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Namco adaptations for disabled gamer
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StephenH:
I just wanted to say that I have Autism, another form of disability, and I am a strong disability rights advocate.

As for the autofire, you might be able to accomplish this by adding a multivibrator circuit using like a 555 chip, set at like 2-8 pulses per second, and then send this to a key encoder like an I-Pac, KE72, etc.  Connect his switch input between pins 8 and 4 on the 555 chip.
skallagrigg:
Thanks for the pointers Stephen, although that sounds a bit beyond my capabilities at present. Any advice for a beginner at this sort of work would be great. I'm thinking of getting the following:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=25884&TabID=1&source=15&WorldID=&doy=30m1

Any other suggestions?

Thanks,

Barrie
www.OneSwitch.org.uk
tetsujin:

--- Quote from: skallagrigg on January 30, 2005, 10:46:07 am ---Thanks for the pointers Stephen, although that sounds a bit beyond my capabilities at present. Any advice for a beginner at this sort of work would be great. I'm thinking of getting the following:

("Programing and Cusomizing the PIC Microcontroller" book link)
--- End quote ---

I have that book, it's great.  Though I never had a bit of luck getting that "El Cheapo" PIC programmer it comes with to work.  I'd recommend the PIC programmers here if you want to try PIC programming:

http://www.kitsrus.com/

There's going to be some learning curve, but if you're more inclined toward writing computer code than to creating digital logic circuits (as I am) it could be a good way to learn to solve problems like this.
brandon:
if I understand the pacman thing correctly it would be like having two microswitches.. one with left on the N.C terminal and right on the N.O or vice versa.. and the same for up and down..


but with this set up it would always be press diagonals.. which pacman cant understand.. without a neutral position you would alway be press two directions at once so I'm not really sure how this could be accomplished...
tetsujin:

--- Quote from: brandon on January 30, 2005, 04:30:20 pm ---if I understand the pacman thing correctly it would be like having two microswitches.. one with left on the N.C terminal and right on the N.O or vice versa.. and the same for up and down..

--- End quote ---

Not exactly.  Here's the way I understood it:

The controller is always directing Pac-Man to go in exactly one direction.  If the direction is currently vertical, and the "vertical" key is pressed, then Pac-Man reverses direction.  If the direction is currently vertical, and the "horizontal" key is pressed, Pac-Man stops going vertically and goes horizontally (either in the last horizontal direction he previously went, or the opposite direction to that...  I'm not sure which would be better.)  Then take the above rules and swap "vertical" and "horizontal" to get the rules for when the current direction is horizontal.

In other words, let's say Pac-Man starts off going left.  I press "vertical" at a particular time, and he starts going up.  Then I press "vertical" again and he starts going down, then "horizontal" and he goes left again.  Then to get the power pellet "vertical" would have to be pressed twice with the appropriate timing, once to switch to vertical and again to go up.  Then horizontal, vertical, and Pac-Man is powered up.

This solution isn't ideal - really, it might be better if the controller knew how to navigate the maze.  Then the controller could work cooperatively with the player, and the use of only two inputs might be less limiting.  But that requires the ability to inspect the game's state...  which is beyond the scope of what I'm readily able to do.  :)

I don't know the exact requirements for this (that is, I don't know the limitations of the user) but I'm assuming buttons can't easily be pressed and held in the closed position.  I'm also assuming he can't trigger both at once.  If he could reliably trigger both at once, it'd be easier to provide full control of Pac-Man: push "left" switch to change direction counter-clockwise, push "right" switch to change direction clockwise, push both to reverse direction.  That'd be full game control right there, with no compromises.
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