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New Product: GP-Wiz - 32-input Fast USB Controls Interface
RandyT:
--- Quote from: JoyMonkey on February 07, 2005, 08:58:43 am ---
--- Quote from: Peale on February 07, 2005, 07:59:56 am ---Neat!
You should make some variety of JAMMA adaptor to plug into JAMMA cabs. Maybe even plug right into the socket.
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That'd be a good idea. All it would be is a JAMMA fingerboard with some screw-terminals for video, sound and power inputs, and an IDE cable for plugging into the Wiz.
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That does sound like an interesting idea. Not sure of the size of the market for that one though. It would depend on what the final board ended up costing in smaller quantities. Thanks for the suggestions, I'll do some research on it.
--- Quote ---RandyT; is there something up with your site, none of the images in the shopping section are displaying for me.
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Gahh! It seems so. I'm trying to get things moved to a faster server and it appears as though somthing broke (seemingly by itself) along the way. I'm on it. Thanks for the heads-up!
--- Quote from: tetsujin on February 07, 2005, 10:13:03 am ---Would you be willing to tell me a few technical details?
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Sorry, this is a commercial product, and as such, some of the details are proprietary.
--- Quote ---Do you know how the 10ms-or-less polling for USB HID compares to the performance of the PS/2 keyboard port? You compare the unit's behavior to USB keyboards but not to the legacy types. (Ah, I guess this was already asked..)
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Just as you suspected, "low-speed" USB devices can't touch PS/2 when it comes to latency, but things start getting a little closer when looking at total throughput. It's very hard to do a direct comparison between USB and PS/2 keyboards because they can be apples and oranges, depending on the criteria you use to judge them. I.e. in order to get the max throughput on a USB Keyboard, you would need to use every modifier key (Left and Right Alt, Shift, Control and GUI keys) in your control layout and deviate from the normal single endpoint traditionally used for such devices. But even that won't get you past the limit of simultaneous keypresses.
Likewise, the best throughput using PS/2 will be achieved by avoiding the Arrow keys and other "special" keys that use 5 total bytes for an "up/down" transition. instead of the normal 3. This is why some encoders default to using the numpad keys for direction control instead of the arrows.
This difficulty in comparison extends to USB gamepads as well. Every 10ms, the status of 32 controls (in the case of the GP-Wiz) is reported to the host. PS/2 could not hope to send 32 keypresses in that time frame and certainly not that many releases! However, long before that USB report is sent, the PS/2 port has kicked out the half-dozen or more keys that might have been of the most interest to you, with the rest following in a steady stream of FIFO data, instead of being limited to what the endpont buffers can hold and sending in spurts. And, maybe you aren't interested in pure Game Controller data, so even though it's fast, it won't do everything you might want it to.
In practice, the GP-Wiz flies and it won't get slower with greater activity or with multiples. My sixth sense tells me that the pipeline for game controller data at the OS level is slightly more direct than Keyboard data. Call it a "feeling" after putting the unit through some hardcore testing ;)
--- Quote ---Also, is the difference between the solder and no-solder versions just the presence or absence of the dual-row pin headers?
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As Tiger-Heli already stated, that is the only difference.
Just a quick note here for those considering "rolling their own":
Just because you have a reference design for one controller, that doesn't mean that a simple mod will allow you to do what you want in the end. I found out the very hard way that if you expect a design to work cross platform, and you don't want to write your own drivers from scratch, there is very little help for you out there. 2K/XP will accept things a certain way and 98SE will accept things a certain way. It up to you to figure out what the common ground is, and it has nothing to do with backward compatibility. I went through no less than 5 designs that would work on one system wonderfully and failed on the other, one to the point where it wouldn't even enumerate! But I did learn one important thing: The only thing standard about USB is the standard itself. The protocol is so heavily reliant on the host that until all OS manufacturers are on the EXACT same page and there's been a few more years for everything to mesh properly, there will continue to be occasional issues. But USB isn't alone in this regard as oddball PS/2 implementations still rear their ugly heads on rare occasion. At least it's not as often as it did in the years past.
RandyT
tetsujin:
--- Quote from: RandyT on February 07, 2005, 04:04:26 pm ---
--- Quote from: tetsujin on February 07, 2005, 10:13:03 am ---Would you be willing to tell me a few technical details?
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Sorry, this is a commercial product, and as such, some of the details are proprietary.
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Aw... Well, thanks anyway! It looks like a great product. It's exactly the kind of controller I want to have in my CP, and at a great price. If I didn't now have an interest in building an encoder for the sake of learning how, I'd certainly use these.
--- Quote ---Just a quick note here for those considering "rolling their own":
Just because you have a reference design for one controller, that doesn't mean that a simple mod will allow you to do what you want in the end. I found out the very hard way that if you expect a design to work cross platform, and you don't want to write your own drivers from scratch, there is very little help for you out there.
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Interesting...
Fortunately, the only one whose needs I need to meet are my own. :) But that's an interesting piece of information. I'd love to experiment when I get mine built and find out more about what you're talking about.
(I didn't mean to trivialize what you've made, of course...)
RandyT:
--- Quote from: Kremmit on February 07, 2005, 12:56:48 pm ---Wow, USB from RandyT? I thought I'd never see the day! ;)
Just messing with you, Randy, I'll probably buy a few of these down the road.
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Hehe. You know I was waiting for a comment like this one from at least one of the folks who put up with the past threads :D
But you did notice that it doesn't think it's a keyboard, didn't you ;)
RandyT
Stingray:
Looks like a great product. I'm glad there's finally an USB encoder that we don't have to order from overseas.
Any update on when those translucent balltops are going to be available?
-S
SirPeale:
Indeed! This looks like a very nice product.
The one thing I would like to see is a competitior to the J-PAC. Being able to just plug in a device and be playing in minutes, not hours, is great.