KEYWiz max question

[mccoy178]

I am wondering if a good solution to the accidental exit issue would to have the "P" as a shift also.  That way if I wanted to exit, I would have to hold down pause and escape.  What do you guys think?

[mccoy178]

Would I have to have a "Shaazam" key and have one other key that normally would be pause, but if the shaazam key was pressed it would become the escape key?  That would work I guess if possible.

[Fozzy The Bear]

Would I have to have a "Shaazam" key and have one other key that normally would be pause, but if the shaazam key was pressed it would become the escape key?  That would work I guess if possible.

The Keywiz is programed as standard with the Esc key available on both a normal and a shazaaam shifted key....  But there is absolutely nothing stopping you asigning any keys yourself to any function you want.

If you look on the Groovy Game Gear site under wiring, you'll find that you can also wire a single button to send both the shazaaam key and the button key at the same time. So you would then effectively have a dedicated esc key without using up one of your normal key asignments.

If I understand what you actually want to do... you want to create a multiple key combination to get esc sent to the computer thus avoiding hitting it accidentally.  The answer is yes! you can do that very easily with KeyWiz.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[mccoy178]

Thanks!  I've always been an ipac guy, so this is my first time using one of these.  That's good news.  I think having a two key combination would be a good idea to avoid accidental exits.  Also, I may use that shaazam key as a cheat for coins since I don't plan on having a dedicated coin button on my cp.  I could use the shaazam and the start keys as coin buttons.

[Fozzy The Bear]

There is another way to get a dedicated escape button without loss of inputs....

That's to wire a button to joystick 1 switches that will activate both up and down at the same time.... As it's normally impossible to push a joystick up and down at the same time, this button then sends a unique two button press that you can allocate to mean esc in Mame.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

 

[Fozzy The Bear]

ignore this post... I hit quote instead of modify  DOH!!!

[Tiger-Heli]

McCoy - you are confusing the I-PAC shift function and the KeyWiz shift function.

The KeyWiz doesn't send a function when you press Shazaam! unless you do some complicated wiring tricks to make it work - see http://www.mameworld.net/tigerheli/encoder/shiftkeys.htm for full details.

FWIW - I went down the same road as you - here's what I did.

I started with dedicated buttons for Esc and Pause - Not using the Shazaam! function although I did have a button for it.  I ended up accidentally pressing Esc once in the middle of a game, so I noticed that Shazaam! plus Terminal P (Esc) sends "=" so I reconfigured MAME so Quit (UI CANCEL) was =, not Esc.

To do what you want, note that Terminal K is P (Pause) on the KeyWiz, and that Shazaaam! plus Terminal K is 7, so just reconfig MAME so Quit is 7 rather than Escape (and reconfig coin 3 if you play any 3 player games).

There is another way to get a dedicated escape button without loss of inputs....

That's to wire a button to joystick 1 switches that will activate both up and down at the same time.... As it's normally impossible to push a joystick up and down at the same time, this button then sends a unique two button press that you can allocate to mean esc in Mame.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

Fozzy, I cover that here - http://www.mameworld.net/tigerheli/encoder/pausekey.htm, however, this will NOT work on a KeyWiz.

The KeyWiz disables simultaneous Up and Down inputs on the P1 Joystick in it's firmware.  The P2 Joystick can be used and P1 Left and Right can be used.  There generally isn't much advantage in using one pair of Joystick directionals over another.

I am mainly mentioning this so McCoy178 doesn't try your idea and get mad that it doesn't work.

[mccoy178]

Thanks Tiger for the suggestion.  The concern I have is that I have multiple emulators and most are locked into escape being the only exit key.  Any suggestions?  You can't program a keywiz to have the "p" and shaazam as the same key?  If I could, wouldn't that allow me to pause a game or hold "p" in and use the shaazam feature?

[Tiger-Heli]

Thanks Tiger for the suggestion.  The concern I have is that I have multiple emulators and most are locked into escape being the only exit key.  Any suggestions?

Sure - See below:

You can't program a keywiz to have the "p" and shaazam as the same key?  If I could, wouldn't that allow me to pause a game or hold "p" in and use the shaazam feature?

You are still overcomplicating things to make it work like an I-PAC, IMHO (unless you really don't want an extra dedicated Shazaaam! button (could be on the front or underside of the CP (which I can understand).

The simple solution for other Emulator compatibity is to re-program the KeyWiz so that Terminal K (P - Pause) sends Esc when Shazaaam!'d and load the custom program into the KeyWiz at bootup (won't work for me with a hot-swapped desktop controller, but should work for other situations).

If you don't want the extra button and want the Shazaaam button to also send P (like the I-PAC) see the "I-PAC compatibility Mode" section on http://www.mameworld.net/tigerheli/encoder/shiftkeys.htm and wire it thusly.

[mccoy178]

Okay, I may go with the shaazam button.   Since I am using all GPWiz49 interfaces, I may hook up P1 buttons to the keywiz so that I can use the shaazam key to access the mame menus.  Now that I think about it, I will also have to do something creative because I don't plan on having coin buttons on the cp, so for mamewah I will have to think of another way to access the menu, since it utilizes P1coin and P2coin(i.e.5 & 6) to use the mamewah menu.  That shouldn't be too hard, maybe reroute those inputs to P3 and P4 start buttons.(thinking out loud).

[Fozzy The Bear]

There is another way to get a dedicated escape button without loss of inputs....

That's to wire a button to joystick 1 switches that will activate both up and down at the same time.... As it's normally impossible to push a joystick up and down at the same time, this button then sends a unique two button press that you can allocate to mean esc in Mame.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

Fozzy, I cover that here - http://www.mameworld.net/tigerheli/encoder/pausekey.htm, however, this will NOT work on a KeyWiz.

The KeyWiz disables simultaneous Up and Down inputs on the P1 Joystick in it's firmware.  The P2 Joystick can be used and P1 Left and Right can be used.  There generally isn't much advantage in using one pair of Joystick directionals over another.

I am mainly mentioning this so McCoy178 doesn't try your idea and get mad that it doesn't work.

Yes sorry.... A Typo on my part there..... My brain must have been having holiday (vacation) when I typed that..  Which should have read: "That's to wire a button to joystick 2 (not joystick 1) switches that will activate both up and down at the same time...."

Where the hell was I... I should have noticed that one having been through exactly that myself. DOH!  

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)