Uh oh... ran out of buttons on my I-PAC2...

[sofakng]

Well, due to poor planning on my part I have a problem.

I'm building my control panel and I have an I-PAC2.  My overlay artwork (already printed) is designed for a couple of extra buttons, only about 3.  These 3 are administration buttons (game pause, game options, etc) but I thought I was going to have enough spots on the I-PAC to put everything.

Here are my buttons:

1) Player 1 -- 7 buttons
2) Player 2 -- 7 buttons
3) Player 1 Joystick -- 4 buttons
4) Player 2 Joystick -- 4 buttons
5) Administration buttons -- 4 buttons
6) Start buttons -- 2 buttons
7) Credit buttons -- 2 buttons

(I also have another 4-way joystick with buttons, but they will share the player #1 buttons)

Total = 30 buttons

The I-PAC2 only has 28 inputs.  Now I also have an Opti-Pac and that has spots for two buttons-- left and right mouse button (which I also use on my control panel).

So am I stuck?  Is there a trick I'm missing to squeeze two more buttons out of this keyboard encoder?  

I've purchased it about 6 weeks ago (but never hooked it up yet), but I doubt I can exchange it for an I-PAC4.  I'm not sure I'd want to though just for two lousy buttons, but at the same time I don't want two useful buttons sitting on my control panel.

Any suggestions?

[whammoed]

I have no idea if this would work, but perhaps you could set up a shift function on the ipac.  Say player1 start and player1 button 1 = something.  Then wire up a button that would trigger both player1 start and player1 button1. (attatch both wires to the NO position of the microswitch)  Again, not sure it would work, just a thought.  And I hope that made sense!

[MrBond]

Exactly what I was thinking!   ...but I don't know if it would work or not...

[RayB]

Personally I always though the 7 button layout is overkill. So perhaps you can remove those two extra buttons from that layout.... Just color one of the 6 differently, for games that need only 1 button.

[MrBond]

I have no idea if this would work, but perhaps you could set up a shift function on the ipac.  Say player1 start and player1 button 1 = something.  Then wire up a button that would trigger both player1 start and player1 button1. (attatch both wires to the NO position of the microswitch)  Again, not sure it would work, just a thought.  And I hope that made sense!

I just tried this out.  I connected both my shift key and down (a button that has a shift function: p for pause) to the same button.  When the button was pressed, the IPAC registered the down button first, then when I let go, it registered '1' (my shift key).  Some times I could get both 1 and down to register at the same time, but never 'p'.  I was using leaf switches, but I doubt it will be any different for microswitches.
Curious if anyone gets this to work...

[NoOne=NBA=]

Most people don't wire all 7 buttons in a 7 button pattern.
They wire them like this.

    6   5   4
4   3   2   1

That lets two buttons be wired to the same terminal, so it would save you two terminals.

[Xphile]

if worse comes to worse, you could sell it here (for what you paid for it, probably..:-) and get a keywiz which has 32 inputs, plus..umm..well I'll paste the blurb:-)

"The Shazaaam! Key.   Like the shift key on a keyboard, the Shazaaam! Key lets 24 of your buttons have an alternate key assignment.  The Shazaaam! Key does not take away an input, so all 32 inputs are always available for use.  Another unique Shazaaam! feature is that, with an additional low-cost adapter, any switch can be modified to send a code from the alternate set with a single button press!  This means you can have up to 24 additional  switches for secondary functions, and still have all 32 inputs available for primary controls.")

http://www.groovygamegear.com/Page4.html

[sirwoogie]

This has certainly been the "problems wiring up my CP with an iPAC" day on this forum.

As others have stated, you might want to double duty button 4 on your player layouts. Why so many admin functions? Since you have printed the CP already, you're a little out of luck, but having more than one admin key seems a little redundant once you factor in shift keys. I have my shift mapped to (p), and then all the other functions (tab, ~, escape, etc) are shifts. If you do the double wire of button 4, only, you'd have just enough.

Using the optipac may be the second parachute, but you'd have to go redo your controller files to split off mouse buttons 1 and 2. If you have a tornado, you have access to three mouse buttons instead of just two on the optipac.

[Kremmit]

Or, if you don't want to use a shift key, you could do a very basic keyboard hack & run it through the keyboard pass-thru.  If you only want two buttons, it's not like you have to trace the whole keyboard matrix & do all the tricks to avoid ghosting.

[Sylentwulf]

Noone has the answer up there.
Ya know, that is not easy to say.... lemme try again.
Noone NBA has your answer. 7 buttons for player 1 and 2 only take 6 inputs each. The 7th button is wired to 1 or 4.

[sofakng]

Ahh, ok.  

Are you sure that I don't need 7 buttons per player for any games?

My button layout is like this:

x x x x
x x x

Should i make it:

1 2 3 4
4 5 6

or...

6 5 4 3
3 2 1

Thanks for the help!  As long as there are no games requiring 7 buttons I'll be fine.  I do want to hookup a dreamcast in the future, but I can wire two buttons to one terminal for the I-PAC, and then wire it as a unique button the dreamcast, right?

Thanks!

[Tiger-Heli]

You have the following options:

1)  Wire the extra 2 buttons to the Opti-pac and set MAME up to use Mouse button 0 and Mouse Button 1 for the Admin functions.

2)  Combine button 7 as mentioned above.

3)  Wire the I-PAC to activate the shift function with a single button press - this can be done with a Resistor/Capacitor circuit.  Andy had a diagram somewhere on ultimarc.com, but I can't find it now.  I'm also not sure if you can wire more than one button this way.  You could E-mail Andy about it, if this interests you, though.

[Hoagie_one]

you also dont nessesarily need 4 admin buttons.  Most of the admit features can be shift input with combinations of player1 button and joystick.

[Tiger-Heli]

you also dont nessesarily need 4 admin buttons.  Most of the admit features can be shift input with combinations of player1 button and joystick.

Right, but he already made the overlay to support them.  (White-out has no place on an arcade cab!)

[Hoagie_one]

Good point

[ErikRuud]

Use the two inputs on the Opti-Pac!

I use the two mouse inputs on my PS/2 trackball with no problems.

[sofakng]

Excellent, keep the suggestions coming!

I've thought about using the Opti-Pac left/right mouse buttons as admin buttons... However, on the control panel I also four more buttons:  "Left Mouse Button" and "Right Mouse Button" (two sets of these wired together, so really its only two buttons).

Now, I was going to wire these to the Opti-Pac, but I could wire them to the same player 1 button 1 and button 2.  That would mean I have four buttons wired to "player 1 button 1 and button 2" but thats OK.  

If I did that, I would free up Mouse Left / Right on the Opti-Pac...

Phew, anybody understand what I just said?

What would you do in my situation:

1) Remove player 1 and 2 button 7 and use those extra two buttons for the admin functions.

2) Connect my current mouse left + mouse right buttons to player 1's button 1 and button 2.  (thus freeing up mouse left / mouse right and using those two for the two admin buttons)

3) Ask Andy about one-button shift-key wiring.  I'm a bit clueless on this, but if I talk to Andy I could probably figure it out.

I'm leaning more towards option #1, but I'm really worried that I'll run into games that require 7 buttons per player.  Are there any of them like this?

[Tiger-Heli]

1) Remove player 1 and 2 button 7 and use those extra two buttons for the admin functions.

2) Connect my current mouse left + mouse right buttons to player 1's button 1 and button 2.  (thus freeing up mouse left / mouse right and using those two for the two admin buttons)

3) Ask Andy about one-button shift-key wiring.  I'm a bit clueless on this, but if I talk to Andy I could probably figure it out.

I'm leaning more towards option #1, but I'm really worried that I'll run into games that require 7 buttons per player.  Are there any of them like this?

My suggestions were in order of preference, but if you have labelled mouse buttons on the panel, that might kill that.

Option 2 is good.

There are no seven button games in MAME (except Mole Attack, 9 buttons but you can "borrow" 3 of P2's buttons for that).

Now if you wan't to talk console (Nintendo 64) emulation, there are lots of 4-player 8-button dual analog stick games, but that won't work with your set-up anyway.

[AndyWarne]

You could use the method of doubling up inputs using the shift function which is detailed here: www.ultimarc.com/extra_shift.html
Another option is to swap the board for a 32-input I-PAC VE which I can arrange if you drop me an email.
Andy

[Tiger-Heli]

You could use the method of doubling up inputs using the shift function which is detailed here: www.ultimarc.com/extra_shift.html

That was the page I meant.  Just out of curiosity, could the same concept work with two buttons using two capacitors and two resistors?

Another option is to swap the board for a 32-input I-PAC VE which I can arrange if you drop me an email.
Andy

Nice offer!  sofakng needs to know that the I-PAC VE is USB only and that it uses SDRAM, so custom codesets must be re-loaded from software, but as long as neither of those are a problem, that's a good option.

[Goz]

You could use the method of doubling up inputs using the shift function which is detailed here: www.ultimarc.com/extra_shift.html
Another option is to swap the board for a 32-input I-PAC VE which I can arrange if you drop me an email.
Andy

Andy proves once again that he rocks!

-Goz

[sofakng]

Excellent, thanks Andy!

I might take you up on the offer to switch to a I-PAC VE, but I'd much prefer to keep my IPAC-2 and wire up two extra buttons as you've shown.

However, I can't really follow the diagram.  The diodes I understand (and have used before),  but I've never used a capacitor or a resistor and I don't understand the electrical diagram...

Would anybody be kind enough to re-draw the diagram and explain a bit more?

If somebody would be so kind to do that, I'd be more than happy to make a nice webpage for it so that this information can be helpful to other newbies as well.

[said7]

Best button layout for me.

     5  1  6
  1 2  3  4

[sofakng]

Ok, I think I've figured out that diagram, thanks for Andy's help!  Thanks again Andy!

Now I need to decide which layout to use:

1 2 3 4
4 5 6

or

1 2 3 4
5 6 7

So, regardless of HOW I get it to work (I now have a choice so I don't need to use the Opti-Pac mouse buttons), I am able to fully choose between those two setups

Which of those layouts would you choose?

I plan on playing a lot of fighters, so I'm thinking I would want the top layout.  Otherwise my 3 punch buttons and 3 kick buttons wouldn't line up properly.

Any thoughts?

[Lilwolf]

btw, there IS a software only solution for you

wire all but the admin buttons (because you will ghosting if you don't).

Then for your admin button.  Create a dedicated shift button (say '*' for now... and 'z', 'x', 'c' for your bottom 3 buttons on player 1)

Next... you hook BOTH the shift key and one of your normal buttons to the admin keys.

so when pressing admin button 1, it actually pushes '*' AND 'z' at the same time... do the same for the other 4.

Next.. in mame

for admin 1, setup by pressing the button (* AND Z)

for button 1, press (from keyboard) z, *, *.... This shows up as Z NOT *

This will work as long as you arent using the admin buttons while pressing the main buttons... (if you do... then the main buttons will be ignored).  

This effectively creates a 2x28 matrix..

Other bad notes...

it will only work with mame.... Most other emulators wan'ts a dedicated ESC key to exit.  I'm not sure if howards wrappers will handle it properly.

But you COULD have ESC be one admin button and the shift be another.  This will probably take care of all your problems without wiring

[PedroSilva]

I thougth of something that might give 4 extra buttons and I would like to know if has anyone tried it and if it works:

Could it be possible, if we are using both I-Pac and Opti-Pac, to use the mouse buttons of Opti-Pac for both players leaving the two players buttons 1 and 2 free on I-Pac ?

Assuming a 6 button configuration, that should leave 8 extra buttons for admin functions on I-Pac (Buttons 1, 2, 7 and 8 of both players)

[Tiger-Heli]

I thougth of something that might give 4 extra buttons and I would like to know if has anyone tried it and if it works:

Could it be possible, if we are using both I-Pac and Opti-Pac, to use the mouse buttons of Opti-Pac for both players leaving the two players buttons 1 and 2 free on I-Pac ?

Assuming a 6 button configuration, that should leave 8 extra buttons for admin functions on I-Pac (Buttons 1, 2, 7 and 8 of both players)

That will work, no problem.

EDIT:  That will work, no problem as long as you are using MAME or an emulator that can handle mouse clicks as action inputs!

[SoundDoc]

Just my quick  2 cents, Andy's extra button shift works great, I have 28 additional inputs at my disposal for "extra" things.
Just to help, heres the protoboard layout I used (just keep adding parts for more inputs) use the res/cap values on his page and you'll be fine. red lines are "traces" you need to make on the backside of the protoboard, the rest is just components. The circles are just used hole locations.
This is just a quick cut out of a much larger control board I'm building up for my cab, if you need values etc, let me know and I'll throw them on.

sd

[Tiger-Heli]

This is just a quick cut out of a much larger control board I'm building up for my cab, if you need values etc, let me know and I'll throw them on.
sd

I didn't know this could be used for more than one button.  Just wanted to point out (mainly for new people to the hobby):

There is no free lunch - you don't get 28 more action buttons, but you do have an additional 28 available inputs for coins and admin functions, etc.  The major drawbacks are as follows:

There is a slight delay built into the I-PAC shift function (that's why you need the RC circuit).  Not a problem for accessing the Tab menu, but maybe bad if you're trying to kill the last Invader.

The shift functions shift all the other keys.  In other words, if Coin 1 is Shift P1B1 and Coin2 is Shift P1B2, then if someone presses and holds Coin 1 and then presses P1B2, two coins will register instead of the P1B2 action.

Because of the above, it's a good idea to map shift functions to the same function as the basic button (unless you need them to be different) and to not have shift functions activate pause or escape (at least not by shifting a commonly used button).

Also b/c of the above and b/c of how the I-PAC shift function is designed, it's a good idea not to use your shift function button for regular game play (P1B1 would be a very poor choice), so with extensive shift button use, the I-PAC really ends up with only 27 useable action inputs.

[PedroSilva]

I thougth of something that might give 4 extra buttons and I would like to know if has anyone tried it and if it works:

Could it be possible, if we are using both I-Pac and Opti-Pac, to use the mouse buttons of Opti-Pac for both players leaving the two players buttons 1 and 2 free on I-Pac ?

Assuming a 6 button configuration, that should leave 8 extra buttons for admin functions on I-Pac (Buttons 1, 2, 7 and 8 of both players)

That will work, no problem.

EDIT:  That will work, no problem as long as you are using MAME or an emulator that can handle mouse clicks as action inputs!

Great ... I've finished the wiring of the two joysticks of player one, spinner, trackball, all the admin buttons, coin 1 and 2 and the buttons 1 and 2 of player 1. I've programmed I-Pac and I'm triled ... everything is working fine so far ...  

Just one question:
I've notice a little delay on first response (on Windows) when you pass from the trackball to the spinner and vice versa ... once it starts working then it stays fine. Is this normal?

[Tiger-Heli]

Just one question:
I've notice a little delay on first response (on Windows) when you pass from the trackball to the spinner and vice versa ... once it starts working then it stays fine. Is this normal?

I think so!  One of the nice features of the opti-pac is that both devices are not active at the same time.  So if you accidentally whack the trackball, it doesn't mess up your game of Tempest.  The only logical way to make this happen (the opti-pac has both controls wire up but only one works at a time) is with a delay circuit.

I'm pretty sure this delay is what you are seeing.

[PedroSilva]

Just one question:
I've notice a little delay on first response (on Windows) when you pass from the trackball to the spinner and vice versa ... once it starts working then it stays fine. Is this normal?

I think so!  One of the nice features of the opti-pac is that both devices are not active at the same time.  So if you accidentally whack the trackball, it doesn't mess up your game of Tempest.  The only logical way to make this happen (the opti-pac has both controls wire up but only one works at a time) is with a delay circuit.

I'm pretty sure this delay is what you are seeing.

Ok. Thanks ... I'm hapier by the day ... everything is starting to work fine and all on the first time ...  

Should be finished by the weekend ... after that the one thing missing will be the (very hard) chosen of the games to install and install them ...  

Any hints for this final step ? I'll be using Mamewah (latest version) and Mame 0.84.

[Lilwolf]

btw, what why did you go?

did you try the software only solution?  Or build the circuit board?  Or grab mice?

j