Idea for multiple mice in XP! (that might actually work)

[Lilwolf]

Don't emulate a mouse, but a stylus!

There  are professional stylus's that have higher resolutions, but also have more information then the system pointer can give.  I don't know how their drivers work, and how hard it is to get the location.... But perfessional artists don't use them as a 'mouse'

why?

because a mouse doesn't have the concept of how hard your pressing.  These do.  

I'm not 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure that they can be considered a non-system mouse

[x-wing]

The next question would be... If a stylus isn't recognized as a system mouse, would mame see it?  Or perhaps a mod the mame source would be necessary?  Do the stylus drivers allow simulataneous stylii ( )?

Good find, Lilwolf.  I'm sure u_rebel will pick up on this thread shortly, and maybe he will have some ideas.

[Lilwolf]

I don't have a good stylus... actually I have a total crap one thats about to be sent back.

the reason?  It advertised 256 degrees of pressure... so the harder you press, the thicker the line.  

Well, then I realized that the mouse driver couldn't do this by itself... and it must have its own interface to get that.

they could do something combining a mouse and an analog controller, but I don't think so.  I'm pretty sure the good stylus's use their own interface.

now if we could find a driver that lets a serial mouse or usb mouse act like a stylus (so you can use a mouse in applications that only allow a stylus).....  Then modify mame so that it can take  a stylus as an option.... We should be able to get multiple mice.

At least... in theory

[1UP]

No good.  I have a Wacom tablet (the standard in the graphics industry).  I just started up Missile Command out of curiosity and tried my pen.  It gets the input, but the cursor just jumps randomly around the screen.  When I put the pen down and grab the mouse, it works normally.

I think the system just sees it as another mouse, and the specific graphic apps that can accept pressure input see the pressure data.  In non-graphic apps, pressure on the tip equals a mouse click or drag.  In order to use the pressure feature of the tablet, the app must be tablet compatible.  This used to require a patch that made the app compatible, but in recent years, most apps have this funtionality built-in.

Anyway, the tablet software emulates a mouse in windows, but the output appears garbled in Mame, possibly because its position info is absolute, not relative like a mouse.  The tablet it positional--if you place the pen tip on the upper-right corner of the tablet, the pointer goes to the upper right corner of the screen, and if you pick the pen up and touch it down in the lower left corner, the arrow jumps to the lower left corner of the screen.  When you move a mouse left, it just goes left.  If you pick up the mouse and move it left again, the arrow moves further left, and so on, until it bumps into the edge of the screen.  So the input method is different, but I don't know if you could have Mame see it as a separate device.  It just fights with the mouse for pointer control just like any other mouse.

It seems like a pretty roundabout way to get another mouse, to write a tablet driver for Mame, then tricking Mame into thinking that your mouse is a tablet...    Since I've never gotten my tab to move separately from my mouse, it doesn't seem like it would work.

I would think that you could more easily do a hardware hack to make the second trackball send impulses to the comp (maybe thru a hacked gamepad), thereby emulating a joystick.  It seems to me that I heard about a trackball that did exactly this.  Maybe it was the Atari 2600 trackball... not sure.

[Howard_Casto]

No good.  I have a Wacom tablet (the standard in the graphics industry).  I just started up Missile Command out of curiosity and tried my pen.  It gets the input, but the cursor just jumps randomly around the screen.  When I put the pen down and grab the mouse, it works normally.

I think the system just sees it as another mouse, and the specific graphic apps that can accept pressure input see the pressure data.  In non-graphic apps, pressure on the tip equals a mouse click or drag.  In order to use the pressure feature of the tablet, the app must be tablet compatible.  This used to require a patch that made the app compatible, but in recent years, most apps have this funtionality built-in.

Anyway, the tablet software emulates a mouse in windows, but the output appears garbled in Mame, possibly because its position info is absolute, not relative like a mouse.  The tablet it positional--if you place the pen tip on the upper-right corner of the tablet, the pointer goes to the upper right corner of the screen, and if you pick the pen up and touch it down in the lower left corner, the arrow jumps to the lower left corner of the screen.  When you move a mouse left, it just goes left.  If you pick up the mouse and move it left again, the arrow moves further left, and so on, until it bumps into the edge of the screen.  So the input method is different, but I don't know if you could have Mame see it as a separate device.  It just fights with the mouse for pointer control just like any other mouse.

It seems like a pretty roundabout way to get another mouse, to write a tablet driver for Mame, then tricking Mame into thinking that your mouse is a tablet...    Since I've never gotten my tab to move separately from my mouse, it doesn't seem like it would work.

I would think that you could more easily do a hardware hack to make the second trackball send impulses to the comp (maybe thru a hacked gamepad), thereby emulating a joystick.  It seems to me that I heard about a trackball that did exactly this.  Maybe it was the Atari 2600 trackball... not sure.

While I'll agree that this method seems to be rather fruitless, I believe that your test lacks any validity what-so-ever.  Mame obviously wouldn't work with the pen as it isn't coded for it.  Also referring to the absolute value....  Tablet drivers are very tricky, they generally are mouse drivers, but with a twist.  You see when you press down on the pad the driver is sent a pair of axis for the positon of the pen on the pad.  The drivers take this value and forcefully repositon the cursor to that spot by calculating the screen res and the current cursor positon ect.  Anyway, my point and I'm sure lilwolfs point was that there are at least 3 distinct axis, all of which can manipulate the cursor and all of which can work independantly of a system mouse.  

The only problem I have with it is this:  

Professional graphics artists don't use windows!  I've never seen a windows setup that used multiple, independant cursors, not even in cad design.  Now on linux and macs i have, but not windows.  

[SirPoonga]

1UP, try the wacom in it's different modes?

Though I don't think it would work anyway.  My friend has had alot of issues getting his waycom to work with games.  The only one we found that it works perfectly for, sicne that is the way the game was designed, it Black & White.

[Lilwolf]

Probably right...  

The main trouble is even if there is another way to get the values (which mame could be modified to catch), they still send to the system mouse at the same time (for mouse compatibility).

So unless you could disable the mouse functionality, it would mess up the other trackball/lightgun/whatever anyway.

Was a thought..

It might be time for me to see if there are any opensource usb mouse drivers around... Might be time to have add a special hook for mame.  But if I was going to do that, I would want to contact actlabs first... I don't want to bother them since they are obviously spending a lot of time fixing bugs with the lightgun... they don't need any interuptions

[u_rebelscum]

Been out this weekend, so I'm late to this thread.  Looks like most everything been talked about, but I wonder about three things:

• What about two stylus pads at one time?  Are they separate from each other?
  
• Mame's lightgun input is programmed to read the absolute values; does the stylus work better in a lightgun game (term2, etc)?  (aside: a lighgun to stylus hack maybe?)
  
• What info is past from the pad to the driver, and what the driver does to the data?   (guess: pad sends absolute (x,y) coordinates, driver translates to relavitive data, passes it to windows, windows converts data back to absolute coordinates of mouse pointer?)

Also, I was at the comp store today, and finally got to really mess around with winXP's mouse control panel.  I have to say XP is better set up for multiple input devices to control the one system mouse pointer than winMe/98: each device with it's own settings in different windows, somewhat like joysticks.  Which just really makes the fact the winMe/98 can do multiple input devices to multiple players, and winXP can't, less logical.  WinXP is setup like how I was complaining it should be in other threads (I was wrong), and the input manufacturer's drivers work better side-byside than in winMe/98.  
Anyway, I was looking for a data flow stream chart of mouse data for winXP w/ directX on the web, but couldn't find anything.  Anybody have a link or book ref that goes into this?

[Xiaou2]

 
Hi there,


  No matter how many... the pads will always control the system mouse - and fight with each other.  

  Last time I had my pad hooked up, it worked with lightgun games... but not standard mouse games.
(because of exact coordinates -vs- incremental movment)

 Not sure about how the data is handled.   I do know that a pad have either 256 or 512 levels of pressure sensitivity.  Sure, you can make devices pass data to windows... but windows is the boss ultimately.  Only thing may be to get someone to hack/patch windows.

   

[1UP]

While I'll agree that this method seems to be rather fruitless, I believe that your test lacks any validity what-so-ever.  Mame obviously wouldn't work with the pen as it isn't coded for it.  Also referring to the absolute value....  Tablet drivers are very tricky, they generally are mouse drivers, but with a twist.  You see when you press down on the pad the driver is sent a pair of axis for the positon of the pen on the pad.  The drivers take this value and forcefully repositon the cursor to that spot by calculating the screen res and the current cursor positon ect.  Anyway, my point and I'm sure lilwolfs point was that there are at least 3 distinct axis, all of which can manipulate the cursor and all of which can work independantly of a system mouse.

Well...Howie...redrum...sorry about my utterly invalid testing techniques, but there was no reason for me to believe that the test would be invalid.  Other devices I use in Mame get their support from Windows drivers, so why wouldn't the tablet be the same?  My Dual Strike gamepad is not a real mouse, but it's capable of functioning as one in Mame, thru the mouse emulation in the driver settings, under Windows.  Also, most tablets these days get their positional data thru electromagnetic signals from the pen, not from pressure on the tablet, and the data is updated constantly, in real time.  The tablets most commonly used are completely devoid of pressure sensors in the pad, they are merely grids of wires that receive positional and pressure data transmitted from the pen.  You can actually lift the pen slightly from the tablet to move the cursor in real-time, without touching the pad at all.

The only problem I have with it is this:  

Professional graphics artists don't use windows!

Gosh, really?    Don't believe the Mac hype.  I happen to be a professional graphic artist in LA, and know for a fact that most places I've ever worked use Windows systems.  Not exactly sure what the point of your all-exclusive statement was there...  Actually, it depends on what area of graphics you're involved in.  Most CG effects houses in the film industry are small shops of 10-50 artists, using PCs running Windows 2000 Pro (though there are a lot of Linux render farms), and they all use graphics tablets for texture and matte painting.  (We have 5 of them in our little studio.)  You see, these places usually need racks and racks full of machines to do lots of rendering, and for what they do, PCs are the most cost effective. And Windows still supports more software and hardware than any other platform.  Places that are strictly design related (no animation involved) such as ad and web design houses, are more likely to use Macs for purely aesthetic reasons, or just plain techno-snobbery (Macs sure do look purty and sparkly...)  You really shouldn't make such sweeping statements.  

Having used both Macs and Windows systems with the same tablets, I can tell you that under MacOS, the mouse and tablet still fight over the cursor, just like Windows.  Now I'm sure there are ways to get multiple cursors, but it's not exactly plug & play...