AC350 Keyboard Encoder?

[Witchboard]

I did a search for AC350 and it didn't return any hits, so... Any thoughts? Link

[Xam]

Saw it on ebay...don't know anything about it...price seems a bit steep on it for an unknown product...$45 with 4 days left to bid??

Xam

[horseboy]

Yeah, but the rotary interface on there piqued my interest in this thing.

[Xam]

Yeah, but the rotary interface on there piqued my interest in this thing.

True dat.
Wish all these new encoder people would submit a sample of their product to someone like Retroblast for review.

Xam

[JDShaffer]

Hello,
My name is Jeremy.   I am the creator of the AC350.  I understand your concerns about a new product.  I would be happy to loan one out for review.  I'm afraid that I don't know who Retroblast is, but if he is trusted in the community I would be happy to use him.  My only request would be that the unit be returned in around 2 weeks.  At this time my first run of boards was small and after selling several locally I don't have many left, my second batch of boards won't be here for a couple more weeks.   

[Hoopz]

I would suggest you contact user Tiger-Heli on the boards.  He is the man when it comes to keeping everything straight on encoders. 

Here is the link to his site on Mameworld.  http://www.mameworld.net/tigerheli/

Its about as detailed as anything can be so make sure you have plenty of time to spare before you start to read through it.

And thanks for the offer to let someone review it.   

[Stingray]

Kev at retroblast can be trusted completely. It would probably give your business a nice boost if you allow one of the guys at retroblast to review your new encoder.

-S

[CheffoJeffo]

Kev at retroblast can be trusted completely. It would probably give your business a nice boost if you allow one of the guys at retroblast to review your new encoder.

Not to mention a potential review in GameRoom, another branch of the Steele publishing family.

EDIT: I noticed no link to Retroblast in this thread.

Cheers.

[pointdablame]

I'd also recommend you give Kev a chance to review it over at RetroBlast.   It would do nothing but help your product (assuming it works well... no offense meant) in this community as Retroblast is very well known around here.

It certainly seems like a nice product, that's for sure.

[Xam]

Hello,
My name is Jeremy.   I am the creator of the AC350.  I understand your concerns about a new product.  I would be happy to loan one out for review.  I'm afraid that I don't know who Retroblast is, but if he is trusted in the community I would be happy to use him.  My only request would be that the unit be returned in around 2 weeks.  At this time my first run of boards was small and after selling several locally I don't have many left, my second batch of boards won't be here for a couple more weeks.   

JD...thanks for replying! I appreciate your response as do the other members here. Letting Kev and Tiger-Heli review should definately help your product.

Xam

[JDShaffer]

Glad to be part of the discussion.  I am going to send Kevin an email later.  I think the AC350 works great.  I spent a lot of time on it, especially on the rotary code,  but I would love to get the input of someone that has experience with so many different encoders.  I do think I have more options then most, PS/2 and USB, 16 of the 60 inputs accepting 2 wire switches or 1 wire optical and of course the built-on rotary controller.  However I do realize that the unit being non-mappable will be a draw back. (Hope that a little bragging was ok)
But if nothing else, testing has been a blast.

[Timoe]

What does he mean by 1 -wire optical?


Like you can hook up your track ball and your mouse?

[JDShaffer]

What I meant by that was that besides the 2 wire mechanical switches, the unit  also has 16 inputs (enough for 4 joysticks) that will also accept the 1 wire signal that is used by optical joysticks such as the HAPP Perfect 360 that only has 1 wire for each direction, up, down right and left.  There are also 4 power headers on the board to supply 5v and ground to the optical joysticks.  I hope that clears up what I meant.
Jeremy

[Timoe]

Oh, very cool.

[KevSteele]

James pointed out this thread to me - I'd certainly be willing to make arrangements for a RetroBlast review, although after the last encoder-testing blunder on my part I suspect I'll have someone else do the actual review. (I haven't had as much time for reviews lately as I'd like, for some reason!)

Like others said here, Tiger-Heli is also a good choice.

It looks like a promising design, and it's great to see new products like this coming out!

Kevin

[Xam]

What I meant by that was that besides the 2 wire mechanical switches, the unit  also has 16 inputs (enough for 4 joysticks) that will also accept the 1 wire signal that is used by optical joysticks such as the HAPP Perfect 360 that only has 1 wire for each direction, up, down right and left.  There are also 4 power headers on the board to supply 5v and ground to the optical joysticks.  I hope that clears up what I meant.
Jeremy

Awesome...the power supply issue is what keeps some from purchasing sticks such as the 360

Xam

[Fozzy The Bear]

I do think I have more options then most, PS/2 and USB, 16 of the 60 inputs accepting 2 wire switches or 1 wire optical and of course the built-on rotary controller.  However I do realize that the unit being non-mappable will be a draw back.

A little bragging is always OK we need to know what it does and how it performs in comparison to the other units.

Can you explain exactly how you are dealing with USB inputs. USB has a very serious simultanious key limitation. For mame cabinets it's not ideal. How many keys can be input simultaniously from your unit?? 

Also can you tell us how it is scanned?? does it use a key matrix of any sort to achieve all of those inputs?? If it does, then we've been down this route before and found that it hits dead ends. The chip you are using looks distinctly like a standard off the shelf matrix keyboard encoder and we've all had experience of these not being ideal.

Also can you tell us if you will be creating a unit that is mappable?? This is pretty essential to those of us that run more than Mame on our cabinets.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

[SirPeale]

Do not trust the ones known as the Retro-Twins!  Retro-James and Retro-Blast!  They will have their wiley ways with the encoder, and when it returns, it will stench ever-so-slightly of wet dog!  Poodle, I suspect.  And you'll get cooties.

[JDShaffer]

USB limitation is a problem, at this time the unit only handles the standard 6 keys.  The keys are scanned by a matrix.  At this time I am not planning a programmable unit.  But we'll see what the future brings.  If the rotary section is well liked, I might break if off onto it's own board so it can be bought separately.
Jeremy

[Tiger-Heli]

JDShaffer and I are discussing via E-mail and I will have more info on the unit on my page.

USB limitation is a problem, at this time the unit only handles the standard 6 keys.

Holy Horsepuckey!  I was going to jump on Fozzy's case for mentioning this, as USB does not have this limitation if you specify a higher limit in the device enumeration.  If your unit really does have a six-key limitation (six plus modifiers such as Alt, Shift, Ctrl), you should at least mention this in the brochure, especially to this target market - although in fairness, it may be mentioned in the documentation, which I haven't seen yet.

The keys are scanned by a matrix.

Okay, thanks for admitting that.  Another thing I was going to take issue with Fozzy about, although I seem to be agreeing with him more than I am disagreeing.     A scanning matrix in itself is not bad, but as I mentioned in my E-mail, you will have ghosting unless you use diodes on the inputs.

Since I don't see any diodes and you do say that the unit uses a scanning matrix, my initial impression is that the keyboard encoder portion of this is not much better than a larger version of the TOKN KB16.  (And my opinion of it is widely known).  Perhaps not even as good as a KB16, since at least it was somewhat programmable, after a fashion.

Okay - that comment was extremely harsh given that I have had no exposure to the device, but I call them as I see them.  This target market is an environment where it is fairly common to have as many as ten inputs pressed simultaneously, and if this will result in ghosting (and I see nothing to suggest that your device won't), you would do well to disclose that.

The good news is you can either add diodes to the board or include diodes and instructions for the user to wire them up and avoid the problem altogether, but this should be disclosed up-front, IMHO.

  If the rotary section is well liked, I might break if off onto it's own board so it can be bought separately.

That might do well, IMHO.  Druin used to sell a standalone rotary board, but he is no longer manufacturing them.  Rdagger just did a limited run of them, but I don't know if he plans any additional ones or not.  So that would sort of fill a void in the currently-available options.

[JDShaffer]

I probably am way off on this, I went back through my notes and I think I got 6 from the USB specification that defines six device states for USB devices.  That is the only place I saw the number 6.  I really should stop answering off the top of my head. 

[Tiger-Heli]

I probably am way off on this, I went back through my notes and I think I got 6 from the USB specification that defines six device states for USB devices.  That is the only place I saw the number 6.  I really should stop answering off the top of my head. 

My apologies for the harsh reply, then, but six is a legitimate number.

I haven't studied the actual spec, but the USB spec for keyboards defines a simultaneous keypress limit of six primary keys plus any modifiers such as Alt, Shift, and Ctrl.  (I am not sure whether L Shift and R Shift are treated differently or not).

I have also heard anecdotal evidence that pressing more than six keys on a USB keyboard results in a BSOD, although I think I have tried this and found it didn't happen.  Pretty sure it didn't with the PS/2 - USB adapter I used to use, but that's another issue.

You can get around the limitation by specifying a different limitation in the device emumeration (which is what ultimarc does with their USB encoders), and it doesn't apply to gamepad buttons (which is what groovygamegear does with the GP-Wiz and GP-Wiz49 encoders).

Also, I don't mean to sound like I am talking down to you, but it sounds like the only testing you have done was to wire one up and play games and say "Hey, this is cool."  And I do appreciate that AFAICT, you have honestly stated how the device works, and if anything possibly stated that it has limitations that it actually doesn't.

The test for either ghosting or USB compatibilty is very simple:

USB - Plug the AC-350 in as USB, fire up GhostKey or similar app (http://arcadecontrols.com/arcade_downloads.shtml#Utilities ) and press seven or eight (or more) primary (non - Shift, Alt, Ctrl) keys and see if Ghostkey registers all the keys.  If it does, the AC-350 does not have this limitation.

Ghosting - Plug in the AC-350 in PS/2 (or USB, shouldn't matter), fire up Ghostkey (or maybe KeyScan), start closing inputs - if you ever see more inputs than you pressed, you've got ghosting.

See this thread for how I tested this with the TOKN KB16 - http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=37906.msg340504#msg340504

As I said previously, it's not a big deal as long as you add diodes to take care of it.  See my links to http://www.dribin.org/dave/keyboard/ for a concise explanation of the problem.