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Setting mouse speed on boot via an INIT?

Posted by: ry755 on 2023-07-07 01:33:39

Hi! So, I've been playing around with a Macintosh SE that I recently acquired and of course, the PRAM battery on the motherboard is long dead (I plan on opening up the case to remove it soon). This is mostly fine, I don't mind the fact that the date and time aren't accurate. However, what does slightly annoy me is having to increase the mouse speed manually after every power cycle. It gets reset to the slowest speed by default. Ideally I would replace the internal battery with a CR2032 but until I get around to that, are there any extensions out there that can automatically set preferences like this on bootup? I'm open to making my own little extension for this if necessary, if someone could just point me in the right direction to some documentation about INIT stuff. 😀

Posted by: Phipli on 2023-07-07 01:41:19

Hi! So, I've been playing around with a Macintosh SE that I recently acquired and of course, the PRAM battery on the motherboard is long dead (I plan on opening up the case to remove it soon). This is mostly fine, I don't mind the fact that the date and time aren't accurate. However, what does slightly annoy me is having to increase the mouse speed manually after every power cycle. It gets reset to the slowest speed by default. Ideally I would replace the internal battery with a CR2032 but until I get around to that, are there any extensions out there that can automatically set preferences like this on bootup? I'm open to making my own little extension for this if necessary, if someone could just point me in the right direction to some documentation about INIT stuff. 😀

I think this covers your question. A couple of utilities named (as well as how to set the time from the network).

Clock and PRAM utility questions

I have used the holiday downtime to setup a few macs with either Mac OS 7.5.5 (68K) or Mac OS 8.1 (PPC). I removed all the PRAM battery years ago and don’t really want to reinstall them. I remember back in the day there was a clock utility that would restore the time and date via a time server...

68kmla.org

Posted by: ry755 on 2023-07-07 15:35:20

I think this covers your question. A couple of utilities named (as well as how to set the time from the network).

Clock and PRAM utility questions

I have used the holiday downtime to setup a few macs with either Mac OS 7.5.5 (68K) or Mac OS 8.1 (PPC). I removed all the PRAM battery years ago and don’t really want to reinstall them. I remember back in the day there was a clock utility that would restore the time and date via a time server...

68kmla.org

Oh that looks perfect! Thank you 😀

Posted by: ry755 on 2023-07-07 16:19:12

Update: looks like it doesn't like running on System 6.0.8, despite the readme saying it would probably be compatible 😛
It dumps me into MacsBug with the error "Undefined A-Trap at A0073CF6"

Posted by: ry755 on 2023-07-07 17:13:21

Hmm, I just installed System 7.1 on the same Macintosh SE and I'm getting a similar unimplemented trap error, except without MacsBug since I don't have it currently installed. Outdated/incorrect ROM version maybe? I have no idea.

Posted by: Phipli on 2023-07-08 00:25:00

Hmm, I just installed System 7.1 on the same Macintosh SE and I'm getting a similar unimplemented trap error, except without MacsBug since I don't have it currently installed. Outdated/incorrect ROM version maybe? I have no idea.

Sounds like it needs a newer computer. Bit suprising that it supports System 6, but not the SE.

I swear I've seen more software options but can't remember names.

Posted by: ry755 on 2023-07-08 00:59:04

I found this little application which seems to do the same thing except not automatically on startup. The source code is also included in the archive, so I might end up making my own little utility/INIT based on it: https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/pram-reader

Posted by: Crutch on 2023-07-08 05:24:35

I can’t tell here @ry755 which utility did you end up using? PRAM Auto Restore or something else? That definitely works under 6.0.8 at least on an SE/30.

If you try it again, please hit “IP” when that Macsbug screen comes up and we can see where it’s crashing.

Posted by: ry755 on 2023-07-08 15:56:38

I can’t tell here @ry755 which utility did you end up using? PRAM Auto Restore or something else? That definitely works under 6.0.8 at least on an SE/30.

If you try it again, please hit “IP” when that Macsbug screen comes up and we can see where it’s crashing.

Oops sorry, yes the one that was crashing was PRAM Auto-Restore. Looks like the issue is because of a call to `GetCIcon`, which based on the name I assume is a color QuickDraw trap and iirc the original 68000-powered Macs don't have support for that. Now I'm curious to see if I can patch these calls out.

Posted by: Crutch on 2023-07-08 17:22:42

Ha yeah the code he’s using to display his icon at startup is probably assuming CQD is available. That’s pretty silly.

Posted by: ry755 on 2023-07-08 17:25:51

Update on attempting to patch the color QuickDraw calls: I used ResEdit with a CODE editor addon to modify those traps to what I assume are the original monochrome equivalents. Unfortunately it now crashes somewhere else, probably because differing formats between color and monochrome icons. 🙁
But I mean hey, part of the reason why I got this Macintosh SE in the first place was so I could do some classic Mac OS programming on it, so I may just end up writing my own little utility for this after all hehe (or I could simply replace the PRAM battery but where would the fun be in that?)

Posted by: Crutch on 2023-07-08 20:34:00

Make sure DisposeCIcon isn’t being called later. If it is, replace it with ReleaseResource and try again.

Posted by: ry755 on 2023-07-08 21:05:54

Make sure DisposeCIcon isn’t being called later. If it is, replace it with ReleaseResource and try again.

It doesn't seem to be reaching that point yet, I replaced the DisposeCIcon call with ReleaseResource but I'm still getting the exact same error as the second image in my previous post.
Also these errors occur when I open the control panel, not on startup, which at least makes them a bit easier to deal with.

Posted by: Crutch on 2023-07-09 09:21:36

Oh obvious thing … you changed _GetCIcon to _GetIcon I presume, but did you actually create the corresponding ICON resource?

Open up each of the cicn resources in PRAM Auto Restore and copy them to ‘ICON’ resources with matching resource IDs.

Posted by: ry755 on 2023-07-09 16:53:23

Oh obvious thing … you changed _GetCIcon to _GetIcon I presume, but did you actually create the corresponding ICON resource?

Open up each of the cicn resources in PRAM Auto Restore and copy them to ‘ICON’ resources with matching resource IDs.

Just tried that, I wasn't able to copy the color icons directly so I just created blank/empty ICON recources with the same IDs. Still getting the same error.

Posted by: HelixNRG on 2025-01-28 02:56:15

Just tried that, I wasn't able to copy the color icons directly so I just created blank/empty ICON recources with the same IDs. Still getting the same error.

Did you get any further with this? PRAM Auto Restore works exactly the way I want it to on a Mac Color Classic with Sys 7.5.5, but I want it to work with Classic I & II and Plus models as well using System 6.0.8.