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AC350 Keyboard Encoder?
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Xam:

--- Quote from: JDShaffer on May 24, 2006, 03:41:02 pm ---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

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

Xam
Fozzy The Bear:

--- Quote from: JDShaffer on May 24, 2006, 02:58:42 pm ---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.
--- End quote ---

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.

--- Quote from: JDShaffer on May 25, 2006, 12:09:22 am ---USB limitation is a problem, at this time the unit only handles the standard 6 keys.

--- End quote ---
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.

--- Quote ---The keys are scanned by a matrix.

--- End quote ---
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.   :police:  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.

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

--- End quote ---
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.
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