Analog controls in pure DOS, no gameport!

[arcadecollecting]

I need help badly! Here's what I'm trying to do. I've bought a mini-itx mobo and I'm trying to stuff it into a Vectrex case. I want it to look like an unmodified Vectrex from the outside and I want to be able to use the Vectrex's original controllers.

I'm having big trouble with the controllers part. The mini-itx motherboard (EPIA M) doesn't have a gameport, so I figured I'd buy an a-pac and use that. Unfortunately, the EPIA M CPU isn't fast enough to run DVMAME under Windows. It's super chunky slow. So that means DOS only and that means no USB!! A-Pac won't work.

Anyone have any good ideas about how to get analog input working with DVMAME without a gameport? Is there a way to do it with the serial port?

Any ideas welcome!

[Kremmit]

I hope you're wearing an asbestos suit.

[arcadecollecting]

Well, I'm not looking for an answer like "you're a newbie fool, it can't be done." I need to make it work one way on another, whether it be suggestions for a different brand of mini-itx motherboard that does have a gameport or one that has USB drivers built in to the BIOS so that an A-Pac will work in DOS.

Something... anything... I'm desperate. The only thing I can think of is spending a lot more money for a model that'll be fast enough to run DVMAME in Windows.

[krick]

What kind of controls did the vectrex have?  Are they really analog?

[Kremmit]

No, the suit is to protect you from the flames from people who want you dead for "killing" a Vectrex.

That said, does the mobo have any expansion slots?  And do you have any room left inside that Vectrex for an expansion card?  A lot of sound cards still have gameports built in, or you may be able to find a standalone gameport card.  They used to make a lot of those for ISA, maybe there were some for PCI, too.  The standalone card would quite likely not stick up as far as the soundcard.

Or, maybe you could find something like the bottom three items on this page:
http://www.donjohnston.com/catalog/pengild.htm

They appear to be  PS/2 or USB mice that use a joystick instead of a rollerball.  Maybe you could hack the Vectrex controller's pots to one.  Although you'd have to find a cheaper version, yikes!

[arcadecollecting]

Oh, I should have mentioned that I'm not doing anything irreversable to the Vectrex. It'll even still play Vectrex games through MESS. That's part of why I'm having a hard time... I don't want to destroy the original guts to make this work.

The mobo has a PCI slot, but there's definitely no room to add an expansion card. It's a really, really tight fit.

Wow! Those joymice are really expensive! Thanks for pointing them out, though.

The original Vectrex controllers are analog. It's going to require some unique thinking to achieve my goal of making them work without modifying one because of the way they work. They take -5v and +5v input and vary the output between -3.25v and +3.25v. -3.25v is far left, 0v is center and +3.25v is far right. However, I'm not worried too much about coming up with a circuit to translate that into +0 through 5v.

[jhanson]

The mobo has a PCI slot, but there's definitely no room to add an expansion card. It's a really, really tight fit.

Those mini-itx boards support the use of certain riser cards that will make a PCI card lie parallel to the motherboard rather than perpendicular to it.  I'd try one of those and a soundcard with a gameport.

[arcadecollecting]

I think even that won't fit, but even so, do PCI soundcards exsist with gameports?

[krick]

I think even that won't fit, but even so, do PCI soundcards exsist with gameports?

Until recently, most of them had game ports.  My Audigy Platinum had a game port that had its own slot bracket and plugged into the sound card.

Of course, if you're planning on doing DOS, you need a seriously DOS compatible sound card.  I'd look at the Sound Blaster 16 boards coveted by the DOS MAME guys.  Note that there's like a bunch of different cards marketed under the SB16 name so you have to go by the CT model numbers to be sure what you're getting.

[RayB]

SB Live has a gameport.

[krick]

The mobo has a PCI slot, but there's definitely no room to add an expansion card. It's a really, really tight fit.

Would this help?...
http://www.logicsupply.com/product_info.php/products_id/452

[arcadecollecting]

Ooo, that might work. Is there a such thing as SB16 PCI?

[krick]

Ooo, that might work. Is there a such thing as SB16 PCI?

Yep.  However, like I mentioned above, there's a bunch of different models calling themselves SB16 that use different chipsets so you might have to do a little research.

Most of the stuff I can find regarding PCI soundcards in DOS centers around audio, not gameports.  So you may have to just pick up some cheap PCI soundcards on eBay and try some out.

There's some useful info here...
http://www.mameworld.net/dosmame/compatibility.php#hardware
http://www.mameworld.net/dosmame/troubleshooting.php

Here's some useful info on DOS soundcard drivers...
http://vsynchmame.mameworld.net/

[Kremmit]

Oh, I should have mentioned that I'm not doing anything irreversable to the Vectrex.

So you're cramming a ZVG card in there to drive the original Vectrex monitor?

You might be able to find a joymouse cheaper somewhere else, those are just the first ones I turned up.  But then, that flexible PCI riser looks pretty handy, too.

[hanelyp]

Interfacing an analog input to a serial port is definately possable, if you're willing to hack together an interface.  A single chip microcontroler with A2D inputs could read a pair of analog sticks and feed the info in a simple packet a few bytes long.  The software would also need some hacking to accept input from the serial port.

[Thenasty]

I have some Sound card the works in PURE DOS. ISA and PCI version. I have tested each one to make sure it works. LMK if interested in some. I have all the DOS drivers for it so it make your installation quickly and headache free.

[rdagger]

You might want to try Linux.  It might run fast enough and you would have USB support.

[chrisdfw]

I am curious, was there any progress on this?

[JoyMonkey]

I think he probably realized that he mutilated a perfectly good Vectrex monitor and left the community with his head hung in shame.

[infiniteomega]

What about linux, or bsd?  There's xmame and advancemame for both of those platforms.  As far as linux goes, you could use a distro based on the 2.4kernel which should help in the speed department. 

Might not be the easiest solution out there, but if it works, at least it was free .