old ps-2 groovy game gear keywiz not working with usb adapter

[wallyhooker]

Hi All!

The old XP computer in my home made MAME arcade was starting to die on me, so I replaced the pc with a newer Dell with windows 7 64 bit, which has no ps2 ports.  I purchased this usb to ps2 adapter: 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008DFVQFW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

My Happ ps2 trackball works great, and an old ps2 keyboard also works fine.  But when I connect my keywiz, it does nothing.  It doesn't work in Mame32 or anywhere else in Windows.  I hooked back up the old XP pc and the keywiz still works there.  Connected the new Dell back up, the keywiz doesn't work.

Is there a trick to getting it to work with this USB adapter, or do I just need to buy a new USB encoder?

Thanks!
Wally

[JimmyU]

I had this problem with a P/S2 iPac I had. The short answer is that you're using the wrong type of adapter. Here's the one you want:

You can get them on Ebay for ~$1 shipped from China. It might take a couple weeks to get.

[wallyhooker]

Good call!  I think I have one of those laying around at home.  I will test this evening and report back.

Thanks,
Wally

[RandyT]

A passive adapter will not work.

I'd try a different active adapter.  There were reviews on Amazon which indicated compatibility and performance problems with the one you linked to.  I'm using a cheap <$4 unit on my PS/2 keyboard, which doesn't exhibit the issues mentioned in those reviews. It may be difficult to find decent one, as many like to release keys after a certain amount of time.

Keep in mind, however, that these adapters suffer from another limitation, even when working properly.  They use the USB "boot" keyboard reports, which limit to 6 simultaneous keypresses (or about 9 if using the modifier keys included in the default MAME / KeyWiz config).  Not a big deal for single player, or two player games with  a couple of buttons, but multi-player fighters probably won't work well.  Also, as the software can no longer communicate directly with the hardware, the Uploader software won't function.  Again, not a big problem if you are using the defaults.

[wallyhooker]

Thanks Randy,

do you happen to know the make/model of the adapter you're using?

Wally

[RandyT]

do you happen to know the make/model of the adapter you're using?

Afraid I don't.  It was something I had purchased years ago and had sitting in my gadget box just in case I needed it.  No markings on it.  They all look pretty much the same, so physical appearance doesn't help either.  It's the code inside that's important, and there's only one way to know what that is going to do.

My personal cabinet still has the very first KeyWiz prototype I built ~12 years ago.  It's never failed me, and I really prefer it over other options.  So when I purchased a system recently to upgrade my cabinet, I made sure that it had at least one PS/2 keyboard compatible port on it, which wasn't hard to do.  That's really the best and simplest approach to use existing hardware after an upgrade.

[wallyhooker]

Thanks for getting back to me!  I'm going to just order a GP-Wiz40 MAX usb and attach all the existing wires to the new encoder.  I got 10 years out of the ps2 version, so I'm happy with that!

Wally