Updated rotary mechanical joystick info?

[retrometro]

Some quick searches on these forums come up with some threads about several mechanical and optical rotary joysticks but are very old. 

Are there new sticks that simply add two more microswitches for the two rotational directions that you can wire up to your ipac like interface and be done with it?

thanks!

[u_rebelscum]

New sticks that do that?  No.

Atari had a old stick with that, for the game xybots.

However, I don't like that interface.  Say you want to turn 180 in ikari.  That's four clicks with the mechanical rotary in either direction, but how do you do it with the two switch setup?  Have to physically close the switch 4 times?  (Turn, unturn, turn, unturn, turn, unturn, and turn)  Far harder and longer to do than the origianl four clicks.  Turn and hold the switch until the character turns 180?  That will take at least 4 frames, or else you can't turn the three steps between (45, 90, and 135).  And that assumes the game is set to the quickest possible, which makes turning 45 and 90 harder.

There is a reason there was only one game that used a joystick like you discribed: the 12 click machanical rotary, and the optical rotary are far better interfaces for those games that used them.  (Xybots only had 4 directions, while the other games had 8 or 12 directions.)

That's my 2 cents.

[SavannahLion]

I may be reading the OP's question wrong, but I was under the impression he was looking for a rotary joystick that does the same thing as say... Ultimarc's new U-HID update that instead of the round robbin rotary signals, uses a two button strobe. ie, rotate the stick left four clicks and that is translated into four complete button "presses" on V. Rotate right and the same is done for W. 

[u_rebelscum]

SavannahLion, I don't think so.  He asked for "new sticks with two [extra] microswitches".  He hints he doesn't want any special feature interface, just a normal ipac.  I think the OP would know best, though.

But you're right that "normal" interfaces, namely the U-HID and the current GPwiz-40, do the rotary translation as an extra, "free feature", in addition to the normal interfacing.  I should have mentioned that as another reason why the two switch rotary isn't needed, made, or good.  

But putting one of these in a pre-wired stick that only needed to be plugged into the USB might fill a nitch.

[retrometro]

SavannahLion, I don't think so.  He asked for "new sticks with two [extra] microswitches".  He hints he doesn't want any special feature interface, just a normal ipac.  I think the OP would know best, though.
...
But putting one of these in a pre-wired stick that only needed to be plugged into the USB might fill a nitch.

Sorry it took a while to respond but yes, that's what I was hoping to find.  That way, I would just get the "extra" microswitches and wire them up to the ipac as buttons.  I guess that doesn't exist yet...

Tell me more about the pre-wired stick idea... like the usb gamepad hacks?

[u_rebelscum]

Tell me more about the pre-wired stick idea... like the usb gamepad hacks?

I'm just speculating.  If a joystick came out with the rotary pre-wired to a circuit that translated to left/right for you... :shrug  Doesn't exist yet, but someone could buy a bunch of happs rotary sticks and a matching set of GPwiz or u-hid, wiring them up, and resell 'em.  But IMO, wiring isn't that hard, and I would pay the markup needed for the person doing it to make a profit.  Others might, though.

As I said in my prior post, a twist left/right dual switch joystick sucks, and never will be made again for good reason.

[AndyWarne]

Tell me more about the pre-wired stick idea... like the usb gamepad hacks?

wiring isn't that hard

As I said in my prior post, a twist left/right dual switch joystick sucks, and never will be made again for good reason.

The wiring is very easy when using our rotary joystick interface as it just plugs in...http://www.ultimarc.com/rotary.html

Actually if the Ikari stick were being designed now, it would likely not use a 12-way rotary switch. It would use an off-the-shelf 12-notch rotary encoder which has only 3 terminals. These are cheap devices these days. It would be pretty easy to hook these up to most joysticks.
Andy

[retrometro]

oh wow, that's nice.  $36 isn't so bad either.  Are the [] /\ keys reconfigurable?  I also assume that since the OS will see it as a second or third USB kb, that it shouldn't interfere with the existing kb's or keys assigned to them?

thanks

[AndyWarne]

The keys are fixed, but because you can assign in Mame, they dont really need to be defineable.
This is not a new product, its been around for a while but its pretty well hidden on our website...

[Cornchip]

    What inputs in Mame must a rotary joystick provide? Obviously U/D and L/R. Does the rotary encoder just duplicate the L/R or does it provide more accurate angular positioning? As you can tell, I have never played a real rotary game.

 A question for Andy. Do you have a link or suggested search for the 12 notch rotary encoder mentioned above? I'd like to give this a try sometime.

 Cornchip.