Optimouse -> dual serial capable?

[rampy]

Don't shoot me... I know it's been discussed a billion times.

When I read the description of optimouse driver I get the impression that it's handy for simultaneously using a serial and ps/2 "mousing-esque" devices...   Can it be used with 2 serial devices?  I'm not really going for a simultaneous thing (more of an either/or than an AND)

the wingman warrior I'm using (still on the lookout for LES 2.3 drivers btw)  for just the spinner connects to the serial port, and the old mouse I'm planning on using for arcade trackball hack is also serial.  

I'm using primarily DOS - and sometimes Win98

so... can the optimouse drive 2 serial mouses (mices? meeses?)

Another option would be to share the guts of the one mouse with trackball optics and the wingman spinner optics and have that simple circuit for switching between the "active" controller in between them (kinda like running them in parallel with an auto switching circuit)

*Shrug*  

Rampy

[Tiger-Heli]

I'm using primarily DOS - and sometimes Win98

so... can the optimouse drive 2 serial mouses (mices? meeses?)

Yes, two serial meeses are not a problem.  RTFM, ermm, read the documentation in the optimous.zip file from the www.mame.net, main downloads, utilities section.

DOS is no problem, With win'98, the second mouse must be unplugged when Windows boots and then plugged in and the driver loaded (from a batch file) when Windows starts.

Also, I am not sure if you can use a PS/2 mouse (for windowing) and a serial trackball and a serial spinner together.  I think you can let the spinner share the sysmouse with the PS/2 mouse and then use optimouse to drive the trackball, but I'm not sure.

[rampy]

fwiw, the file I downloaded had no docs.. it was just mouse.com  

I'll check out the more complete distro at mame.net

I'm sure I'll be able to come up with a workable solution...

Rampy


EDIT: The directions are perfectly clear, now that i have them... sorry for the redundant post

[mikenotbob]

Rampy,

Keep in mind that you'll probably need to use a different build of mame (as far as i know) to map both the spinner and trackball to player 1.  

I just hooked up my serial trackball and serial spinner using the optimouse driver.  Both worked perfect in the test program bundled w/ optimouse, but when firing up mame, arkanoid wouldn't detect my COM2 spinner.  I realized mame was assuming that the COM2 was a player 2 device, running marble madness in 2 player mode confirmed this.  I use advancemame, and it allowed me to easily map both devices to player 1 in the config file.

good luck,
mike

[rampy]

Hi Mike,

In my test runs I encountered the same thing... I'm running AdvMame as well... Could you enlighten me as to how you configured the swap in Advmame?  I checked the .rc and besides setting the mouse = auto, I couldn't see an obvious change to make.

Thanks!

rampy

[OSCAR]

The advantage to using the Optimouse driver is specifically for assigning the primary pointing device to P1, and the secondary device to P2.  It sounds as if you are trying to assign both devices to P1.

In this case, you wouldn't want to use the Optimouse driver, but a dual mouse driver.  There is one available for download on the Oscar Controls website on the Spinner Support page, along with directions on how to use it.  You can see all the available options by typing MOUSE /? at the command prompt.  The mouse driver on my website does support dual serial mice.

[rampy]

I think that's where I actually started Oscar... I downloaded you're driver thinking if it's a "dual mouse" driver it must be the optimouse driver...

I may end up going with some sort of batch file treatment to load and unload the mouse driver com port that I want active (say COM 1 for spinner games COM 2 for trackball )

The wingman warrior is stuck on serial, but I guess for my trackball hack I could go to ps/2 I just didn't have an older spare one laying around at the moment... (my betson trackball refurb arrived today... yeah!... but not trackball plate yet booooo!)

My other option I guess would be to do the optics in parallel...

*shrug*

rampy

[OSCAR]

But why go through the hassle of either?  The dual mouse driver on my site allows you to load both devices, and use them simultaneously.  There shouldn't be any reason to do a batch file or rewire the optics.

Many people have stumbled over the Optimouse driver, thinking that it allows for dual devices, but it doesn't.  It only allows for adding a second device, which isn't what you are looking for, if I understand correctly.

I've loaded both a trackball & spinner simultaneously under DOS7 & standard DMAME, and it worked okay.  Feel free to email me if you have any questions.

[Chris]

In this case, you wouldn't want to use the Optimouse driver, but a dual mouse driver.  There is one available for download on the Oscar Controls website on the Spinner Support page, along with directions on how to use it.  You can see all the available options by typing MOUSE /? at the command prompt.  The mouse driver on my website does support dual serial mice.

Is that the Logitech driver?  I used it originally, but found that both my spiner and trackball would stutter.  I switched to the Optimouse driver, and I pass a parameter to my little MAME launcher that decides which one to activeate.  It's clunky as hell, though...

[OSCAR]

It is Logitech.  How long ago did you try it?  A previous version I had up would cause occasional stutter, depending on your particular devices.  I was never able to reproduce it using any mice I had, but I did receive reports of it from 2 people.

I sent a different version to one of the people that had the problem, and they said this one cured the stutter.  I do have a few other versions, too, but so far nobody had told me that the one that is currently available for download has given them any problems.

[mikenotbob]

I wasn't aware of the existence of a dual mouse driver, and since I'm already using Advmame, it was no sweat just adding the following lines to the RC file, and works perfect.

Rampy, if you can't get rid of the stuttering w/ the dual mouse drivers, just add the following lines to the advmame.rc file:

input_map[0,trakx] mouse[0,0] mouse[1,0]
input_map[0,traky] mouse[0,1] mouse[1,1]


Just FYI, the '0' in the first set of brackets is declaring the player # (0 is player 1, 1 is player 2, etc..), in the rest of the brackets, the first # in the bracket declares the device, the second # declares the axis. You don't really need to know this to just cut-n-paste the above lines into your rc file, though!

There are thousands of options for the .rc, all located in advmame.txt in the DOC (or DOCS) folder in the mame directory. You should spend a lot of time sifting through there for cool stuff!  I also have a script in there that gets rid of the OK and other mame intro screens, for instance.


-mike