Can old Wacom tablets work on newer macs?

July 1, 2008 9:42 AM

I've come across a Wacom ArtPad II Tablet, but with connectors for the old Mac serial/ADB port. Is there an adaptor that will allow it to work with a USB only Mac G4, 10.4 or 10.5 system? I'd want to use it with Photoshop and Painter.
posted by Brandon Blatcher to computers & internet (6 comments total)

Griffin iMate. Works under 10.4 but I don't know if it will work under 10.5.
posted by jamaro at 9:59 AM on July 1, 2008

(should also add: Griffin only supports its use up to 10.3.9)
posted by jamaro at 10:01 AM on July 1, 2008

The iMate works just fine with 10.5 for keyboards. For Wacoms? Dunno.
posted by eschatfische at 10:05 AM on July 1, 2008

The Griffin iMate will give you the electrical and low-level interface between USB and ADB, but it won't do anything about teaching your computer how to actually interact with the Wacom.

I had one of those ADB tables back in the day also, and my recollection is that they don't function exactly like ADB mice did. You needed to install drivers on your system before you could do a thing with them; otherwise the computer would just ignore the fact that they were attached.

So my gut feeling (and reason that I've never bothered to dig out my tablet and hook it up) is that even if you plugged it in via an iMate, you'd never get it to work, because there's no Mac OS X drivers. And even if you did find drivers—maybe old versions designed for Blue and White G3 machines that had ADB ports and could run OS X—they probably wouldn't be designed to work with the iMate.

Your best bet, if you really want to be sure, is probably to contact someone at Griffin and ask them whether the iMate will help you hook up an ADB tablet. I'm going to bet they'll say "no". But at least you can try.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:11 AM on July 1, 2008

Just to followup; you're not the first person to go down this road.

Wacom (ADB) +iMate+G5=No Good

I have an older intous 1 wacom tablet 6x8, an iMate adaptor, and new duel G5 (Panther installed). I installed the latest drivers for all the mentioned hardware and I'm not getting any onscreen responce when I'm trying to use the tablet. I know wacom won't support my situation, so I was wondering if anybody here has had any progress with this situation. The green light on the tablet does turn on and it does turn orange when I touch it with the pen.

This seems to support my feeling, which is that the tablet will work, but the computer won't recognize what it's sending.

That thread does mention something interesting, though: apparently Wacom will (or would, at one point) replace the ADB board in the larger 12x12 or 12x18 tablets, but there's no love for the little ones like the ArtPad.

[usb list] Re: graphical tablet
This posting from an Apple mailing list from 2003 seems to confirm that there aren't drivers for Wacom tablets included in OS X. The poster mentions that they're interested in developing one; maybe you could contact them and see if it ever went anywhere.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:20 AM on July 1, 2008

Ok, OS X is a no go, but a Blue and White G3 (the last Mac computer with and ADB ) should work, as long it starts up from System 9.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:16 AM on July 1, 2008