I am ready to build my cab and want to make sure I have all my ducks in a row

[trog_4269]

I have been reading these forums for a while now but this is my first time posting.  I am getting ready to to buy the hardware for my cab and would like to know if anyone has had problems with the configuration I am going with (minus the Optiwiz since it is brand new). 

I am going purchase a slikstick quad unit with the following setup:
P1 and P2 will be 49way's, P3 and P4 will be Happs rotary sticks and then the trackball, spinner, and a 4way.

As far as I can tell I will need:
2 GP49's for P1 and P2 joysticks + all the buttons on the control panel
1 Optipac for the P3 and P4 rotaries
1 Optiwiz for trackball and spinner

Previous to wanting to use 49way joys I was gonna go with a couple of happs ultras for P1 and P2 and just wire my 4way stick into the U,D,LR of P1.  Can I still get away with that if I use the GP49 and a 49 way or is there another way that needs to be done?  And yes I know the 49's can be used as a 4 way but I am going to have a dedicated balltop on the panel for that.  Any feedback will be appreciated.  Thanks in advance.

[markrvp]

Yes, you can hook up the 4-way to the GP-Wiz 49.  There are 28 additional inputs besides the joystick and you will need to use 4 of those.  For games that you use the 4-way joystick, you will need to map MAME to use those 4 inputs.

Instead of getting one Optipac and one Optiwiz, I would get two Optiwiz's.  It would be less expensive and take up less space.

[trog_4269]

Instead of getting one Optipac and one Optiwiz, I would get two Optiwiz's.  It would be less expensive and take up less space.

I think I am a bit confused now.  From what I was able to determine after doing my research I didn't think that Randy had anything that suppored rotary sticks.  Does the Optiwiz support rotary optical joysticks with the Z axis being the rotary or would I also need to purchase Druins board?  Does this require any modification of the board itself? 

Thanks again.

[markrvp]

Instead of getting one Optipac and one Optiwiz, I would get two Optiwiz's.  It would be less expensive and take up less space.

I think I am a bit confused now.  From what I was able to determine after doing my research I didn't think that Randy had anything that suppored rotary sticks.  Does the Optiwiz support rotary optical joysticks with the Z axis being the rotary or would I also need to purchase Druins board?  Does this require any modification of the board itself? 

Thanks again.

Since you said you were getting an Optipac for the rotary joys, I assumed you were getting optical rotary joysticks as that is what would be compatible with an Optipac.  Remember, though, that the function of an Optipac is to interface optical devices to the computer.  That is the same function of the Optiwiz and/or a mouse hack. 

In very simple terms, optical rotary joysticks basically function as an 8-way joystick AND SPINNER.  A spinner uses ONE AXIS of a mouse.  If you had one Optical Rotary joystick you could hook it up to any of the X, Y, or Z axis of a mouse hack or Optiwiz.  You could hook it up to any of the 4 axes on the Optipac.  All of these appear to the computer and MAME as a MOUSE.

If you had your heart set on the Optipac and the Optiwiz, you would be better off hooking up the trackball and spinner to the Optipac because it autoswitches between the trackball and spinner.  Only one would be active at a time.  You could then hook up one optical rotary joystick to the Optiwiz X axis and the other Optical Rotary joystick to the Optiwiz Y axis and just leave the Z axis open.  Don't get me wrong, that would be a fine way to go, but it is my opinion that since all your other encoders are coming from GroovyGameGear that you should just go ahead and get a second Optiwiz instead of incurring a higher cost plus shipping for a product from another vendor.

A Druin's interface is for MECHANICAL rotary joysticks.  These actually have 12 distinct stops on a rotary switch.  The Druin's interface translates the activation of each click into a forward and backward direction which gets reported to MAME.

Typically the reason for using mechanical rotary joysticks is when you can find some original SNK mechanical rotary joysticks (which have yellow hexagonal handles) which are authentic to rotary joystick games from the arcades.  I have this setup and it only works okay.  MAME actually works much better with Optical Rotary Joysticks as MAME is written to work well with mouse inputs.

[trog_4269]

I don't really have my heart set on one optical controller or the other but I was only able to find info on paring the Happs optical rotaries with the optipac, not the optiwiz.  What you say about getting all the interfaces from the same source makes sense. 
So if each interface has 3 axises (or axi?) I will then need an optiwiz for each optical rotary (x & y for  hor and vert of the stick and z for the rotary).  Then would I just piggy back the trackball to X,Y asis of interface 1 and then the spinner the Z axis of interface 2?    Or would there be a benefit to getting a 3rd interface?  I'm not really that concerned about price if there is a better or superior way to accomplish something.
Thanks.

[markrvp]

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.


Think of a rotary joystick as having two separate parts.  The top part (part 1) controls UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT movements of your character (sprite) in a game.  There are 4 microswitches to control UP DOWN LEFT RIGHT just like the Happ Super or Competition joysticks.  The microswitches will take up 4 inputs on the encoder.  Nothing from part one is connected to the Optipac or Optiwiz.  The U, D, L, R motions have nothing to do with the Optipac or Optiwiz.

Part 2 is at the bottom of the joystick shaft.  This is the optical rotary attachment.  It is a spoked wheel which turns when you twist the shaft left or right.  There is an optical sensor (two actually) which reads the speed and direction the wheel is turning and reports that motion to 1 Axis of the Optipac or Optiwiz.

On the panel you describe, Rotary joystick 1 would have 4 lead wires and a ground wire going to the GP-Wiz 49 from the microswitches.  Then you use 4 wires to connect the rotary part to the Optipac or Optiwiz.  The 4 wires are:  +5v, Ground, Direction A, Direction B.  This connection only uses 1 AXIS of the Optipac or Optiwiz and for joystick 1 I would assign it to the X AXIS.      Joystick 2 would have 4 more lead wires and a ground wire going to either one of the GP-Wiz 49s and then 4 wires from the optical attachment that would take up AXIS Y on the Optipac or Optiwiz.

Only 2 AXES are needed to hook up 2 optical rotary joysticks.

[Spaz Monkey]

Twist/turn the rotary joystick to face a direction, push the joystick to move another.  If you remember the game Smash TV, you had two joysticks, one to move, another to shoot.  Same principle.

[trog_4269]

OK.  I understand it now.  I just assumed that the actual joystick was also optical, like the rotary, so I assumed that I would be needing to connect the whole thing to the optical board.  Thank you very much for clearing that up for me.