Question, Keywiz and optipac...

[JamesS]

Do they work together.  Or do I have to have an Ipac to use the Optipac?

I have not seen this question asked yet.

I should add, I was thinking of getting me an Oscar Spinner and then a trackball to build my spinner/trackball panel.

[eightbit]

An ipac/keywiz is for keyboard input. An optipac is for optical input. They are independant of each other.

What type of trackball are you going to use? You need to decide that before you decide to buy a optipac. I would recomend a TB with a ps2 interface and then I would tell you to buy a USB Oscar interface for your spinner. Thats just my opinion though...

[JamesS]

Well I am making swappable panels, will those two work in that configuration.  I imagine I could get some extension cable for the PS2 and the USB.

[crashwg]

I personally like that when using the optipac, only one device works at a time, so if you accidentally hit the TB when using the spinner, nothing will happen.

If you're not familiar with this feature, here's a description of how it works:

When not using either trackball (TB) or spinner (SP) the Optipac is in sortof a "standbuy" i guess you'd call it.

If you start to use the TB the SP won't work untill you stop using the TB for a given amount of time (I think it's 5 or 10 sec.)  The same goes for the reverse, If you use the SP first the TB will be rendered useless until you stop using the SP for the given amount of time.

In conclusion, I think I'm going to get the optipac, but that doesn't mean you have to (obviously).  
Alot of people on this board try to discourage the purchase of the optipac saying that it is "overpriced" and you can just hack a mouse or even buy a pre-hacked mouse from somewhere, I don't remember where, but someone will chime in on that I'm sure.

Anyway, I know this post wasn't intended as a Optipac vs other method rumble, and I hope it doesn't turn into one, but I thought this information would be helpful because you don't seam to know much about the optipac (no offense if you do of course) ok, I'm done now...

Realy, that's it.

Oh yea, this is all just my opinion and I am in no way affiliated with Ultimarc

[RandyT]

Do they work together.  Or do I have to have an Ipac to use the Optipac?

I can't say that I tried it, but as eightbit mentioned, they are separate interfaces.

You should be able to use the 5v out terminal of the KeyWiz to power the Optipac should you desire to do so (probably only necessary with an RS-232 serial connection).  Other than that, they wouldn't have much to do with each other.

RandyT