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Lighted Buttons - Per Game
ErikRuud:
Valence,
I have had no problem lighting up Happs buttons with leds. Check my Illuminated buttons page and you will see that I was able to light a red button, and I wasn't even using the brightest LEDs. As far as I know, black buttons cannot be lit.
DinoRoger:
Well did some brain storming yesterday and I can show everyone how to perform an * LED light control system without hardly any hardware. Using the parrallel port alone I can power 8 LED's. This weekend I hope to write up easy how to create the 8 LED point hardware using very little hardware or know how. If you think about it 8 LED's is enough for most projects. You will never need 8 or more than 8 buttons per player. For example you light up the firece punch button on Street Fighter for player 1. The same control for that button can also be used for Player 2. If you have a 4 player CP each player will be using the same LED control for each button. I will also write the software for this process and release it. I will try and post some diagrams so you have something to drewl over until then.
I am still going to continue to work on the hardware that will allow up to 448 LED's but this will be somthing I believe I can get out to the community very fast.
ErikRuud:
GameLauncher does inded have the ability to run a command both before and after launching a game. That command can be a bat file. However, the pre and post commands are set for each emulator, not each rom. So you cannot use the pre and post commnads to run .bat files for each rom.
What you can do is run each of your roms from .bat files.
I do this already on my cab. Because I am running two other emulators, one of wich does not allow re-assigning the keys(O2Em), I wanted to be able to load different configurations to my IPac. I have an IPac config for Mame, GameLauncher, Retrocade, and O2Em. So I set up .bat files that load the IPac config, launch the rom, and then load the config for GameLauncher. It would be easy to add another step to these .bat files for the LED system.
I originally set up all these .bat files before David added the pre and post command option.
Frostillicus:
--- Quote ---Because of the compleity of the program/hardware allot of my creation will be propritairy. Meaning I would need to sell the hardware and software as a package. I'm not trying to do this to make money but you understand its not free. I will be lookign around after getting my proto type built for a sells partner. Maybe even include it in already built CP's. We will see!
--- End quote ---
I'm not trying to sound cheap, but I like to do as much stuff by myself as possible (it's so much more fun!). I want to compare this to those winamp plugins where you download a driver, build a circuit, and control winamp with a serial 'remote control' on your desktop. Similar to yours? Or are you planning on using programmed chips or something?
Also, I have to use Direct I/O to get my laserdisc player to work with daphne (WinXP), do you predict your LED project might have the same problem communicating with ports in XP?
DinoRoger:
--- Quote ---I'm not trying to sound cheap, but I like to do as much stuff by myself as possible (it's so much more fun!). I want to compare this to those winamp plugins where you download a driver, build a circuit, and control winamp with a serial 'remote control' on your desktop. Similar to yours? Or are you planning on using programmed chips or something?
Also, I have to use Direct I/O to get my laserdisc player to work with daphne (WinXP), do you predict your LED project might have the same problem communicating with ports in XP?
--- End quote ---
I will be releasing two version. The freebie software and how-to hack the parallel port to control 8 led controls. There again 8 should be plenty. For example for Street Fighter 2 you need to light up the punch button. You will use the same control for punch for the other players also.
The other version I release will be a programmed circuit and can control hundreds of LEDs independently.
I am designing the software/hardware to function both in DOS and Windows Operating Systems (Includin XP because that is what I run).