IPAC question

[shirkle]

I'm just getting a mame cabnet together, and right now I have the IPAC hooked up to a 4way stick and a few buttons.  
I don't even have mame on the computer yet, so I was testing out the Ipac on a regular document.  Everything appeared to be fine, except left and right.
As where up/down would go up or down continuously until I stopped pushing the joystick in that direction, the left/right would only move one space regardless of whether I held the stick in that direction or not.

Would that be normal?  I assumed it should go continuously because of the movements in the games I'll be playing.

What could be wrong with it that's making it not recognize that I'm holding those switches down?

[Apollo]

Sounds like you have wired up the microswitches incorrectly or you have a short somewhere. Microswitches need to be wired to Gnd and NO, not NC.

[shirkle]

Nope...I'm using good old leaf switches.  So the connection is definitely being made.

[hooded_paladin]

The left/right thing could just be your document program.

install MAME and test it.  A download of mame and a small rom shouldn't be hard.

or some other program (maybe one that expects an arcade-style controller, rather than a document program   )

[shirkle]

I thought it might be the program also (notepad).  So, I hooked the keyboard up through the i-pac, and held down the left and right keys, which would be the same as the joystick.  Low and behold, the cursor moved continuously until I let go of the key.  Yet, when I do that with the joystick, it doesn't work.  I'm confused as to how that could possibly be.

[Tiger-Heli]

I'm just getting a mame cabnet together, and right now I have the IPAC hooked up to a 4way stick and a few buttons.  
I don't even have mame on the computer yet, so I was testing out the Ipac on a regular document.  Everything appeared to be fine, except left and right.
As where up/down would go up or down continuously until I stopped pushing the joystick in that direction, the left/right would only move one space regardless of whether I held the stick in that direction or not.

Would that be normal?  I assumed it should go continuously because of the movements in the games I'll be playing.

What could be wrong with it that's making it not recognize that I'm holding those switches down?

This is normal.  From my encoder comparision page - OTOH, the I-PAC supports key repeat on the 1 Up and 1 Down inputs only in PS/2 Mode.

[gthyb]

yeah, this is normal.  i just ordered my ipac yesterday, and the site said that keyrepeat is enabled for UP/DOWN for easy scrolling through menus.  you can also turn it off.

[AndyWarne]

Yes that is normal. Correct, MAME does not use repeat so there is no reason to clutter up the PS/2 interface with continuous "key down" keycodes. The up/down key repeat is specifically intended for the MAME32 game selection menu which does benefit from key repeat. If you do need repeat on all keys in PS/2 mode, I can arrange this.

Andy