NetMouse is a pair of INITs that allows you to use one mouse and keyboard for two different Macintoshes. By sliding the mouse out the sides of the menu bar, you can walk the mouse across the network to another Mac and back.
NetMouse was coded by JÜrg 'jbx' Brown (icons and many suggestions by Eric Hayes) for the annual MacHax competition at the MacHack technical conference in Ann Arbor, between approximately 4AM on Thursday June 16th and 1AM Friday June 19th. It was done because the original idea for a good MacHack, adding a zoom icon to Finder Get Info windows to edit icons, turned out to be something other people had done better, and still other people were going to do again.
NetMouse is part of a proud tradition of INITs conceived and written at the MacHack conference itself, with full source code. Unfortunately the source code that comes out of this pressure environment isn't very good. For that and other apologies, see the accompanying "Apologies" document:
To use NetMouse:
NetMouse functions through one Macintosh sending mouse/keyboard information and another receiving it, through the PPC Toolbox over AppleTalk. Thus, a few things have to be in order:
Both machines must be running System 7.
Both machines must have Program Linking enabled (open the Sharing Setup Control Panel).
For the Transmitter machine:
This machine must have NetMouse Xmtr in its Extensions Folder.
For the Receiver machine:
This machine must have NetMouse Rcvr in its Extensions Folder.
This machine must allow guest access to program linking. (Open the Guest icon in Users & Groups to turn this on.)
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Once you have done all this, reboot both machines. The Transmitter machine will put up a really poorly done dialog querying for the location of the receiver. When you hit OK, the transmitter machine enters normal mode.
In normal mode, the Mac functions as it always did, unless you move the mouse to the extreme left or right edge of your menu bar. At this point, the mouse acts as intruder and seeks out the receiver Mac, where it seems to jump onto in similar fashion to the way a Mac handles multiple monitors. The mouse disappears from the transmitter Mac, and all mouse and keyboard events are transmitted from thereon to the receiver Mac. Unfortunately NetMouse knows nothing about the configuration of the remote machine, so the mouse will never move beyond the dimensions of the main screen of the transmitter Macintosh. I haven't tried it on multiple monitors yet but that could be problematic. Anyway, once the mouse jumps over, NetMouse enters intruder mode.
In this new, intruder mode, the mouse and keyboard function close to the way they might if their ADB cables were connected to the receiver machine, unless the mouse hits the extreme right and left edges, in which case they jump back again. This allows you to have two Macs on your desk with only one mouse and keyboard, at considerable cost savings and tremendous savings of confusion.
This INIT, and its code, are hereby declared public domain. Use them any way you want. Do not send the author any money, do not depend on these INITs, there is no warranty contained herein, etc.
