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Spinners: how they work
Gideon:
Hi, everyone. Lately, I've been getting excited over the possibilty of using a spinner on my control panel. I had been planning on purchasing one from Oscar Controls, but I've since lost some interest. So, I'd like to learn a little about how they work, and in the process of asking questions, I'll tell you my story.
I'm running Win98 (note the absence of "SE"). Actually, my computer boots straight into DOS7. There is no USB support. I play my spinner games like I do all other games in MAME--with a keyboard. The spinner controls are, by default, mapped to the left and right arrows.
I want to get a spinner and hook it up to an I-Pac. It seems like it would work. Right now, I play spinner games on a keyboard, and the I-Pac is... well, a keyboard. But, for some reason, it seems to be little more complicated. According to the Oscar website, I can't do this; I'll have to buy an optical encoder, as opposed to a keyboard encoder.
That's understandable, in a way. A spinner works differently than a keyboard.
My question is, why can't the spinner do things differently and make a closed circuit every time that little wheel goes past the light beam? In this way, it would work just like a microswitch, and I could hook it up to the KeyWiz or I-Pac or whatever. Help, please.
Lilwolf:
They work like mice..
it would be a polling issue mainly (why not to do it with a keyboard)... because you can expect that there are about 40+ keys on a mouses encoder wheel... so for ever turn of that small ball bearing in the mouse, it would click the keyboard 40 times. I don't believe you could get even the best mouse on the market to handle few thousand keys in less then a second.
I believe that you can use the Oscars USB mouse hack to work with a USB -> PS2 converter. This will allow you to use dos without problems.
Gideon:
--- Quote from: Lilwolf on April 20, 2004, 06:15:33 am ---They work like mice..
it would be a polling issue mainly (why not to do it with a keyboard)... because you can expect that there are about 40+ keys on a mouses encoder wheel... so for ever turn of that small ball bearing in the mouse, it would click the keyboard 40 times.
--- End quote ---
Hmm... I was following you, but I don't understand what you mean by 40+ keys on the encoder.
NoOne=NBA=:
--- Quote from: Gideon on April 20, 2004, 06:03:12 am ---My question is, why can't the spinner do things differently and make a closed circuit every time that little wheel goes past the light beam? In this way, it would work just like a microswitch, and I could hook it up to the KeyWiz or I-Pac or whatever. Help, please.
--- End quote ---
That is basically what it does.
The optical encoders (Opti-pac/Mouse Hack/etc...) are necessary to read DIRECTION out of the mess of signals that get sent when you move it.
You could hook it to an I-pac, and it would know THAT you were moving, but couldn't determine WHERE you were moving.
nighthawk2099:
Actually, I don't think you could hook it to an Ipac since the signal from the spinner uses optics instead of micro switches or key strokes, thus a spinner require you to hook to an Opti-pac or Mouse hack (see above messages). It uses the same idea (if not exactly same idea) as your mouse, that's why many people can use old mice to build their own spinners.
What Lilwolf was saying about the 40+ keys means that, you see movement in spinner games by using the keyboard because of Repeated Key Press (you hold down the arrow key, and that key is passed over and over and over until you let go) each key pass is read as one step thus the movement. The optic wheel does the same thing (in a way) by turning an optic switch on/off/on at a higher rate of speed. Thus instead of the jerky movement with a key press, the movement is smoother. Kind of like playing a driving game with a keyboard versus a steering wheel.
Ok... my head hurts, I'm babbling.... and prob. screwed the whole thing up..... If I am REALLY out in left field, somebody please correct me. ;D