LED-Wiz USB LED and Output Control Device now available. *Blinky lights*

[seanp]

Very excited about this...  I'll be first in line to pick one up!

[RandyT]

Now that you are down to the finish, can you tell us a bit more about the software, and options you are considering?

The software is still evolving.  The internal protocol is now defined, just need to finalize the external protocol for this app.

Don't want to lean too far into it yet in case I hit a brick wall on something I would like to do.  I'd rather know that it works well than to disappoint by talking about stuff that's not finished yet

1. Will the software accept command-line changes?

Most likely this will be in the form of a text file and the command line will be the filename.  This approach may also open up some rudimentary animation possibilities until the fancy GUI is ready down the road.

2. And do so invisibly (as an option, etc)

If you mean no GUI, yes.  But there will probably be an icon in the system tools area while it's running.

3. Will there be the ability to load different configurations on the fly?

Yep!  But the approach may be a little unusual.  It'll probably go like this:  One application that talks to the hardware stays active in the background.  Another application, which terminates upon completion of its task, sends information to the resident application. 

BTW, it'll  be pretty easy to talk to the resident application.  It'll even be possible from notepad   My guess is that if so inclined, the MAME team or an enterprising C programmer could hack in all kinds of support with this method.

RandyT

[mahuti]

Finish it up man. I'm almost done adding rediculously complicated junk to my machine, and I'll need to start on something new immediately.

Either that, or finish tracing that centipede side art... hm.... myself or the community....

[Mark70]

I guess I probably don't need this product for it, but all I'd really want to do is have a flashing police maquee for chase hq.  Oh, man.

I really do see the value of having translucent buttons lit up for each game to show which are active.  That would be invaluable.

[RandyT]

Here's another quick update:


I wasn't sure how well this would work (or if at all) so I didn't want to mention it earlier

But I just finished the feature, tested it out and it works great.  So here it is:


The resident driver app will support NumLock, CapsLock and ScrollLock Keyboard LED emulation at release time.  The feature can be selectively enabled by the user, and any output can be easily linked to any of the 3 keyboard LEDs.

Sorry this is taking so long.  A couple more cool things and I start on the dreaded task of documentation.  Predictions are that, unless something serious happens, the units will be in the store by the end of the weekend.

RandyT

[NiN^_^NiN]

in theory you could make a LED colour display like a LCD 

[mahuti]

SWEET!

[Scoobie]

I've skimmed through this thread and it sounds promissing.

[RandyT]

I've skimmed through this thread and it sounds promissing.  Is it basically plug and play with regards to recognizing which buttons are functional for each game?

This could be done with the help of software (Front End) authors.  You would be able to define a external configuration files that can be dynamically activated through an app executed by the FE or by the FE directly with appropriate support code.


I kind of missed my mark a little.  I couldn't bring myself to release it without some animation capabilities.  So here's our proprietary  LumAura Engine

[SirPoonga]

that looks pretty cool.

[mahuti]

*gets out wallet*

*moths escape wallet*

*robs liquor store*

[NiN^_^NiN]

grab me some jim beam while u rob em 

This is perfect for an idea i had 

[mahuti]

BOUGHT ONE SUCKAS!

They're up on the site.

[RandyT]

Ok, Here's the main menu:

You can probably figure out what most of it does on your own

RandyT

[NiN^_^NiN]

Do u give details or a OCX or something on how to use it with our own software if were using it for a different purpose than mame?

[SirPoonga]

Do u give details or a OCX or something on how to use it with our own software if were using it for a different purpose than mame?

See what Randy said a little earlier...

3. Will there be the ability to load different configurations on the fly?

Yep!  But the approach may be a little unusual.  It'll probably go like this:  One application that talks to the hardware stays active in the background.  Another application, which terminates upon completion of its task, sends information to the resident application. 

BTW, it'll  be pretty easy to talk to the resident application.  It'll even be possible from notepad   My guess is that if so inclined, the MAME team or an enterprising C programmer could hack in all kinds of support with this method.

So even notepad can talk to the resident  application.

Actually, this application has nothing to do with mame.  Unless someone modifies mame to talk to the resident app it isn't taking any commands from mame.  However, I see the keyboard LED emulation, which probably just detects when windows wants to turn on and off a keyboard LED.  But then that is watching for what windows is doing (mame tells windows to turn on the leds).

[crashwg]

In Warlords when a player inserts a coin (among other things) their button blinks.  MAME supports players 1-3 with the NUM CAPS and Scroll locks which is obviously not enough for the cocktail version which supports 4 players.

Will there be a way of setting up your device to work with all 4?

[RandyT]

In Warlords when a player inserts a coin (among other things) their button blinks.  MAME supports players 1-3 with the NUM CAPS and Scroll locks which is obviously not enough for the cocktail version which supports 4 players.

Will there be a way of setting up your device to work with all 4?

If MAME doesn't support it, then a custom version of MAME would need to be written.  If MAME could be coaxed to output an external signal for those LEDs, as it does with the NL, SL and CL lights, then those events can be "hooked" through software.

But if the info doesn't come out somehow, it's not possible to act on it.

I think gl.itter (sorry if the name is wrong) started looking at this a while back and I have no idea where his project stands.  I think the MAME team would have been required to add support for his solution as well, but I could be off on that one.

If someone connected with the MAME effort wanted to integrate support for the controller, I would work with them on it.

Linking specific inputs to specific LED actions might be possible down the road.  Something like the lights going apedooky when you hit the smartbomb button.  It would happen every time you hit the button, not just when you had one to fire off as that, again, requires information from the main application.  This is a software thing that will evolve as time goes on, but currently it is a device that gives you high output LED capability for your keyboard indicator lights, allows you to animate lights on your CP/behind your marquee, use multi-segment LED indicators, use RGB LEDs to theoretically achieve over 100,000 different color possibilities and provide basic pulsating effects with zero USB traffic. It can also get enough power from a single USB connection for most applications.

Have you ever wanted to light up just the buttons used in a game and make those buttons the same color as those on the original control panel?  This will let you do it and then do all kinds of other cool stuff in the mean time.

The rest will follow eventually.

RandyT

[SirPoonga]

What Randy said.  mame just supports the three keyboard leds.  Someone would have to build support into mame to output to hardware.

Note, this LEDWiz can be used for more than just LEDs.  Hook up a relay to an input and you can now switch on/off anything, like afterburner step motors, or more realistically T2 recoil.  (Or I plan on dedicating one to qbert knocker)

[Silver]

Don't know if gl.tter sunmitted is Light Engine to mame devs yet.

Read Buddabing thread about his LED controller, its where gl.tter posted his (very impressive) progress. He developed an internal messaging system for mame to catch the LED lights events. He also used a system similar to cheat.dat for monitoring a games memory address to catch events that did not originally light in the game.

Note I think its very important that everything that is submitted to mame is explicity to improve the accuracy of emulation. Such as mentioned if there was a game that ORIGINALLY flashed player 1-4 buttons, it is something mame can not currently do as it only uses 3 keyboard LEDs. Allowing it to signal elsewhere would improve the accuracy of the emulation.

[RandyT]

Do u give details or a OCX or something on how to use it with our own software if were using it for a different purpose than mame?

No OCX required.  If you can write commands to the clipboard, you can dynamically control the lights.

The command protocol is evolving, but there are commands to talk to the outputs individually, in banks and all at once.  There are commands for changing the KB emulation outputs on the fly, as well as some other things.

I'll be adding more as time goes on, but most of the functionality is there already.

RandyT

[SirPoonga]

I was waiting until you said clipboard, Randy

Now that he said it I've known for awhile.  I am going to make a controls.dat interface .  But I am going to wait until I get one of these.  It's a little more complex than the gpwiz49

Last night I modified qbert to paste "KNOCK" to the clipboard   I also fixed qbert and sent it to the mamedevs.  Note, qbert doesn't play the knocker sample.  I don't know when that occured, but since I last looked at teh qbert video handler it changed.  So hopefully next u will have the knocker sample working again.

[seanp]

I ordered mine on the 10th... can't wait to try it out.  I'm thinking of installing LED's around the 49-way joysticks and showing what mode is active with the lights.  Plus, buttons, attract mode, and just pure bling.

[jdjuggler]

I think gl.tter's Light Signal Engine is designed to use the signals that mame already generates on its own.  I don't believe he needs to submit anything to mamedev's (unless there are events that are not emulated correctly).
http://r-i-l.net/glMAME/gl.tter%20LSE.htm
Hopefully, he will comment on this thread - but here's a quote from gl.ttter (random quotes):

I'm specifying a very similar file to cheats.dat (but specific to each game), that monitors values in various ways, and fires off a text based light signal when the condition is met.   Mame then just forwards these to the currently active light driver, which decides what to do with them.  Mame doesn't get any more involved - the rest happens in the light driver.

I have the light signal system fully working and integrated into Mame.  I also have the first draft of the 'custom signal' (ie. interactive lighting based on game-specific events) engine fully working.

Turns out the Cheat engine is a great way to find game ram addresses to generate custom signals from - I found the lives and credit counters in about 20 seconds each!  Anybody will be able to do this, at least for the easier-to-find values.



JD

[JoyMonkey]

I think gl.tters LSE is basically the same as the event system that already exists in AdvanceMAME, but the LSE is tailored to easily output many signals to the parallel port. AdvMAME's event and script system can do this, but it's a round-about sort of way.

[RandyT]

I think gl.tter's Light Signal Engine is designed to use the signals that mame already generates on its own.  I don't believe he needs to submit anything to mamedev's (unless there are events that are not emulated correctly).
http://r-i-l.net/glMAME/gl.tter%20LSE.htm

This is from the "What's Done" section at the above link:

"I've already implemented and integrated the light signal framework, and the first draft of the custom signal generation engine, into Mame 0.95."

Sounds like MAMEdevs need to be involved to me, otherwise it will only work on a custom build.

Am I missing something?

RandyT

[Silver]

The LSE engine is 100% a custom build. Mame does NOT forward and LED messages to anything apart from the keyboard led lights.

To get lights apart from these keyboard lights working WILL require either a modded mame build or a submission to Mamedev.

There are several good arguments as to why the adding output for LED's that originally existed in games to mame would be including (games which used more than 3 Lights are currently 100% unsupported in mame and therefor inaccurate. Adding something like gl.tters LSE would enable more accurate emulation. Note that all this whiz-bang lightshow/show what mode my joystick in stuff is completely extraneous to mame and would have to be dealt with externally. However, the LSE solution allows (I believe) additional monitoring/LEDs to be synced with mame events if someone chose to (similar to the cheat.dat memory watching).

Custom mame builds for this kind of thing are never good in the long run. (IMHO)

[Silver]

My assembler is a little 'rusty' so I'll best guess.

Quick note: All I'm saying about LSE is what I've read from other threads - so I could be wrong.

Basically if you mean can you use memory locations of certain game events to monitor and signal your LEDs, then the answer is probably yes. The way it was implied to be working before is that you can use the cheat engine/finder to scan for memory locations very quickly (see Buddabings LED thread for examples using Mr.Do - gl.tter mapped lots of in game events to his LEDS I believe.

[jdjuggler]

My assembler is a little 'rusty' so I'll best guess.

Quick note: All I'm saying about LSE is what I've read from other threads - so I could be wrong.

Basically if you mean can you use memory locations of certain game events to monitor and signal your LEDs, then the answer is probably yes. The way it was implied to be working before is that you can use the cheat engine/finder to scan for memory locations very quickly (see Buddabings LED thread for examples using Mr.Do - gl.tter mapped lots of in game events to his LEDS I believe.

Excactly, that was my point from before.  It appears that this light engine run outside of MAME.  There is no need to have a special build of MAME.  This light engine will pass lighting events to the LED's without MAME as well.

Where's gl.tter?... we need his comments on this!
JD

[JoyMonkey]

Excactly, that was my point from before.  It appears that this light engine run outside of MAME.  There is no need to have a special build of MAME.  This light engine will pass lighting events to the LED's without MAME as well.

Mame needs to know what memory addresses it needs to monitor for each game (these are listed in seperate config files) and what to do once one of the specific events occurs. In the current standard Mame build there is no way for it to do this- you can put the light event config files into your Mame folder but it's not going to do anything. Until the Mame devs add an output system that works with it you'll need to compile a build incorporating Gl.tter's LSE. I have a binary that gl.tter compiled a while back with a beta of his LSE included and that's how it works; you definitely need a special build of Mame.

For the time being AdvMame should work; you can use its event.dat to to watch for specific events in each game and use it's scripting to output a signal to the LED-Wiz when the event occurs. Though it won't handle more than 14 events for each game and I'm not sure of how to address a USB device from it.


Edit; Actually, I guess it wouldn't have to talk to the LED-Wiz directly, but Randy's software (or the clipboard) that controls the LED-Wiz. I don't think that's easily do-able with AdvMame scripting.

[SirPoonga]

I am going to use Q*Bert as an example that you need to know the memory address for each game.
The knocker is triggered when bit 6 at memory location 0x05803 is set.  Once that is set it gets sent to a chip to activate the solenoid.
As you see that is specific to qbert.

But, you sya, that's a knocker, not an LED.  LEDs in arcade games are controlled hte same way, a bit in memory indicates if they are on or off.  The driver for a particular game that has LEDS was written so the first three LEDs will activate the keyboard LEDS, the others have been ignored.

And since the kocker is handled in exactly the same way as LEDS do (and simular with step motors liek afterburner) this LED board should be able to control something like that.  For qbert's knocker you will need to build a circuit that has the 28v power for the solenoid, and a relay that triggers on output from the led board to turn on the 28v source to the solenoid.

Now, I assume one could control step motors and force feedback that arcade games used simularly, once the support is programmed into the driver in mame.

[Silver]

There lots of potential here, as pointed out, LED's are just one aspect of it. I imagine almost any 'feedback' from a game could be covered.

It may be advantageous not to submit something called a "LED modification" but more a generic messaging service - which I think is pretty much what gl.tters system is except by name.

[jdjuggler]

Hey Randy,
How's about an update?
How the testing?   And, any more progress on feature/software?
Thanks,
JD

[RandyT]

Hey Randy,
How's about an update?
How the testing?   And, any more progress on feature/software?
Thanks,
JD

I've been toiling away on the software and have been surprised that none of the purchasers have been on my case about not having any yet.   Maybe they are just being patient.

My current progress is that a sequence can be programmed, tested and saved from within the editor.  It can then be played back in an endless loop by copying the following to the Windows clipboard (CTRL-C in Notepad or whatever):

LWZ-FLP:<Filename>

Example:

LWZ-FLP:TestAnimation

"LWZ-" gets the attention of the software.  "FLP" is a 3 letter command abbreviation.  In this instance it stands for File LooP  Then comes the colon as a separator followed by the command arguments.  In this case, it is simply the name of the animation file you want to loop.

Another kind of cool one is intended for RGB LED's. It goes like this:

LWZ-RGB:<starting output>,<Red Intensity 1-48 >,<Green Intensity 1-48 >,<Blue Intensity 1-48 >

Example:

LWZ-RGB:1,48,10,0

The example would make an RGB LED with it's pins connected to outputs 1, 2 and 3 glow a deep orange color.

These are only a couple of the dozen or so that are implemented.  The rest control KB LED emulation, Global Pulse speed, and setting the output profiles and states by individual outputs, banks of outputs and all outputs at once.

In essence, I have created a kind of scripting language to control the unit via the Windows Clipboard.  LED's can be controlled directly via the main "script" and / or pre-made animations can be launched in sequences.  It was done this way so that any application / frontend software that can be made to write to the clipboard can directly control the LEDs.

To automate things, I'll throw together a quick little app that will take a command line argument of a script filename and pass it on to the resident software.

 There are a few details that still need to be worked out, as well as a number of "extra" features I eventually want to build into the editor.  But, it is very functional at this moment and the first beta software will be up this evening.

RandyT

[mahuti]

better get on it. I'm starting to set up the led-wiz tonight.

[RandyT]

better get on it. I'm starting to set up the led-wiz tonight.

Are you ready yet?

If you want to play with it (you don't need an LEDWIZ to make the on-screen lights flash) download it here.



Caveats:

This is BETA software.  .

There's more under the hood than what you can see.  The docs will make it clearer...when I write them.

No docs...(I think I just said that)  Have fun seeing if you can figure out how it works

Put it in a folder where you want to store all of your stuff relating to the LEDWIZ. 

By default, it starts in "stealth" mode  IE. it comes up as a little icon in the system tools area.  To get to the goodies, right click the icon and open the menu.

When you get the settings the way you want, click the "make default" button to save the current state for the next run.

The save works, but the load function in the editor is not functional.  But you can load and run animations the way I described above.  Don't forget the .lwa extension.  I'll fix that one next..

The lights on-screen are not affected by the LED profile settings.  IE. you can't see the intensity and pulse effects on-screen, only on your LEDs.

Remember to right click on LEDs for more options.

And most importantly....

If it breaks your computer it's not my fault (but it should be fine, just fine... )


Email me with any questions at all, especially if you see it do something really stupid

RandyT


*edit*

Speaking of stupid stuff, the link now works correctly

(Thanks, Toonces!)

[RandyT]

New software version just uploaded.  Same link as before.


New Stuff:
---
Helper application included in ZIP called LWSend.exe.  If you give it an LED-Wiz command on the command line, it will send it and exit.  If you don't specify a command, it will come up in a console mode and you can type commands in manually and send them.
---
Addition of LWZ-FRP command.  Stands for File RePetitions.  Arguments are <Filename>,<number of repetitions>

Example:
LWZ-FRP:test,3

The above command will play the animation file called "test.lwa" a total of 3 times and stop.  This command will play a big role in generic output control.  For example, a relay connected to a q*bert knocker might have a 2 frame animation defined where an output is turned on for 100ms and then turned off.  This command would be used to play that animation for one cycle when required.
---
Specifying the ".lwa" extension on animation file playback commands is now optional.


Next: Scripting layer, then the "load" command in the editor.

Comments are welcome.
RandyT

[seanp]

I'm having a lot of fun with this...  I haven't even used it for anything practical, just keep playing with creating different animations.  I wonder if i can use this to control some christmas lights...  maybe hook the outputs up to a switch??

[SirPoonga]

Hmmmm, maybe something for controls.dat could come out soon, will have to talk to HowardC.

I think something like Johnny5 is what is needed, but instead of outputting a graphic it outputs an lwa file then uses LWSend.  Instead of setting up a graphic button to a keypress an LEDWiz output to a keypress (ctrlr file) would be needed.  It would have to work with ctrlr files like Johnny5 in order to be accurate.

Though, it could be as simple as something like set49mode.  There will be preset lwa files the user creates (like joy4way.lwa, 4buttons.lwa, diagonal4way.lwa) and the utility would run LWSend with the correct file based on controls.dat...  I might just do that. 

For instance, lets say I setup LEDs for each of 8 directions of a joystick (yes, only need three outputs for this as discussed earlier) and 6 lit buttons.

My normal setup is
456
123

So I'd have a 1button, 2button, 3button, 4button, 5button, 6button lwa files.

But for neogeo I do this
XX4
123

So I'd create a neogeo.lwa file and use a concept like my override.ini file in set49mode.  In fact, it would work so simularly like set49mode that I'd robably just copy the set49mode poroject and modify it.  Same concept, there will be a controls_dat.ini file which will map out controls to lwa files, plus a setting on how many button files (1button.lwa, 2button.lwa, etc...) and an override.ini file to over ride controls.dat.  Same heirarchy, if game not in controls.dat (or parent) then look at listxml, then a default.


If someone who currently has an ledwiz wants to test something like this let me know.  It will probably be after christmas until I can get an ledqiz (going to get an ledwiz AND 2 gpwiz49 in one order).

Furture discussion on this utility will be on the controls.dat forum.
http://fe.donkeyfly.com/forum/index.php?topic=180.0

[SirPoonga]

Randy, is it possible to blink a led, say 4 times, then stay on steady?

I'm thinking when I get my gpwiz49 and ledwiz to have leds under the cpo art for the 8 directions (and possibly more LEDS to indicate 49way).
But, when a game is selected in an fe I'de like to have an animation that does an around the clock then lights up the directions used.  Or have it flutter for about a half a second then go steady.  Kinda like those aftermarket motorcycle brake lights.

Or, since my arcade has that "shelf"
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v472/SirPoonga/cabinet/y_cab10.jpg
I would have an instruction card with modes that lights up.