Which Happ Trackball with Opti-PAC

[Dink]

I did a search and didn't get a firm answer, but just checking myself here....  And I read the Opti-PAC FAQ.

If I go with an IPAC4 and Opti-PAC I can order the Happ 3" trackball with just  the AMOA harness (the $93 one)?  And I can wire my own mouse buttons with/for it?

What is the advantage of getting the Happ 3" trackball (the $154 one) with PS/2 USB interface?

[Tiger-Heli]

I'll answer your basic questions and then throw some other suggestions your way:

Question 1: Sortof, the $93.00 trackball will connect to the Opti-PAC with no problem.  For buttons, the opti-pac only supports two buttons (not three) per port. Of course, you could "fool" the opti-pac by connecting your third button as Trackball 2 button 1.  But you would have to configure MAME to reconize it this way.  You also can use any of the buttons that run through the I-PAC/4 in Trackball games.

Question 2: Basically, the only difference is you are running through the USB or PS/2 ports instead of the serial port, and you would not need to opti-pac at all for the trackball.

This doesn't matter at all for single trackball use, as the trackball gets assigned to the sysmouse and fights for cursor control, and MAME will recognize either one.

Hopefully urebelscum will read this and verify what I say here.

It becomes an issue when you purchase two (gulp . . .  $308 gulp. . . ) of these bad boys for dual trackball games.  Now you have major decisions to make, b/c standard MAME does not allow you to assign the second trackball to player 2.

Your options:  Only if you are running Win98 or WinME, you can use  MAME Analog+ http://www.urebelscum.speedhost.com/ to assign the trackball to player 2, but it only works with USB devices, hence you need the HAPPS interface (or a mouse hack).

OTOH, you can also assign this using the serial and PS/2 ports in standard DOS MAME, which is where the Opti-PAC comes in (one opti-pac for both trackball so ONLY $230), drawback is you have to use DOS MAME for your dual trackball games, and prolly mamew or mame32 for the other games.  Advantage is you can run DOS MAME in a windows box under 95, 98, ME, NT, or XP, and maybe 2000.

If this didn't confuse you enough, here are some suggestions:

www.betson.com sells the Imperial 3-inch trackball with a PS/2 Interface for (I think) $80.00.

http://www.wicothesource.com/new2/pages/page89.htm sells a 3-inch trackball for $49.99, which works great with the Opti-Pac.

They don't make an interface for it.  Not sure if Happs USB interface would support it or not, but that gets to pricey for my taste.

It can be hacked (with minimal soldering skills) to an older (non Logitech) PS/2 mouse using the procedures  http://mamewah.mameworld.net/MouseHack.html and http://members.shaw.ca/bakaye/tballhack.htm

I'm still trying to find if there is a suitable USB mouse hack for this as most PC's (all PC's ?) have only one PS/2 port.  A more complicated (but still cheap) working USB mouse hack is http://www.cheeptech.com/cuhack.html, but this requires mounting the original mouse optics where they will pick up the trackball encoder wheel movements.

Also, getting way off the wall here, I saw on some web site a connector for hooking a PS/2 mouse and keyboard to a USB port (for laptops).  Does anyone know if these would work with MAME analog + and a trackball running through a hacked PS/2 mouse?  

[Tiger-Heli]

A couple more things:

www.therealbobroberts.com has the Happ 3" trackball for $75.00 if you are dead set on sticking with Happ.

I looked through my notes again:  For dual trackballs, the Opti-PAC works great in Pure DOS and the USB hacks work great in Win 98 or ME with MAME Analog +.

To use the Opti-PAC in any flavor of WinDoze with DOS MAME, you have to boot the PC with the second serial port disconnected.  Then, connect it and load the second mouse driver (from a batch file) when you start DOS mame.  Then disconnect it when you reboot again.  It's pretty workable if you don't reboot your cab/computer often, but a pain otherwise.

[u_rebelscum]

Tiger-Heli answered almost everything   , but I'll add my 2 cents.

Question 2: Basically, the only difference is you are running through the USB or PS/2 ports instead of the serial port, and you would not need to opti-pac at all for the trackball.

This doesn't matter at all for single trackball use, as the trackball gets assigned to the sysmouse and fights for cursor control, and MAME will recognize either one.

Hopefully urebelscum will read this and verify what I say here.

verified, with two small notes.  
If you are going to use only one trackball, there's very little difference, except that often serial is slower than PS/2 which is often slower than USB mice, but if happs optical sensors are the bottleneck, then no difference.
XP and 2000 work better with PS/2 and USB, while dos works only with PS/2 and serial, so there is a little OS dependency

It becomes an issue when you purchase two (gulp . . .  $308 gulp. . . ) of these bad boys for dual trackball games.  Now you have major decisions to make, b/c standard MAME does not allow you to assign the second trackball to player 2.

Your options:  Only if you are running Win98 or WinME, you can use  MAME Analog+ http://www.urebelscum.speedhost.com/ to assign the trackball to player 2, but it only works with USB devices, hence you need the HAPPS interface (or a mouse hack).

OTOH, you can also assign this using the serial and PS/2 ports in standard DOS MAME, which is where the Opti-PAC comes in (one opti-pac for both trackball so ONLY $230), drawback is you have to use DOS MAME for your dual trackball games, and prolly mamew or mame32 for the other games.  Advantage is you can run DOS MAME in a windows box under 95, 98, ME, NT, or XP, and maybe 2000.

People have had problems with dos mame in XP & 2000.  You won't be able to get that second trackball working seperately, anyway, in XP or 2000 (driver problem) with dos mame.  So you are really limited to dos, 95, 98, & ME if you want two trackballs with dos mame, and just dos if you don't want to do the "plug in second trackball after windows boots, and start it's driver" hassle

www.betson.com sells the Imperial 3-inch trackball with a PS/2 Interface for (I think) $80.00.

http://www.wicothesource.com/new2/pages/page89.htm sells a 3-inch trackball for $49.99, which works great with the Opti-Pac.

They don't make an interface for it.  Not sure if Happs USB interface would support it or not, but that gets to pricey for my taste.

It works: I've tried the betson non-ps/2, the wico, and the happs trackballs on the happs USB interface, and they all work.  And it does get pricey.  Oh, I haven't tested two happs USB interfaces hooked at the same time with Mame:Analog+, but should work.

[StLouisRod]

I ordered a REAL Golden Tee 2000 3" trackball from www.gatorcade.com for $65.00 (i think), then easily soldered the wires to the guts of a used Microsoft mouse that I bought for $3.00.  Works perfectly!  No over-correction when spun quickly, plus looks great.  As with any trackball, prepare for a major routing job on the underside of your control panel...  the shape of trackballs can be infuriatingly difficult to route out.