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Anyone hacked a kidsball?
cdbrown:
G'day,
Hoping for some examples of a hacked kidsball with usb mouse. Unfortunately the kidsball has a serial plug and I need to change that to USB so I can run more than 1 with analog+. Tiger-Heli and u_rebelscum provided a lot of info on another thread and it was mentioned to hack the kidsball with usb mouse.
Could someone provide me some links and preferred usb mice to use. This could save me some money and potential problems (lag) by not having to buy the serial to usb adapters (AU$50 each).
Again thanks for the help everyone has provided and will provide ;).
Cheers
-cdbrown
Tiger-Heli:
1-Up mentions here that he hacked one (happens to be the thread above yours when I posted this): http://www.arcadecontrols.org/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=main;action=display;num=1025502116
As far as which mouse to use, I saw a post by Oscar (to Sir Poonga, IIRC) saying it took him a while to find a USB mouse that worked well for his spinners. You could ask him or Nathan Strum www.cheeptech.com should also be able to help on selection.
1UP:
I think there are serial to ps2 adapters, and chances are your comp has a PS2 mouse port. These would be much cheaper than the USB adapters, probably worth not having to spend a Saturday hacking a mouse to death! (BTW, I don't know about you, but a Saturday afternoon is worth more than $50 to me! ;) )
My kidsball hack only involves mounting it in a new case, not hacking the interface. I only need one mouse, so I'll stick with serial. In the rare case I would ever play 2-player Marble Madness, the other guy can use a stick...
cdbrown:
1UP - I was going for the usb connection on the advice from u_rebelscum. If mame runs with 2 trackballs using ps2 connections then thats the way to go. u_rebelscum only mentioned that analog+ works through noting the differences between the usb ports. Yes Saturdays are important but I figured that I'm going to be spending my Saturdays designing and building a cab I might as well do some hacking (if I can work out what to do ::) )
Tiger-Heli - thanks for trying to point me in the right direction. I have shot Nathan a quick email with some questions.
Any more help would be great ;D
Cheers
-cdbrown
u_rebelscum:
--- Quote ---1UP - I was going for the usb connection on the advice from u_rebelscum. If mame runs with 2 trackballs using ps2 connections then thats the way to go. u_rebelscum only mentioned that analog+ works through noting the differences between the usb ports.[snip]
Any more help would be great ;D
Cheers
-cdbrown
--- End quote ---
You can only play as one player with two ps/2 trackballs. Two reasons why:
All windows OSs combine all ps/2 mice into one virtual mouse, or the "system mouse". Mame can only see that one sysmouse, and not both ps/2 mice as individuals.
Almost all PC computers only have one ps/2 port, so that means you need a ps/2 Y-splitter cable. Almost all of these cables fool windows to think that only one mouse is attatched to that port, and even windows can't tell which mouse is generating what data.
Since you want to use two trackballs, I suggest hacking USB mice and using analog+ and win98/Me, or using a serial & a ps/2 mouse and dmame (dos mame) and optimouse driver and dos. I my