Using Spinner for Non-Spinner Games

[toolaa]

I know this is going to sound a bit Non-Purist.

I remember playing front line which had some sort of dial to control the firing direction.

[toolaa]

Any ideas here...

I have the Oscar V2 with the pushdown option.  Is there any way to or MAME version which would duplicate the directional control of the 8 way dial with the optical 360 spinner?

Any help would be appreciated.

[AlanS17]

I've always thought Gyruss would be more fun with a spinner, too. However, there's no option in any version of MAME I'm aware of. You could make your own build, but I'm not going to lie and say it's super simple.

[Xiaou2]

 while you might think Gyrus would be great with a spinner that uses a translator
from spinner to 8way.. you miss the point.

 Gyruss, like other non spinner games have 'one speed'.   No matter how fast you spin your spinner  - the ship will always move the same slow speed.

 Even If mame were to be able to be patched.. it would make no difference.
The problem is with the actual game code itself.   Youd have to reprogram the
entire game for it to work as you want it to work.

 And if you did that.. it would be like tempest with different graphics and sounds.  The problem would then be impropper game ballance.   With being able to move so fast - the other ships wouldnt stand a chance at hitting you.
 

[toolaa]

 Gyruss, like other non spinner games have 'one speed'.

[Thenasty]

[Kremmit]

Gyruss wouldn't work so well for the reasons stated above, but Frontline playabillity could benefit from a hack to allow spinner control. 

The reason is that there was no constant speed on Frontline like with Gyruss- whichever direction you pointed the aiming control, your aim moved there, instantly.  So, no change in gameplay need result from using a spinner.

The original Aim 'n Fire controller actually used 4 microswitches on the bottom, just like a joystick- and that's why MAME has it mapped like it is.  When you rotate the knob on top, a rotating actuator on the bottom would push against the correct microswitch(es) to tell the game which direction you were pointing.

For a spinner hack, what you'd need is to get x number of teeth on the spinner's encoder wheel to equal a change of direction for the aim 'n fire- eg, if you have a 72 tooth encoder, then every 9 teeth get you a new direction.  (72/8=9).  I dunno how hard this would be to code as a hacked MAME driver- it might actually be the sort of thing that's easier to do in hardware. 

Could a circuit be built that just counts teeth on an encoder wheel as it turns?  And it would need to keep track of direction, counting backwards when you reverse your spin.  Every time the counter reaches 9, the circuit would change it's output to send MAME the apropriate directional signal.  You could probably build the whole thing onto an encoder board, and just attach it on a different side of the encoder wheel from the spinner's existing encoder board.  It would enable spinner control for ANY joystick game, now that I think about it.  Most games wouldn't benefit from this, of course, but it would certainly help with the games that used Aim & Fire controllers like:

Frontline
Wild Western
The Tin Star
Sherriff
Bandido
Forgotten Worlds

[toolaa]

You know you got me thinking.  Maybe I could install some sort of cam on the shaft of my spinner and hit four switches or actually attach a true rotary switch like those old TV dial tuners.