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New Product: Opti-Wiz

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ptpeter:

anyone have an idea when this is coming out?

RayB:


--- Quote from: SirPoonga on January 06, 2006, 12:28:04 am ---This sounds confusing.
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pointdablame:


--- Quote from: RandyT on January 05, 2006, 05:12:26 pm ---
Mark has it correct (I knew I picked him to Beta for a reason ;) ).  It reports as a mouse with 3-Axes.  As long as you can configure your application to use the Axes properly, you won't need to worry about one affecting the other.


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Very cool. Makes a lot of sense now that you and Mark said it, but it didn't click at first.  Not much chance of interference if it's using a different axis.

And I'll echo ptpeter... any ballpark estimates on when this will be officially available Randy?  and maybe an estimate on those prewired molex cables?

RandyT:


--- Quote from: SirPoonga on January 06, 2006, 12:28:04 am ---
--- Quote from: RandyT on January 06, 2006, 12:07:35 am ---Yeah, a big one.  These chips run 3-4 times faster than the typical mouse processor.  I think we did this dance once with the GP-Wiz.  Just like a $2 joypad can't stack up to the performance of a full blown microcontroller with code optimized for that purpose, don't think that just because a device looks like a mouse to the computer that the hardware used is the same as that of a $2 mouse.

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This sounds confusing.  So you are saying the code in my mouse isn't optimized to be a mouse or just that you used a faster chip than most mice, which I assume is to eliminate backspin?

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Not sure what you find confusing.  Many times code is optimized to overcome limitations in hardware and does not necessarily reflect the optimal implementation for the device it is used as.  The major driver for this kind of thing is cost.

Let's make this simpler:  Suppose you were designing a 3-axis mouse and had a target price for the controller of 40 cents (in 10,000 quantities, of course :) ).  Now suppose the only controller you could get for that price had a slow microcontroller that had just enough horsepower to be an acceptable 2 axis mouse.  What do you do?  You make decisions about what is important for the particular market you are designing for and start selective crippling.  Maybe you make the resolution of the encoders coarser so you don't have to sample as often and can dedicate the extra cycles to sampling the 3rd axis.  Or maybe you just split the bandwidth and live with occasional backspin issues because for the price, you figure your market won't care.  Or, you could just do what most do and make a very coarse Z resolution because it doesn't need a lot of attention from the processor as the "wheel".

Just because it's a mouse, doesn't mean it's been optimized to be a very good mouse.  It's more likely been optimized to be the best mouse it can be on hardware platform X.

RandyT

Tiger-Heli:


--- Quote from: RandyT on January 05, 2006, 05:12:26 pm ---It reports as a mouse with 3-Axes.
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