Robotron - sticky joystick signal?

[arzoo]

Hi All,
I'm having a strange problem with Robotron 2084 - the right hand joystick (fire control) signal seems to get stuck every once in a while. It will continue to shoot in the stuck direction until I let off the stick for a few seconds and then try a different direction. I don't think this has anything to do with the cherry switches - it fails in any direction. I've also checked all the connections and wiring to the IPac. Also, my cp has two joystick for player 1 and player two and I've remapped the controls to the player 2 joysticks and the problem does not occur - so it seems localized to the player 1 right hand joystick, or the ports on the IPac used by that stick.

Any suggestions? Should I contact Ultimarc?

Thanks

[arzoo]

Anyone, anyone, Buler?

[NightGod]

Have you tried temporarily wiring one of the Player 2 sticks (rather than just remapping) to the same Ipac terminals to see if the problem is related to the stick or the Ipac? Would at least confirm the problem is with the Ipac before you contact Ultimarc.

[RayB]

I doubt something like that would be due to the encoder.

[arzoo]

Have you tried temporarily wiring one of the Player 2 sticks (rather than just remapping) to the same Ipac terminals to see if the problem is related to the stick or the Ipac? Would at least confirm the problem is with the Ipac before you contact Ultimarc.

That's not a bad idea, but I think it will be easier if I just unmount and swap the two joysticks. I'll try one or the other. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Torc]

just to eliminate the possibitly its 4 bad microswitches, swap em out with ones from the other stick.

You can also run some temporary wiring to eliminate the possibilty its bad wiring. maybe even run it to different blocks, its best to do it in steps. so you can isolate the problem if it goes away.

[arzoo]

Hey all - I wanted to bump this thread because I've been playing Robotron lately and the sticky joystick problem is still happening. Here's the thing - I've replaced the Supers with U360s, so it can't be the I-Pac or the cherry switches. If I test the joystick from the WinXP Game Controllers dialog - it functions perfectly. Also when playing the game the problem does not occur until a few levels up (when things start getting hectic). So my guess is it's a problem with mame. Anyone else experience this?

By the way - my new high score; 372k 

[jlfreund]

I think I've seen this problem a few times, but it's extremely rare, meaning something like 1 in 200 games.  I think I was able to recover pretty easily by monkeying with the controls or something but it was a while ago, so I don't remember.

I have WinXP, minipac, 2 Magstick Plus, Mame 1.09.

The joysticks are probably not the cause since between the two of us, there were at least 2 different sets used.  Since it's happened with IPac/minipac, maybe it's an Ultimarc thing?

Incidentally, I've seen other strange behavior with my Minipac.  I have 2 machines, exactly alike.
- With one machine, using a Windows 2k installation, the minipac seems to drop some joystick input.  Could be related to pressing a single button at the same time.  But on same machine problem does not occur in Linux.
- With other machine, running Win 2k, minipac seems to get completely dropped by the machine, and I have to unplug and replug the USB cable.  This happens quite regularly (once every couple weeks).

-Jason


PS: Robotron score is 442k on "blue rom" with default settings, which I think is easier than the official configuration.  But then again, I'm handicapped with the Magstick Plus sticks

[Ginsu Victim]

Change your Minipac to use only letter keys, no function keys.

That solved my problems.

[miles2912]

Has to be a PC/Encoder issue.  Zero issues here with my mini pac.  Just going to have to play with the setttings a bit.  I am suprised other games are not having some kind of problem..

[SirPeale]

Holy thread-from-the-dead, Batman!

Sounds like some kind of buffer issue.  EG When you hold down a key those keystrokes are being caught in a buffer and it keeps on going.  Test it in Notepad or similar to see if this is happening.

When this happens, if you let off and don't go another direction, does it eventually stop?

[arzoo]

Holy thread-from-the-dead, Batman!

Tell me about it! I haven't played Robotron for a LONG time and I just got back into it.

Sounds like some kind of buffer issue.  EG When you hold down a key those keystrokes are being caught in a buffer and it keeps on going.  Test it in Notepad or similar to see if this is happening.

When this happens, if you let off and don't go another direction, does it eventually stop?

It does eventually stop. But this makes no sense since the u360 is not wired into any encoder - it's detected as a joystick (digitally restricted for 8-way operation). Also, the stick continues to operate correctly even when the problem occurs - so if I let the stick center, the Robotron dude moves left (it's always left), but if I move the stick in any other direction the dude moves in that direction, until I let it center again and then it's back to moving left. If I let the guy continue moving left it will eventually stop - but usually you die first. So this would imply that the joystick is not centering correctly - but back when I first started this thread 2 years ago, I was using a Super 8-way (wired to my I-Pac), and it had the same problem. Bizzare!