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I-Pac and Opti-Pac questions
Major Rock Hardy:
To Krick and Tiger-Heli :
thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you !
I really appreciate the info and the speed of the responses! Perhaps someday I can contribute like you guys do. Hopefully I can put my 7 years in EE school to good use here :o
So to summarize:
Windows 98SE (with appropriate patches) no problemo for regular MAME w/ 2 trackballs simultaneously - or AdvanceMAME in Linux or in Win2k with CPNMouse.
Upon further studying, (including reading the gp-wiz49 thread), it appears there is some interest in getting a linux interface to this device working and RandyT is willing to work with them (that is awesome), but as of yet nothing has come of if - that I can find. So Windows it is for now.
one rephrasing of a question:
--- Quote from: Tiger-Heli on September 28, 2005, 07:40:31 am ---
--- Quote from: majorrockhardy on September 27, 2005, 08:13:41 pm ---if I have plenty of button inputs from getting the GPwiz's - are there any reasons to go with the opti-pac?
--- End quote ---
Yes, specifically, no way to hook a trackball to a GPWiz49. Apples and Oranges - GPWiz49 equals gamepad hack, Opti-Pac equals mouse hack.
--- End quote ---
... oops - I should have clarified - no you are correct sir I may not hook up a trackball to gp-wiz49 ! But if I'm running 49 way sticks, and I go with one gp-wiz49 eco per stick (an obvious choice IMO) that means I will get 23 additional button inputs per gp-wiz49 (if I go w/ 4 sticks that's 92 buttons :o ) which is more than enough buttons - so with that in mind - it seems that the Opti pac is overkill with the additional buttons... also:
Tiger-Heli, I re-read the section on your controls page about the optical interfaces, as you suggested, and it seems that basically it comes down between Oscar's USB mouse i/f and the opti-pac. As far as I can tell through googling/etc. - Oscar's stuff is unavailable.
So if I found a couple USB mice that had different USB IDs (suggestions?) to hack would that be a comparable substitution for the Oscar product? Or, I suppose try plugging them in to different USB pairs like krick suggested.
Thanks again,
Rock
Tiger-Heli:
--- Quote from: majorrockhardy on September 28, 2005, 07:20:53 pm ---... oops - I should have clarified - no you are correct sir I may not hook up a trackball to gp-wiz49 ! But if I'm running 49 way sticks, and I go with one gp-wiz49 eco per stick (an obvious choice IMO) that means I will get 23 additional button inputs per gp-wiz49 (if I go w/ 4 sticks that's 92 buttons :o ) which is more than enough buttons - so with that in mind - it seems that the Opti pac is overkill with the additional buttons... also:
--- End quote ---
No, I understand exactly what you meant about buttons and the GPWiz49. I think you are confusing an I-PAC and an Opti-Pac.
The Opti-Pac only adds four buttons (left and right for each trackball/mouse input), so it's hardly overkill from a buttons standpoint. Now whether it's overkill from a price/functionality standpoint you have to decide for yourself, although I cover this, both in the link above and at http://www.mameworld.net/tigerheli/encoder/main.htm#OSCAR_USB_Mouse_Interfaces_vs._Opti-PAC
BTW, see www.mameworld.net/tigerheli/encoder/ for the frames version of the page with a left-side index.
--- Quote ---As far as I can tell through googling/etc. - Oscar's stuff is unavailable.
--- End quote ---
AFAIK, OSCAR closed his site temporarily b/c his day-job got busier. You could try shooting him a PM or E-mail (might take him a while to answer), and if he still has any of the interfaces, I think he would be glad to help you out.
--- Quote ---So if I found a couple USB mice that had different USB IDs (suggestions?) to hack would that be a comparable substitution for the Oscar product?
--- End quote ---
Sure, the only thing about the OSCAR product was the hard work was already done so you didn't have to solder. See Note 49 from my comparison table:
http://www.mameworld.net/tigerheli/encoder/main.htm#49, where I have links to threads where Oscar explains how to hack them and others also explain this. (OSCAR recommends Belkin or Kensington and dislikes Logitech or Microsoft, so I guess that's your suggestions.)
--- Quote --- Or, I suppose try plugging them in to different USB pairs like krick suggested.
--- End quote ---
Just two things in closing:
That is an either or option - i.e. you can either use mice from different manufacturers, or use the same mice plugged into different pairs.
And this only matters if the computer might be re-booted with both trackballs connected. . . (I.e. if you had a swappable control panel, you could plug the left trackball in first and the right one in second each time and MAME would never get confused, even if they went into the same hub.)