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New Product: 49-Way USB Interface - The GP-Wiz49 with DRS Technology (TM)

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tetsujin:


--- Quote from: SirPoonga on March 02, 2005, 01:55:14 pm ---
--- Quote from: tetsujin on March 02, 2005, 01:45:24 pm ---Thanks for providing an answer to my question.  Personally, though, I feel that putting that control over the device's behavior on the PC side (where it belongs) is very important, as I want to build my cabinet without assuming the people playing it will know things like the button layouts for a game, the type of joystick it uses, etc. beforehand.  Where possible the 8-way/4-way/2-way/49-way selection should be taken care of for them.  (I say "where possible" because I don't have a way to do that with T-Stick+'s because I have no way to control the mechanical slider with software - but as this is a problem of controlling software behavior it seems very possible)

--- End quote ---
The hard part would be coming up with software that is cross platform, not the hardware. 

Edit:  I just realized you were talking about changing modes.  simular thing applies however the software to program the hardware or change the mode would have to have an API (be it commandline or whatever) that a FE can use.

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That's true, about the cross-platform software.  Being on Linux, it's not an issue I could necessarily ignore if someone rolled out a device with Windows drivers.  There doesn't seem to be a good cross-platform way of interfacing directly with HID devices.  If the relevant information were available for a given device I don't think it'd be too hard to do it on Linux.  Just a matter of sending the right report to the right device.  But for the feature to be generally useful the driver to do that would have to be supplied on Windows at the very least.

This is why I think interfacing the encoder to another circuit could be a good middle-ground solution for people who want this control but aren't up to the technical challenges of doing the software (or hardware) to do it over USB.  It's something that could be done with the encoder as it is, and then the "API" would consist of sending bytes to a serial port or toggling lines on a parallel port.

Randy: The above isn't a proposal for a product change or a new product.  I'm not a business guy and I have no great ambition to become one.  More a suggestion for people who, like myself, want the ability to control this behavior through software with the existing hardware.

And believe me, I know the T-Stick+ and similar joysticks are a compromise - if I could control the toggle with software I would.  The reason I can't is a practical one: controlling the mechanical parts with software requires an actuator that can do the job, and I don't know where to get such a thing or whether it would fit in my CP.  The best I can manage is to use switches to monitor which state the joystick is in, and feed that info to the front-end so it can block people from running games that need 8-way when the stick is in 4-way mode.

The limitation with the '49 is more artificial.  There's no practical limitation keeping that feature from being software-controlled.  And from a UI standpoint the situation is bad: the front-end or the CP need to tell people how to set the mode, and there's no provision for letting people know what mode is active.  In a more perfect world I'd prefer the encoder to have software control already - but in practical terms, the encoder provides enough button inputs that the ones that control mode could be dedicated to that purpose, and I could add that feature externally without worrying about what buttons are being pressed on the CP.  I guess that'll have to do.  When I build such a thing I'll be sure to share the design.

SirPoonga:

I know when I get one of these I might have encapsulate my mame exe in a bat file and make a program that will control the modes and possibly LED indicators around the joy indicating which directions are enabled.

Now I really want those glow ball tops, translucent buttons, glow tball, now just need a glow spinner....  Mmmmmm, lights...

sWampy:


--- Quote from: SirPoonga on March 02, 2005, 03:07:29 pm ---
--- Quote from: sWampy on March 02, 2005, 02:33:00 pm ---I understand you most likely can't do this with out a driver for the device and you want to stick to a HID device that requires no driver, but why?   
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You know how nice it is to just plug something in and it works?  I do that with my zip drive.  No drivers needed.  It just works.  Same with mouse and whatever.

The biggest reason is someone would have to write the driver.  If RandyT doesn't have this knowledge he has to outsource it.  Like oyu said though, he could give the specs to someone and have them make the driver for him.  I'm sure if he looks around someone will volunteer their time and effort.

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Yes, plugging something in and needing no drivers is nice, but this isn't a jump drive, you will take from machine to machine, this is a controller you are going to put in an arcade cabinet once and leave there, loading a driver once is trivial.   

I think it's possible to have HID devices that also have drivers where you get some function with no driver and added features if the correct driver is load.  More advanced mice do this all the time, with no driver the buttons work, with correct drivers, all buttons and force feed back/etc work.  It mostly seems that not having a 2 way interface available on this thing where you could send it a 0-7 to set it to a certain state was/is a big oversite.

I have 3 cabinets all with mini-pacs in them, if I could just replace  one of the joysticks and add this, I'd at least try it on one of my cabinets.  But as it stands, I'd have to replace the joystick, and rewire at least player 1 buttons so I could set modes, and reprogram my minipac's shifted keys to other buttons where I could still get to coins/volume/etc.   A lot more work than it should be.

SirPoonga:


--- Quote from: sWampy on March 02, 2005, 04:04:20 pm ---I think it's possible to have HID devices that also have drivers where you get some function with no driver and added features if the correct driver is load.
--- End quote ---


ripzone:

RandyT, try to implement the Software change modes solution.

That would be the best option for most of us, or in alternative, only one button to change modes.

Thanks!


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