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someone please explain why i shouldnt...
jee dog:
here is what I have:
a full size cabinet with all working parts.
here is what i want to do:
gut it, including the monitor, and replace it with a mame setup with a pc monitor (so no fuzziness when i use it as a pc & I want standard pc games to look good too) and working keyboard so it can serve as a mame machine and pc. I only want a controller board with just regular mame function buttons (esc...etc) and two joysticks, and 7 buttons each (for SF2/SNK style layout), and two extra buttons for player 1 & 2.
here is an idea from a friend of mine for controller setup:
Use two usb gravis gamepads and hack them for two players. Wire them for buttons & joysticks.
hack one keyboard for mame functions & wire them to seperate buttons, and use another keyboard in a slide out tray for typing. I heard that I can use a sort of pass through device to do this.
This simplistic approach allows me to avoid using special encoders like the i-pac. All I want to know is: Is this method going to work? I think I would only get ghosting on the mame function buttons but that wouldnt matter anyway. Has anyone here done something similar?
btw:I dont care about older games like pacman that use 4 way joysticks. both of mine must be 8 way.
PS:No track ball either
me:
hey hey ;D
you are on my track...i use the ALMOST same setup..
i dont care about old stuff either...and game pad hack dont have any kind of ghosting..but i wont recomand keyboard hack to play...maybe just for ESC,START,etc...
there is no problem...and get keyboard spliter...thats it...
or you go the EASY way....get game pads that has atleast 10 INPUTS per game pad...then you use 14 buttons and still have 6 more buttons for other stuff...that saves ya trouble of hacking keyboard and get spliter...get the cheapest pad...like 10$ each...
ebgames.com
good luck
Jakobud:
If I were you I would not bother to hack anything. In my opinion, it's simply not worth the time/trouble considering that you really don't save that much money. If I were you, I would just buy a keyboard encoder. It does not sound like you are going to use very many buttons at all, so a keyboard encoder would not cost very much for you and it would be WAY easier than spending all the time hacking something. Do either the IPAC/JPAC thing, or take a look at
http://www.hagstromelectronics.com/
They also have excellent keyboard and mouse encoders and good prices. That's where I got my encoders and I am VERY satisfied with them.
Like I said, don't hack. It's not worth the time or trouble and doesn't really save you that much money. Only hack if you really do enjoy hacking stuff like that and you want to do it for fun also.
Good luck
Jakobud
u_rebelscum:
Since you want to play PC games too, I'd say you are on the right track. Mame and most PC games are already set up to use gamepads or keyboards, but they may use different keys than each other. With gamepads, you're pretty safe that all the games (mame & PC) will use the same buttons. And if you have enough extra buttons from the gamepad, you can map them to what is normally the [tab], [esc], player start, & player coin keys, instead of hacking a keyboard also.
However, hacking the gamepads is harder than just buying and using an encoder. And like Jakobud said, the price of one ipac isn't much more than two USB gamepads. [shrug] If you're pretty good at hacking electronics (or have a good control of your temper), go ahead and hack the gamepads. (use mame or mame32, not dmame, if you hack USB gamepads.)
slug54:
That is similar to what I did for my first project
a desktop controller. I built Stephan Hans keyboard splitter circuit hacked a couple of game pads and a keyboard . I used the keyboard for esc, coins, tab , etc
not for player controls and it works great 3 years of abuse and have had no troubles with it. When I built my cab I went with the I-pac of all the money I dropped on my cab the Ipac was the best investment. I would have to reccomend the Hack only for smaller desktop style controllers. With a Cab there is so much more you can do with it when you re-map your controls using an encoder. The hack was a lot of work but also a lot of fun . after about my 3rd trip to radio $hack I can't say that the hack was any cheaper.
Slug54