Separate buttons for Spinner/Trackball necessary?

[tritonarcade]

Does one really need two buttons for the Trackball in addition to two buttons for the Spinner?  Are there any drawbacks to using the same buttons for both?  Wiring issues?

[RacerX]

Does one really need two buttons for the Trackball in addition to two buttons for the Spinner?  Are there any drawbacks to using the same buttons for both?  Wiring issues?

I use the same buttons for both.  I have a separate control panel with a trackball and spinner with 3 buttons to the left of the trackball and 3 buttons to the right (for lefties).   Two of the buttons on the left are wired to the left and right mouse buttons.  The trackball is mounted in the center of the panel with the spinner above and to the right.

This works well for me.  Your mileage may differ depending on your setup.  One limitation of my layout is that I can't effectively play Tron or Discs of Tron with it.  But that doesn't have anything to do with the fact that I use the same buttons for both.

[u_rebelscum]

Does one really need two buttons for the Trackball in addition to two buttons for the Spinner?  Are there any drawbacks to using the same buttons for both?  Wiring issues?

If anything, the only real problem is if you wire the buttons to the spinner, and want to drag-n-drop in windows using the trackball: you can't.  

I think it's because you click the spinner button (computer receives Lbutton down + no movement from spinner), then move the trackball (computer receives movement + no buttons down from trackball), so the computer thinks the button is not pressed any more.  At least, that's what happens to me in winME/98.  XP and 2000 might be different.

Long and short, I'd share buttons between the two, but make sure to wire the buttons to the trackball buttons.

[tritonarcade]

Do you have the trackball and the spinner both on the Optipac?  I have the Tornado spinner with its own USB interface.  I wonder if this will solve that problem.

[u_rebelscum]

Do you have the trackball and the spinner both on the Optipac?  I have the Tornado spinner with its own USB interface.  I wonder if this will solve that problem.

Happens to me with two separate mouse inputs (2 USB or 1 USB + 1 PS/2) or with both through a USB optipac.  Serial optipac might be different.

I first noticed the problem when I had a mouse + a trackball installed on my winME system.  Sometimes when using the trackball, I would "lose" the TB button still being held down.  I found out this only happened when I bumped the table the mouse was sitting on.  The bump would move the mouse 1 or 2 pixels, but windows would "lose" the held down TB button.  I've tested it since on win98, USB + USB, PS/2 + USB, USB optipac + USB, and both through USB optipac.  Same problem.

Never tested a serial mouse, nor winXP/NT/2000, nor the tornado, but my guess is they'd be the same.  

Have you tried it and the button press held?  I'd like to hear about that (and see if I could get it to work on my system).

[tritonarcade]

Ahh, I've actually had that happen even with no spinner installed.  I think the Optipac is kind of buggy when it comes to dragging a window.  I could only get it to drag maybe 20% of the time, and a lot of the time one button push would act as a double click.