechnology.com/software/software_imate.html
Unfortunetly unless the third party manufacturer provides support for OSX it's really just about useless.

Taken directly from Griffin's website: "iMate is completely compatible with Apple's latest operating system, OS X. Drivers are available now and can be downloaded here: http://griffintechnology.com/software/software_imate.html

However, this does not necessarily mean that your device attached to iMate is OS X compatible.

Be sure to check with the manufacturer of your ADB device to see if they support OS X. If they do, then you can use it with our iMate ADB-to-USB Adapter."

I know drivers could probablly be made to allow these ADB tablets to work properly under X. Darwin, the core of OSX which is a derivitive of Unix. Can be modified to support ADB devices and allow OSX users to install the modified kernal or whichever portion needs changing to allow all ADB devices to work as far as I know. The Linux comunity has been manipulating it's OS like this for years. So I really can't see why it can't be done, and done stable. 

Apple just wants to leave the old stuff behind, but strangely, Microsoft has never removed support for it's old ports. Even in Windows XP! Why? Why else? To support their users and their investments. If you have a Windows PC you could use the imate adapter and run your ADB tablet on it. And XP isnt a bad system, it's ugly, but it's not bad. I would'nt go out and buy a windows system just for my tablet though, thats just silly. But if your in the market for one, it's an option for you.
That and booting into OS9.
Since i'm not loyal to any OS. I have no reserves using Windows or any other OS that provides what i need. There are benefits and negitives to each system. Personally I still enjoy OSX over XP, but I have found XP more favourable in some instances, especially in the game market! Which I enjoy. But Also with the x86 hardware. If I could have OSX on X86 hardware I would be very happy.


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## volks (Aug 5, 2005)

I was reading this old thread and saw this program, I don't know if it's of use yet, but give it a go

http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Drivers/TabletMagic.shtml

TabletMagic description	Download

Open Source Mac OS X driver and control panel for serial and ADB Wacom tablets in Mac OS X. This project intends to expand to support other obsolete tablet brands. A full C++ tablet daemon and prototype control panel are already implemented, KEXT planned.

You see, I've got one of those old Wacom ArtZ-II tablets. The 12x12 one. It's huge, with a glossy surface and a really nice feel. I bought this beauty the same day I got my first Mac. Yep, this tablet and me, we've been through a lot together. So you can imagine our sadness when we learned that Wacom had abandoned us.

I groused about it and joined the chorus of voices calling for Wacom to support our beloved tablets, but they wouldn't budge. Undaunted, I visited Wacom's web site and downloaded every PDF and code sample they had. And they had a lot. In fact they even have new documentation explaining how to make Mac OS X programs understand Wacom-style and Apple-style tablet events. Very helpful.

From Wacom's documentation I was able to build a REALbasic program to interpret tablet events. More recently I learned from a reliable source how to send complete tablet events to the system and chopped together a daemon in C++. With all the pieces in place the TabletMagic Project was finally brought into the light.

Is TabletMagic Really Magic?

The short answer, no. Just the practical kind.

The Keyspan USA28X serial adapter communicates reliably with the Wacom ArtZ-II tablet at both 9600 and 19200 baud. This places no stress whatsoever on the USB system. 19200 baud - or 19.2 K per second - is very low bandwidth compared to the full potential of USB 1 (1.2 Megabytes per second). Wacom tablets can communicate at the full speed they were designed for -- and they do so very well in Mac OS X.

Mac OS X has really good built-in support for serial ports. Apple follows a standard called POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface) which provides a strong yet simple model for I/O. Because of the proven viability of this standard, Mac OS X will always have excellent OS-level support for serial devices - including all "legacy" devices like Wacom tablets. All any serial device needs to work with Mac OS X is a compatible connector and the software to drive it.

What's New in This Release:

· Basic multi-monitor support. Applescript to "renice" the daemon.
· Changes: Daemon init changed to account for a potential bad startup message, taking a cue from the linux-wacom project.


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## slur (Apr 3, 2006)

Well, it's been far too long since I posted a followup, but - well - I did create a serial Wacom driver. ADB support has proven very daunting, but I have an iMate and an ADB tablet to work with, and code samples for an ADB ThrustMaster driver. So ADB support could happen this year!

Meanwhile, for those interested in Wacom serial support find my latest driver here:

http://thinkyhead.com/tabletmagic/


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## adambyte (Apr 3, 2006)

Wow. I am honestly impressed. There's hope! 

Get it working, and I will buy you a beer!


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## slur (Jun 18, 2006)

The final answer is not good. According to the Thrustmaster Project and my contacts at Wacom ADB tablets simply cannot be supported in Mac OS X. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that both the iMate drivers and ADB.framework lack the essential hooks that would allow ADB tablets to work.

_*Rest in Peace, ADB!*_

That said, I've come across no major obstacles in writing the driver code for regular serial tablets, so if you end up with one of the many serial tablets supported by TabletMagic 2 you'll be able to use it in Mac OS X.


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## fluxdelux (Jul 3, 2006)

Slur, 

I just wanted to thank you for TabletMagic. I recently acquired a UD-1212 from a fellow designer of mine. I paid $60US for it (along with the Keyspan USA28X adapter) and it works great on my 1.5GHZ PowerBook G4 running Tiger. 

I googled wacom, keyspan and driver and found your software. It was easy to install and get running once all the drivers were installed. Now I am trying to see if I can get the tablet to work on my PC through USB. Just to see if I can. But not sure how yet. 

I am downloading and going to check out fretpet now and see how that works for my music. 

Take care and thanks.

Glen

http://glensutton.com/studio for a look at my studios a few weeks ago. They are now combined in one room (the art studio) and have a few new additions, like the UD1212 and some other things.



			
				slur said:
			
		

> Well, it's been far too long since I posted a followup, but - well - I did create a serial Wacom driver. ADB support has proven very daunting, but I have an iMate and an ADB tablet to work with, and code samples for an ADB ThrustMaster driver. So ADB support could happen this year!
> 
> Meanwhile, for those interested in Wacom serial support find my latest driver here:
> 
> http://thinkyhead.com/tabletmagic/


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