Ultimarc interfaces. Current state of the art vs the "Tiger Heli" review.

[AndyWarne]

As the old "Tiger Heli" review from 2005 seems to have been resurrected on another thread, I really need to point out that many of our products have changed since those days.

The greatest change has been the move to Full Speed USB. Our I-PAC, J-PAC, Mini-PAC, Opti-PAC and A-PAC all have used Full Speed USB for a while, along with trackball and spinner interfaces.

First what is Full Speed USB? Its a standard introduced in USB 1.1 and runs at 12 Mbps. The device must have a Full Speed USB port as its not possible to emulate USB (any flavor) in software.
How does this relate to USB 2.0? This depends on how you define USB 2.0. If you define it as the faster speed which was introduced when USB 2.0 was launched, its not USB 2.0. There are no keyboard or other game interfaces which use USB 2.0 by this definition, nor will there be, as its not suited to this type of device. It is designed for streaming large amounts of data. Moving faster than Full Speed USB would produce no noticeable speed increase on an interface of this type since the data packets are so tiny.

So what are the benefits of Full Speed USB over Low Speed USB (the original standard for keyboard and button type devices)?
Firstly there is the obvious advantage of the data getting to the host quicker. But this is unlikely to be measurable as, again, the packets are so small.

But there are other much more important advantages. Firstly, with Full Speed USB, its possible to configure any poll interval in the device and the host will follow. If we specify a 2 ms interval, which we do, the refresh rate of the device is 500 times per second. Low speed USB does not allow the device to specify the interval, its always 8 ms. Of course too fast a refresh rate is counter-productive as it gives the host controller more to do, and the device itself might not be able to keep up and respond to all host polls. At the end of the day MAME polls the controls at much longer intervals anyway.

Another advantage, which is especially important for keyboard encoders, is that the data packet can be more than 8 bytes. This means ALL buttons are sent to the host at the same time, every time. This has many benefits, especially in fighting games which rely on simultaneously-pressed buttons. It also means that there is no limit on the number of buttons which can be pressed and recognised together.

Using Full Speed USB with its larger and more frequent packets also has clear advantages on trackball and spinner interfaces with no spin-speed limit.

Other changes in our products from those past days are the I-PAC 2 has gained 4 inputs making 32, as has the Mini-PAC. This board has revised harnessing and clearer layout with wiring split into sections of 8. It now has a mini-USB connector but does still support PS/2.

On the subject of PS/2 many people still order this option so we still fully support it. The boards auto-detect the type of interface as they always have done. The boards also still retain any custom configuration, but these days use flash rather than EEPROM.

Thanks for everyones support on here over the years, and hope to continue to serve in the future!

Andy

[javeryh]

Andy's products are awesome. 

That is all.

[drventure]

Andy's products are awesome. 

+1

[Sjaak]

I've got two I-PAC 2's from Andy. They are perfect!

[TopJimmyCooks]

My 2011 review of the iPac 2 - ps2 version. 

• It works as advertised, sends as many keypresses as I can bang out, as fast as I can bang them, as tested in notepad.  I can slap 12 at a time pretty reliably.
• Screw terminals are very nice to use
• Shift function on P1 start is a nice feature and it is well thought out and doesn't interfere with anything else when not in use.
• PS-2 allows me to have 1 PS-2 keyboard, 1 mouse (trackball interface) and 1 joystick (u360) so there's no possibility of usb order giving concern.  There are other ways around this but this has worked great for my swappable panels.
• WiniPac software worked well for me - 10 minutes to set up my own panel layout and good to go.
• That is all.  It's a mature product and everybody knows what it does/how it works so no need to go into that.

Recommended.  Thanks.

[Donkbaca]

 

[Cynicaster]

I've got iPac2, and it works perfectly.

I also have a U-Trak USB trackball, for which I originally posted a luke-warm review on this site.  I'd definitely like to retract that review and say that it is a fantastic product.  What I didn't know was that it just needed to be broken in a bit.

[telengard]

As the old "Tiger Heli" review from 2005 seems to have been resurrected on another thread, I really need to point out that many of our products have changed since those days.

The greatest change has been the move to Full Speed USB. Our I-PAC, J-PAC, Mini-PAC, Opti-PAC and A-PAC all have used Full Speed USB for a while, along with trackball and spinner interfaces.

First what is Full Speed USB? Its a standard introduced in USB 1.1 and runs at 12 Mbps. The device must have a Full Speed USB port as its not possible to emulate USB (any flavor) in software.
How does this relate to USB 2.0? This depends on how you define USB 2.0. If you define it as the faster speed which was introduced when USB 2.0 was launched, its not USB 2.0. There are no keyboard or other game interfaces which use USB 2.0 by this definition, nor will there be, as its not suited to this type of device. It is designed for streaming large amounts of data. Moving faster than Full Speed USB would produce no noticeable speed increase on an interface of this type since the data packets are so tiny.

So what are the benefits of Full Speed USB over Low Speed USB (the original standard for keyboard and button type devices)?
Firstly there is the obvious advantage of the data getting to the host quicker. But this is unlikely to be measurable as, again, the packets are so small.

But there are other much more important advantages. Firstly, with Full Speed USB, its possible to configure any poll interval in the device and the host will follow. If we specify a 2 ms interval, which we do, the refresh rate of the device is 500 times per second. Low speed USB does not allow the device to specify the interval, its always 8 ms. Of course too fast a refresh rate is counter-productive as it gives the host controller more to do, and the device itself might not be able to keep up and respond to all host polls. At the end of the day MAME polls the controls at much longer intervals anyway.

Another advantage, which is especially important for keyboard encoders, is that the data packet can be more than 8 bytes. This means ALL buttons are sent to the host at the same time, every time. This has many benefits, especially in fighting games which rely on simultaneously-pressed buttons. It also means that there is no limit on the number of buttons which can be pressed and recognised together.

Using Full Speed USB with its larger and more frequent packets also has clear advantages on trackball and spinner interfaces with no spin-speed limit.

Other changes in our products from those past days are the I-PAC 2 has gained 4 inputs making 32, as has the Mini-PAC. This board has revised harnessing and clearer layout with wiring split into sections of 8. It now has a mini-USB connector but does still support PS/2.

On the subject of PS/2 many people still order this option so we still fully support it. The boards auto-detect the type of interface as they always have done. The boards also still retain any custom configuration, but these days use flash rather than EEPROM.

Thanks for everyones support on here over the years, and hope to continue to serve in the future!

Andy

Hi Andy,

I have quite old Opti and I-Pacs (PS2 and serial).  Are there issues with these that would make it worth upgrading to USB?  I'm not familiar with the "old issues".

~telengard

[captainobvious]

Hi Andy,

I have quite old Opti and I-Pacs (PS2 and serial).  Are there issues with these that would make it worth upgrading to USB?  I'm not familiar with the "old issues".

~telengard

I'd like to know this, too. (I have an old I-PAC)

Also: what difference in input latency are we looking at, going from PS/2 to USB 2.0?

[AndyWarne]

There is no real reason to upgrade from PS/2 to USB on an I-PAC if everything is working.

Opti-PAC, yes, serial is a slow interface even at its maximum speed and it is easily possible to reach the maximum data rate and packet size (8 bits) using a trackball or spinner via serial. USB gives a definite advantage here.

Andy

[Vigo]

  Everything from Ultimarc is awesome. I once had a problem with an ipac4 I received, and Andy took care of it and got me a replacement quicker than Flash Gordon. Everything else, including my replacement ipac4 has worked flawlessly and without any fail. I will reccomend Ultimarc to anyone without hesitation. 

[Corbo]

Ultimarc is awesome +1

I managed to knock something of off the minipac when I was mounting it to my cabinet, I'm not an electronics bod, but it looked important.  I kicked myself and was resigned that I'd have to buy another one.

Plugged it in to test it, everything works 100%, awesome! 

[Scott84]

Andy is amazing. Ordered something friday, got it today! From England to Mississauga, Ontario, Canada...

I bought two. Already added one to my barcade project, the other one will be installed on my portable two player panel any day now


Thanks Andy!