Anyone used 8way optical rotary + trackball interface?

[Mark70]

The front pages of this site show the use of a Happ 8way optical rotatry stick with the trackball interface.

After a lot of searching here, I see that people probably aren't using this method because of the info which indicates you need to make your own interface boards, buy interface boards, program stuff to make them work... or I assume the cost of the trackball interface from happ.

I would have thought, except for these deterrants, that everyone would want the rotary functionality laying dormant in the same joystick you'd normally have on you multi machine.

Is there any disadvantage to havine a rotary bat type stick? can't you just configure games to ignore the dial input unless the game uses it?

[mahuti]

Why aren't there more people doing that.

We like to go further. Get the GP-wiz, and a 49-way, plus a rotary adapter and druins board. Wire it all up, and you have a;

rotary
2way
v2way
4way
4way (diags)
8way
49way
49way progressive
circular 16 way.


Speaking of going further, I'm working on adding a pushbutton joystick top to the stick combo above so that I don't even have to have another stick for that.

(edit: removed stupid incorrect statement)

[2600]

Correction, The happs optical rotaries work with the mechanical rotary games as well (in MAME at least).

There are a couple of people who turned there joysticks into rotaries.  Search Willy Wonka Edition for an example, I did it to my P360.  Debating doing it on a 49way as well.

[Mark70]

Why aren't there more people doing that.

We like to go further. Get the GP-wiz, and a 49-way, plus a rotary adapter and druins board. Wire it all up, and you have a;

rotary
2way
v2way
4way
4way (diags)
8way
49way
49way progressive
circular 16 way.

With the happs optical rotary, you have a rotary stick that doesn't work on the mechanical rotary games (only the optical ones) and it's 8 way only.

Speaking of going further, I'm working on adding a pushbutton joystick top to the stick combo above so that I don't even have to have another stick for that.

Is there any information or tutorials on this process ... all in one place?  the durin, the joystic, the trackball adapter,  .... these topica seem scattered all over.

Is there anyone who has done it and posted the process?

[Mark70]

After more reading, I've clued into one very specific, subtle yet important fact which remains in question.

Do you have have the GP Wiz 49 and it's software to limit a 49 way to the basic 4 way, 8way, diagonal modes?

If so, I'd better get myself a GPWiz49 when I'm ordering parts.

...And, is there an optical rotary interface addon kit available?  I thought I'd be able to get away with an Ipac and an Optipac.  I could put the optical rotaries and the trackball through the optipac.  But if the GPwiz replaces the Ipac, can I sitll use an optipac (with a power supply since it gets it's power from the ipac)

[Silver]

I've heard a lot of people say that using anything apart from a 4-way in 4- or 2-way games is not up to scratch if there are not hard physical restrictors in place. Obviously with the 49 way you have the advantage of electronically disabling the diagonals - but I'm imagining it would feel much like a 4-way?

[Mark70]

I'm not actually all that worried about the feel of the stick.

[Silver]

I'm all for the max amount-of-games with the controls you have approach.

I've not gone for 49 ways as I don't remember ever using them, they seem expensive, you can't use them for analogue/yoke games - but I believe you can use an anolgue joystick for a 49 way (although no doubt the feel would be 100% wrong). However, I did not know that they could perform the function of so many sticks.

I did hack rotary ability to my 8-ways (j-sticks from ultimarc) though. Couple of pics here:

http://www.silverfoxy.plus.com/Jstick.html

Which is great as it allows ikari/forgotton worlds to be played very well. I've got parts now so won't be going for 49 ways.

[mahuti]

Hardware:
49 way stick
Gp-wiz
druins board
mechanical 12 way adaptor for the 49 way stick

With this setup you can get pretty accurate movement for the following types
49way
49way progressive
8way
4way
h2way
v2way
4way diag
16way (useful for intellivision games)
mechanical rotary games (ikari warriors)

You could dump the druins board, dump the mechanical adaptor, and use an optical adaptor hack with your 49 way instead, and do mechanical & optical rotary games. You would need an optipac or mouse hack in addition to the optical unit.

This setup would cost about $80 for 1 stick  or about $120 for 2.

If you use the following software:

Front end
send49way
mame
Gp wiz software

You can auto change your stick's modes on the fly just by selecting a game. No setting stuff each time, or fooling with mechanics or explaining to guests.. the stick just changes itself.

Pretty sweet. Some argue about a 49way's efficacy with Donkey Kong (in particular) but I find the setup above to be the most universally useful and simple way to play a wide number of games for the non-purist in me.

[markrvp]

Mark70:

Yes, you must use the GP-Wiz 49 in order to get the DRS restriction for your 49-way joystick.

[mahuti]

He mentioned that the modes can be selected via button presses, and via GUI... as I mentioned, using set49way.exe, you can select them automagically via the romname through the command line.

Methods to change mode.
1. Press "joymode" button modifier plus mode button
2. Use rotary switch mode (no button presses needed)
3. Use GUI software
4. Quietly pass info to the gui via the commandline.

[Mark70]

wow, guys, some great information coming out here.

Question 1.  I'm hoping to buy less hardware and to avoid hacking a mouse, since I don't really trust my soldering skills.  So, since I need an optipac already for my trackball, it only makes sense to try and find an optical rotary add on for the 49 way.

Question 2.  Someone mentioned automatically switching joystick mode with a piece of software.  I use mamewah as a front end.  I've already added -joystick to the commandline format for executing mame roms.  Would it be a similar process to switch joymodes?  I guess I'll have to read up on how this software works and ties in with mame/front ends.

And just as a total aside, what is the possibility of hacking a mouse for a rotary add on for your joystick?  Wouldn't one of the little wheels in a ball mouse riding against the axle of the joystick work similarly?  I don't know if mame will let you use a mouse axis as the rotary control in Ikari.  I'll have to try when I get home.

[markrvp]

He mentioned that the modes can be selected via button presses, and via GUI... as I mentioned, using set49way.exe, you can select them automagically via the romname through the command line.

Methods to change mode.
2. Use rotary switch mode (no button presses needed)
4. Quietly pass info to the gui via the commandline.

Mahuti:

Where can I get the set49way.exe executable?

[mahuti]

Relevant URLs

Excellent setup tutorial
http://www.mameworld.net/tigerheli/set49mode/

Info from the creator of set49mode
http://fe.donkeyfly.com/forum/index.php?topic=168.0

Link to the software
http://fe.donkeyfly.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=168.0;id=72

You can use a little mouse wheel. I did it. There wasn't a good way of attaching the mouse wheel with my particular wheel when I tried it, but if I had a different mouse it would have gone smoother.

Don't have the led wiz yet.. I'll be out of town for a week... it'll probably arrive while I'm gone

[mahuti]

Oh, and re: question 2. above;

1. Use mame's mame.ini to set "joystick" options so you don't have to pass it every time.
2. Using mamewah, you replace the link to mame.exe in the (mamewah's )mame.ini with a link to set49mode.bat. Mamewah will pass the romname to set49mode.exe, which will change your stick in accordance with the type of controls used for that game, then pass the rom to mame to execute.

This requires;
Mamewah.exe
set49mode.exe
controls.dat

Read the setup tutorial above.

[Mark70]

All of this probably means I WILL  be buying 49 ways for my panel.  I just need to decide now about a rotary add on.  I think I'll need an optipac for my trackball still, althoug I'm considering hacking a mouse more and more.  I expect my first attempt at a rotary for the joys will be a mouse hack.

[mahuti]

If you have an optipac... it can control a trackball AND a spinner AND an optical spinner joy.

If you hack a mouse, you will need 3 of them. Course, you will need at least 1 to get the guts to make an optical hack.