Rotary Joystick

[jacob]

right, so i've been looking up how to put a Rotary joy on the mame cab. Asfar as  ican tell you need an interface board and a rotary joy. OK. Here's the question. I noticed that ikari worriors and the like will allow me to use a trackball to act as a rotary joy, so does this mean that i could jsut make/buy a spinner and stick one of hte old ikari warriors joy tops on it and it would work basically the same? Or is there some huge flaw in that plan. I have no idea when it comes to electronics. i don't even have a cabinet or a spinner yet, jsut trying to figure out control scheme. thanks for any help

[jerryjanis]

Yes, there's a huge flaw in that plan.

The Ikari Warriors joystick is an 8-way joystick.  In ADDITION, it has the ability to rotate clockwise/counterclockwise.

In other words, you can look at it as though the Ikari Warriors joystick were an 8-way joystick and a spinner all in one.  (not that you would want to play Arkanoid with it or driving games - it's a positional rotary knob, which means that if you spin it 360 degrees, then what you get out of it is 12 'clicks' - which MAME will handle as 12 separate button presses.  A spinner gives you the smooth and sweet Arkanoid style spinning for that kind of activity.)

The cool thing about the joystick is that it really adds very special functionality for the games that use it.  You can run in one direction and aim/shoot in an independant direction.

I have the SNK LS-30 joysticks ($15 per joystick).  If I could make a recommendation, it would be to spend 3 times as much on the Happs rotary joystick, because the SNK LS-30 (original Ikari Warriors arcade joysticks) are not well suited to all-purpose joysticks.  I've read here that the Happs joysticks feel exactly like an ultimate joystick (which is pretty darned good).

[jricker]

I have the SNK LS-30 joysticks ($15 per joystick).

[Tiger-Heli]

Hi,

First off, just to clarify.  The previous posts referred only to the SNK-30 and Happs mechanical rotary joysticks.  These are the only ones that give you a click-feel as you are rotating the controls.

The Happs optical is similar to a very high friction arkanoid spinner on a Happs Super.  The stick could ALMOST be used for arkanoid, but you wouldn't want it for Tempest.

The mechanical sticks require Druin's www.connect.to/rotary (and then prolly link to the mirror) interface and some sort of keyboard encoder.  You would probably also want the custom MAME build that mc-escher is working on.  (search for rotary game list).

The opticals connect the same as a trackball, either through an opti-pac, ME4, Happs interface kit, or a mouse hack.  Of course, they also require some kind of encoder for the joystick switches.

[jerryjanis]

I don't know which you should go with.  I would imagine that the mechanical rotary joysticks work just like the real Ikari Warriors joystick did, only with a better 8-way joystick attached.

I'm sure that there would be something really wonderful and creative that you could do with the optical rotary joystick, but I personally have no idea.  It would probably work fine with MAME, but instead of Druin's Rotary Interface card, you would need to use an Opti-Pac, or some other analog input encoder.  I wonder what owners of the optical rotary joystick think about it?

[Tiger-Heli]

I don't know which you should go with.

[GGKoul]

Just wondering...

If I had a Rotary joystick, could I hook it up via my Optipac?  

[GGKoul]

Looks like I found the answer....

----


: 1. Which of the happ joysticks would be better to use? The 8-way Rotary Joystick (50-5618-00) or the 8-way Optical Rotary Joystick (50-5619-00)?

Only the optical one will work.

: 2. Can I connect a rotary joystick directly to the opti-pac, or is there something else I need?

It can be directly connected.

:
: 3. Can I connect 2 8-way, 2 rotary joysticks, where at any time only one set would be used, the 8 ways or the rotary? If not, how can I do this. I want to use four joysticks. Two side by side,and two opposite each other (like the hanaho cocktail cabinet).

Yes, just connect the pairs to the same inputs.

Andy

[esoh]

First, apologies to all on the board, but I have found no other resource to ask this question.

Second, my question is:  I am interested in finding a rotating joystick to play Ikari Warrior and similar games, but I want to do it on my PC, not in an arcade cabinet.  Are there any joysticks out there that I can use.  I know Microsoft and Logitech make rotating joysticks (mostly for flight sim games), but I was wondering if anyone has used them to play MAME games with any luck.

TIA.

Ed

[mr.Curmudgeon]

right, so i've been looking up how to put a Rotary joy on the mame cab.

If you want an cheap and easy 3-in-1 joystick (4-way/8-way/rotary), just hack a T-Stik. Here's how: http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=10;action=display;threadid=20018

[bdsjake]

jumping in here to ask a question, I have a ls-30 and druin inteface that I am trying to get working.  I am thinking about just going for a Happs OPTICAL.

As I understand, the opitical can play in MAME all rotary type games (some used a mechanical rotary, some an optical rotary).  But, if you use just a mech rotary, can't use it for optical rotary games.

So, unless you really want the clicky feel, seems like the Happs Optical allows you to play more games on  your cab.

Hope this makes sense and if I'm wrong, please someone jump in here.

thanks,

[greywolf22]

Esoh,

I have used my microsoft sidewinder joystick (with a twisting grip) with MAME and with IKARI warriors before...It worked...sorta, when I twisted the grip, the rotation was so fast that I couldn't precisely aim.  It may be possible to adjust the sensativity so that it might work better...of course this was probably 3 years ago when I tried this, so it's possible things have changed, but I was able to get it to work...just not very effectively.  

[Kremmit]

You can use a mechanical rotary joystick, either Happ or LS30, in MAME, without a Druin's.

You need to use MAME Analog+, created by BYOAC member U_Rebel_Scum
http://www.urebelscum.speedhost.com/index.html
It allows you to connect the outputs from the rotary portion of the stick as 12 buttons.  You do need 12 inputs free, per player, to do this, but it's the only way to really play these games the way the originals played.

If you ever played any of the LS30 games in the wild, you need the clicking, and the feel of the real thing.

The only thing I know of that acutally used those optical rotaries is Cal .50

[bdsjake]

IIRC from another thread, for some reason Ikari warriors doesn't work yet using ls-30 connected directly to a keyboard encoder.  Once that bug is solved, that will be a pretty good solution.

[Landstander]

First, apologies to all on the board, but I have found no other resource to ask this question.

Second, my question is:  I am interested in finding a rotating joystick to play Ikari Warrior and similar games, but I want to do it on my PC, not in an arcade cabinet.  Are there any joysticks out there that I can use.  I know Microsoft and Logitech make rotating joysticks (mostly for flight sim games), but I was wondering if anyone has used them to play MAME games with any luck.

TIA.

Ed

A Logitech Wingman Warrior http://search.ebay.com/wingman-warrior_W0QQsokeywordredirectZ1QQfromZR8 works great with MAME - can even play Discs of Tron with it.

[Kremmit]

IIRC from another thread, for some reason Ikari warriors doesn't work yet using ls-30 connected directly to a keyboard encoder.  Once that bug is solved, that will be a pretty good solution.

True- Ikari and some of the other games are still not working- but lots of the other rotary games are.  Hopefully the broken ones will get fixed soon.