wacext Wacom Extensions for X11
(and some details on the IBM ThinkPad 360 PE)

In order to get X11 working on the IBM ThinkPad 360 PE you need to do a number of things. The most important thing is to get a patched version of the generic xf86Wacom.so driver. It is a shared library which is loaded at run time when starting X11, if this driver is needed according to the X86Config file.

Note (11/11/1999):
Sam Solon (ssolon@usa.net) created a version of the adapted Wacom driver for X11 which runs with XFree86 3.3.2. It is available at: http://home.att.net/~ssolon/tp360pe/index.html

You still might want to read the info below....

Older version (wacext) by Lambert Schomaker:

Note: this package was never intended as a smooth piece of software to be released at all. By popular demand (more than 1 E-mails per week) I have put it on the web.

This little package contains a patched version of Frederic Lepied's XFree86 driver for the new Wacom tablets. The patches are intended to allow older Wacom tablets and Wacom OEM embedded tablets to function with X11, e.g. under Linux. The modified driver works with a Thinkpad 360 PE and with generic Linux PC's with a HD type tablet connected via a serial line. Wacom SD series should be possible with little adaptations to the code. The main innovation is the WacomType field which can be specified in your X86Config file, along with some new fields which are required by electronic paper units (tablet+integrated display).

This software is distributed as is. Do not bother me too much with questions. Improvements are welcome. Although the software works perfectly in our environment, there is no guarantee that it will work for you. Consider it as an alpha release.

Do not bother the original author, Frederic Lepied at all. He'll hardly know what you are talking about, although we had some E-mails exchanged concerning these modifications.

The sources were originally obtained from a XFree86 site. You have to register as a developer to obtain the necessary sources and include files:

Quote http://www.xfree86.org/ 

> If you have access to some currently unsupported hardware, are willing to 
> actively participate in testing and perhaps debugging a server, and would 
> like to join the beta team, then send an email message to XFree86@XFree86.org
> listing your available hardware and software, as well as any relevant 
> skills you may have....

The xc/... developer sources are needed to compile a new driver!


   $XFree86: xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/common/xf86Dl.c
                         ,v 3.8 1996/10/06 13:16:05 dawes Exp $ 


The original driver is:    
   Copyright 1995 by Frederic Lepied, France. 
 

   Modified 1997 by Lambert Schomaker, The Netherlands 
                                               http://hwr.nici.kun.nl/

Make and install

This is completely from the top of my head. First obtain wacext.tgz, gunzip and untar (tar -zxvf wacext.tgz). You can have an advance look at the resulting directory. You may skip the makit part if you want to try out xf86Wacom.so 'as is'. This shared library will only work for older versions of XFree. If anyone has a functional version for the binary for XFree 3.3.2 I will make it available on this page.

To generate your own xf86Wacom.so

To install xf86Wacom.so

Problems

The major problem with the existing driver is that it expects an identification string from the tablets, which the older Wacoms do not generate. The startup is still tricky.

It may be required that you hold the pen _near_ to the tablet when X11 starts.

Many Unix applications really require a three-button mouse, whereas a pen only has its axial switch and an optional sideswitch.

I still haven't solved that problem.

Lambert Schomaker, November 1997

Differences (old = Lepied, new = wacext )

Here are the Differences between the original driver and mine.

Other info

For the Thinkpad 360 PE (tp360 pe), you may need tpdlscan (tpdualscan) to get the VGA driver to behave sane, i.e. without doubling the graphics on screen. This program will work for the tp75x and the (plain) tp360 cse as well.

And, yes: the floppy bit which indicates "disk-has-changed" is inverted on the thinkpads. More info can be found here.

Hardware settings of the Thinkpad 360 PE



processor SL Enhanced Intel486 (TM) DX2
Clock speed 25/50 MHz
Memory 7808 kB
Hard disk 344 MB
3.5" drive 1.44 MB
LCD  9.5 inch color

NMI                parity/bus error
IRQ0               timer
IRQ1               keyboard
IRQ2               interrupt dispatch to irq8-15
     IRQ8          real-time clock
     IRQ9          return control
     IRQ10         (free)
     IRQ11         (free)
     IRQ12         mouse/trackpoint
     IRQ13         math exception
     IRQ14         hard disk
     IRQ15         free
IRQ3               free
IRQ4               serial, primary (1)
IRQ5               pen (see below)
IRQ6               free
IRQ7               parallel, printer port

DMA0 is reserved to system

====> PEN
       IRQ5, 2E8h
Note however, that these settings are for the original TP360 PE.
The refurbished 20MB version offered by a reseller in the USA in
1998 reportedly has IRQ9 being attached to the pen's serial port.

Use the Linux command setserial to change the IRQ of the relevant serial port driver in /dev/*. On my machine the settings were: device /dev/cua3, irq 5, speed 9600 baud, 8bits, parity none, handshake none.

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since 05/Oct/1997