Does anyone have a rotary optical with an Optipac???

[Farmboy90]

Hey guys,

I did a search and found a thread specifying exactly what I need to know.  Unfortunately that thread had two different answers so I am not sure who is right.  And they were 4-5 years old so things may be different now.

Anyway, who can tell me which wire is which on the rotary optical connectors?

The colors are Yellow, Orange, Red, Brown.

Thanks!

[Farmboy90]

And the answer is....

RED X1
BROWN +5V
ORANGE Ground
YELLOW X2

[Ninten-doh]

Farmboy, have you tried out the joystick yet?  Curious how you like it and what games you're using it for.

[Farmboy90]

Not yet.  At least not the rotary portion.  The 8-way functionality is fine though.  They don't feel the same as my supers though.  They feel heavier and as such slower.  I doubt it would ever be an issue in a game though.  But they do seem a bit heavier to me.

I won't be able to try the rotaries until I get home.  I just now figured out the wiring issue after calling Happ today.  So I will need to wait until tonight when I get home and can try to get them working.

They will primarily be used for Ikari Warriors.

[Ninten-doh]

Enjoy, and let me know how it goes.  Maybe even take a sec to play some Guerrilla War for me.   

[Farmboy90]

Man, no luck.  I went over my friend's, rewired things to match what the Happ tech guy (and their website) said.  Still nothing works.  I half expected to be able to control the mouse in windows by turning the rotary, but it didn't do anything.  I figured it would behave like the spinner (which moves the mouse across the horizontal axis).  But nothing happened.

When I loaded Ikari I tried to map the Dial for player 1.  Not only did rotating the joystick do nothing, but neither did spinning the trackball or spinner.  I figure at the very least one of those would have caused Mame to map the dial to that movement.

I have both jumpers on the optipac set to A/LO.  I have a Happ trackball and two buttons wired to the optipac as well as two rotary opticals.  Only the trackball and buttons work.  I am using one USB cable.

So what am I doing wrong?  This is making me crazy.     Any tips at all?

Thanks guys!

[Farmboy90]

I tried a bunch of things last night.  Here is what I did.  I hooked up the trackball to the rotary port and it worked.  I hooked the rotary up to the trackball port and it did NOT work.  Still no luck.  So I thought maybe the sensor board was bad.  So I swapped the rotary interface board with one of the trackball boards.  They have the exact same part # from Happ so this should be fine.

After doing that, the trackball still worked and the rotary still did not.  So I know it isn't the board or the optipac that is busted.

Would I be able to move the mouse in XP by rotating the joystick (in a working situation)?  If so, then MAME isn't the issue either.  Because I can't move the mouse in XP.  I figured that once windows was working right with the rotary then MAME would work too.

If not, then is there some config settings for MAME that need to be set to make it recognize the rotary portion?  Oddly, when I load Ikari Warriors and try to remap the Dial input, NOTHING works.  I mean I wiggle the trackball, the spinner, and turn the rotaries and nothing registers with MAME.  Not sure if that is a hint to any problem or not.  I also tried centipede and tried to move the trackball to reassign it to the Track input in MAME and it worked there.  So I know MAME can see the trackball when mapping Track games.  But I don't know how to make it recognize Dial devices.

Any ideas on MAME settings or anyone out there with Rotary Opticals?  Can you tell me if you can move the mouse in XP by turning your rotary?

[Derrick Renaud]

Any ideas on MAME settings or anyone out there with Rotary Opticals?  Can you tell me if you can move the mouse in XP by turning your rotary?

If it does not move the mouse in XP, then it won't work in MAME.  You must have it hooked up wrong.

Once you have it working in XP, then you can either use the MAME ctrlr files to setup the controls, or select them in the MAME player controls menu.  You do have to turn them fast to be accepted though.

D.

[Farmboy90]

Thanks Derrick.  This is what I thoguht.  I have no idea how to make it work then.   

Like I said, I connected the trackball to the rotary interface on the optipac and it worked fine.  I connected the rotary joy to the trackball ports and it didn't work.  I swapped interface boards and got the same results.  So I know the boards are ok.

I am out of ideas at this point unfortunately.   

[Derrick Renaud]

And the answer is....

RED X1
BROWN +5V
ORANGE Ground
YELLOW X2

Actually Brown is ground and orange is 5V on mine.

D.

[Kremmit]

If you only tested the TB boards in the rotaries, but never tried the rotary boards in the TB, then you don't know for sure the rotary boards are OK.   But if you did try it, and the optic boards from the rotary joys worked in the TB, then something is wired wrong to the rotaries, or, concievably, the "spinner" inputs on your OptiPac are wonky.