Q: Wiring mouse buttons - IPAC and OptiPAC

[rebfx]

Hey Guys...
I am going to be wiring up my control panel tonight, I am planning on using the bottom 3 rows of my player 1 side to have both keyboard and mouse functionality. The question I have is: How do I do this?

I will be wiring to an IPAC and an OptiPAC.

[PedroSilva]

Hi,

I'm not really sure, but if I understand correctly, you want to use the mouse buttons 1 and 2, to also be player one buttons 1 and 2. Right?

If that's it, I've done the same: simply connect buttons 1 and 2 to opti-pac inseat of I-pac and then setup mame to use mouse buttons 1 and 2 as player one buttons 1 and 2. You can then have two additional controls on I-pac availabe for whatever you need. (by reprogramming I-pac).

[rebfx]

Thanks for the reply...
what I am looking for is kinda mentioned in the opti-pac FAQ as this:

What about mouse buttons?
Four inputs are provided for mouse buttons, two for each port. These inputs can be wired up together with I-PAC button inputs so that control panel buttons can perform dual function: mouse buttons and normal key-type inputs. So you could use your trackball as a mouse with two of the control panel buttons working as mouse buttons and also have these buttons work in games via the I-PAC.

So to me it sounds like you can have the button wired to both the I-PAC and the Opti-Pac somehow..

So would this mean that the button is wired to both boards or do I connect an extra wire yo go from board to board... and how does the ground wire come into play with all of this??

(Actually, your solution is starting to sound like the best idea. lol)

[Tiger-Heli]

To wire it up like the I-PAC FAQ, you wire the button to both boards, and ground to both boards.  In this situation, the button sends both a mouse click and keyboard key with each press.

PedroSilva's solution is preferable, I think, for MAME, but may not be good for other software that won't allow you to assign a button click to an action.

[rebfx]

Cool.. Thanks Tiger-heli.
That's what pretty much I thought. 

As for "In this situation, the button sends both a mouse click and keyboard key with each press."...  What are the downsides to this? Will it hurt anything by sending both commands?

Would just using 3 separate buttons for the Trackball be the better option?

[Tiger-Heli]

As for "In this situation, the button sends both a mouse click and keyboard key with each press."...  What are the downsides to this? Will it hurt anything by sending both commands?

Depends what the software is.  If nothing else in MAME, you will need to set MAME to look for the keyboard key and not the mouse key or vice versa.  In other software, I'm not sure if say L Ctrl plus a Left Mouse click would do anything or not.  It also could be a problem in that it will always happen - i.e. if a program can't take keyboard presses, I think there is a program to convert them to buttons or if it can't take mouse presses, I think there is joymouse, but if the Program accepts both inputs but can't ignore one or the other, your only option would be to re-wire the panel.  Also, I'm sure there are some latency issues with basically sending two inputs per button press, but I wouldn't expect this to be a huge issue.

Would just using 3 separate buttons for the Trackball be the better option?

Probably if you don't mind the extra buttons or the extra CP real estate taken up.

[rebfx]

I think I will give it a try and see what happens... I really don't want 3 extra buttons on the CP, if I can get away from it.

thanks again Tiger-Heli.