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Q*Bert Knocker writeup, correct me on parts

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ErikRuud:
A 555 timer is a simple timer chip that can be bought almost any where.

There are a lot of ways to use 555 timers, I will try to give a simple descrition that fits this application.

They have an iput or trigger line, when they receive a pulse on the trigger line, the chip turns on its output line for a set amount of time, and then turns the line off.
The duration is determined by a resistor and a capacitor.  Different resistor/capacitor combinations give different durations from miliseconds to minutes.

555 timers can also be used to create oscillating signals, and bunch of other applications as well.

Do a search for 555 timer, and you will be able to find tones of circuits and write ups on their use.

SirPoonga:
that might be better if a quick outp(lpt,FF) followed by a outp(lpt,00) is used.

1UP:
We ought to get all our heads together and design a universal force feedback interface!  It could be a DIY tutorial, or maybe we could get Andy or Kelsey interested in making a new product.  It could just be a board with a few simple components, hooked to a parallel port, with terminal blocks like the Ipac for hooking up any number of thumpers, LEDs and such, which are placed in the cabinet wherever you need them.  As people wrote hacks for their favorite game drivers, they could submit them for entry in the Mame source code, and the interface would eventually work on many games!

I'm about an hour away from having a working recoil driver board for my Terminator 2 guns, I'd love to be able to add additional outputs for Outrun, Qbert, etc.

USB I think would be more difficult--its bacically 2 pins for power and 2 for data.  You need some kind of encoder on the board to send and receive discrete inputs from the PC...

Howard_Casto:
I'm on board for this too if anyone's interested...  Drivers I'm not good at but the hardware end shouldn't be a prob for me as we would simply need some simle input output stuff.  As for usb, it's not a problem at all... go to your local staples and you'll find a nifty little adapter that turns one of your usb ports into a parallel prot via a simple cable and controller chip.  So we make it as a parallel device and usb nuts can get one of those adaptors.  We're still overlooking a MAJOR problem with all of these solutions, namely thier compatability with 2000/xp. I know alot of you use 98 or even dos right now, but trust me on this 98 is fading fast, we need to keep things somewhat on the cutting edge or everything will have to be re-built in a couple years, much like the problem andy is having with the ipac programming right now.  That's why I suggested the led input orignally, not because of ease of use/building, but because it would work on anything.  (In theory at least.)  

You guys let me know something... it's not like I don't have enough  projects in the works right now, but when It's a good one like this, I'm always willing to lend a hand.

aramis:
Howard,

I've been trying to figure out a nice way around the fact that other games use the LED's. Do you know of any way to look up which games use the LED's? Without knowing which games/what LEDs I haven't gotten too far. Obviously, we only want the knocker to "knock" when playing QBert, so the only thing I can think of is to qualify the QBert knocker by doing something like:

AND two (or three) KB led's together to trigger the knocker circuit. (Any games flash two or all three LED's simultaneously right now?)

An expansion of that could be to figure some scheme that is NOT used by a current game (for example: NUM, SCROLL on, CAPS off) and use inverters, ANDs, ORs or whatever to trigger the knocker circuit...

I really think this idea could be expanded to full force feedback somehow, but in the short term I'd just like to have a Qbert knocker in Win XP.  :)

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