Argh! Finally got cabinet done.. but ipac problems? (buttons not fast enough?)

[AdamLotz]

Hey guys -

I finally got my cabinet all assembled and did some preliminary wiring.. but I'm having trouble.  Everything works, but some buttons are MUCH more responsive than others.  For instance, my fire 1 button is VERY slow.  I can't clear an attacking galaga squadron to save my life!

I can easily reproduce the problem with my 1P and 2P buttons.  The 1P button will repeat (with me hitting it as fast as I can) about 1.5x per second.  The 2P button repeats as often as I hit it.  

I checked my wires and replaced the microswitches, that's not it. It seems like the ipac or my computer can just recognize certain button presses in real time, and others can't keep up.  

What's up with this?  Any thoughts?  Anyone seen similar behavior?  (this is running dos mame, but as I say with the 1P and 2P buttons I clearly see it happening in regular dos as well)

[SirPoonga]

email Andy form ultimarc, see what he says.

[marcopolo]

Is the response slow / different when you run the diagnostic tools from Ultimarc?  If not, it may be a Mame setting.

[AdamLotz]

Haven't tried that yet, it's 1am here and I've been working on the cabinet all day.

But the response problem exists in regular DOS with the P1/P2 thing, so yes I'm leaning towards thinking it's some sort of ipaq oddity or perhaps some incompatibility with my motherboard.  Will experiment more tomorrow/ try a different PC etc.

Didn't know if this was something simple I could be overlooking.

[AdamLotz]

Two thumbs up for ultimarc -

Andy emailed me back last night and suggested I download ghostkey to see what was really going on.

He also explained to me that the Start1 button serves double-duty, it is not only the "1" key but also the "shift" key.  This is what it seemed to behave strangely. (makes sense)

Apparently I just happened to choose the ONE key that should have behaved oddly to try to reproduce the problem I was having with the fire button.

What was the acutal problem?  I had managed to wire my fire button to the normally closed pole of the microswitch.  This was causing my PC bios to get all confused as to why someone was holding down the control key (almost) all of the time.  

Thanks guys!

[rampy]

oy... glad you worked it out... and thank you for posting the solution/issue resolution here.

all too often someone posts there problem in like 4 message boards including this one... and then never come back to either clarify when someone asks additional questions, or just posts, "it's fixed now thanks"

The way you did it, gives someone else a shot at finding help for a simliar prob in teh future... so props for that...

sorry for the mini-rant... was just glad Adam posted his solution.

rampy