Ultimarc Product Update

[AndyWarne]

Couple of product updates not mentioned here before:

I-PAC ⁴:
This board gets the "Full Speed USB" Treatment and brings it into line with the new I-PAC ². New design but functionally similar. Still supports PS/2 also.

A-PAC:
This is now a new board. No longer needs any external capacitors and handles all pot values. Appears to the PC as two game controllers, as did the previous version. Now 12-bit analog resolution.

Mini-PAC:
Now a new board which is actually the same basic PCB as the U-HID. Has the following improvements:

• Full-Speed USB
• Improved wiring harness layout
• Now separate harnesses for switches and trackball/spinner
• 16 bit trackball/spinner resolution
• Uses standard Mini-USB cable. Still supports PS/2 with optional adaptor plug.

All our keyboard interface range are now Full-Speed USB which eliminates any discussion around possible number of simultaneous keypresses since there is now no limit.

http://www.ultimarc.com

[sinkhead]

Nice one!

[arzoo]

Hey Andy,
Any chance you'll be adding an intensity setting to the Pac-Drive?

[boxman]

Excuse my noobness but does this mean that my old minipac (bought in 2007) has a limit to button presses? What is the limit?

[Visitor Q]

I would just like to say that I have dealt with Andy in the past and he has top notch customer service!

Thanks for the great new products!

[Ginsu Victim]

Excuse my noobness but does this mean that my old minipac (bought in 2007) has a limit to button presses? What is the limit?

Nope. Try for yourself.

[boxman]

Excuse my noobness but does this mean that my old minipac (bought in 2007) has a limit to button presses? What is the limit?

Nope. Try for yourself.

I haven't wired it up yet, thanks for letting me know. My heart sank for a moment there.

[Ginsu Victim]

I've held down all the buttons my hands could manage, and they all register.

[Turnarcades]

I've held down all the buttons my hands could manage, and they all register.

I think the limit is 16 (for USB 1.1 at least) though you would be hard pressed to do this in most conceivable situations anyway.

Andy, there is one conceivable problem for me that I can spot straight away and I also have additional questions:

1) You say there is a PS/2 option but it only appears as a clickable option on the website when buying the board on it's own; there is no option for PS/2 on the 'standard board with joystick harness' like there was previously. As you know, we prefer to use the PS/2 connection if possible (only using the necessary USB version when having the Opti-harness) so the PS/2 option being absent from the 'standard board with harness' complicates the ordering process for us. Can you please add the PS/2 option to this category?

2) As this is now the U-HID board, could you now consider adding a 4-player harness to the mix? We always used 2 mini-pacs when making a 4-player panel for wiring simplicity rather than the I-Pac4 so it would now be great if this board supports 4 players if we could get a 4-player harness for it - preferably with longer wires - or an option on the order page to adda second, longer-wired 2-player harness to supplement the included 2-player harness.

3) Could this in theory now support the same as the original mini-pac plus two extra players? ie. The original mini-pac could support 2 players+trackball+spinner - can this now support 4 players+trackball+spinner, and are there harnesses available to do this? our average 4-player machine includes all these, so if we could get one small interface with ready-made looms to connect all these controls to it that would be brilliant.

[dirkomatic]

A-PAC:
This is now a new board. No longer needs any external capacitors and handles all pot values. Appears to the PC as two game controllers, as did the previous version. Now 12-bit analog resolution.

Is this the U-HID Nano or is there a new A-PAC?  I'm a little confused by the web sites.

[ZeroPoint]

The new MiniPac looks promising. Does it now have additional 4 inputs (32) ?

What I really miss is a way to program any input as left, right and middle mouse button, button scroll up (z) and button scroll down (z) instead of being stuck with the two dedicated inputs. This would bring more comfort to playing.

There should also been a way to instantly reprogram the quadrature inputs as x, y or z mouse axis with an reverse option. A way to program the mouse (x,y and z) speed would come in handy.

Instead of integrating these functions into WinIPAC it would be better with a dedicated WiniPAC Mini software that could save these additional functions for instant reprogramming. (left, middle, right, scroll up, scroll down and quadrature axis, direction and speed).

Andy ->  (Oh, no !!! Another feature request...)

[AndyWarne]

Andy, there is one conceivable problem for me that I can spot straight away and I also have additional questions:

1) You say there is a PS/2 option but it only appears as a clickable option on the website when buying the board on it's own; there is no option for PS/2 on the 'standard board with joystick harness' like there was previously. As you know, we prefer to use the PS/2 connection if possible (only using the necessary USB version when having the Opti-harness) so the PS/2 option being absent from the 'standard board with harness' complicates the ordering process for us. Can you please add the PS/2 option to this category?

OK I fixed that one in the store.

2) As this is now the U-HID board, could you now consider adding a 4-player harness to the mix? We always used 2 mini-pacs when making a 4-player panel for wiring simplicity rather than the I-Pac4 so it would now be great if this board supports 4 players if we could get a 4-player harness for it - preferably with longer wires - or an option on the order page to adda second, longer-wired 2-player harness to supplement the included 2-player harness.

3) Could this in theory now support the same as the original mini-pac plus two extra players? ie. The original mini-pac could support 2 players+trackball+spinner - can this now support 4 players+trackball+spinner, and are there harnesses available to do this? our average 4-player machine includes all these, so if we could get one small interface with ready-made looms to connect all these controls to it that would be brilliant.

I will think about the best way to implement 4 players. The U-HID modular harnesses also fit this board so that is a option for harnesses but will need the necessary firmware of course.

[AndyWarne]

The new MiniPac looks promising. Does it now have additional 4 inputs (32) ?

What I really miss is a way to program any input as left, right and middle mouse button, button scroll up (z) and button scroll down (z) instead of being stuck with the two dedicated inputs. This would bring more comfort to playing.

There should also been a way to instantly reprogram the quadrature inputs as x, y or z mouse axis with an reverse option. A way to program the mouse (x,y and z) speed would come in handy.

Instead of integrating these functions into WinIPAC it would be better with a dedicated WiniPAC Mini software that could save these additional functions for instant reprogramming. (left, middle, right, scroll up, scroll down and quadrature axis, direction and speed).

Andy ->  (Oh, no !!! Another feature request...)

All these features are available on the U-HID board which is the high-end "does everything" option.

[AndyWarne]

A-PAC:
This is now a new board. No longer needs any external capacitors and handles all pot values. Appears to the PC as two game controllers, as did the previous version. Now 12-bit analog resolution.

Is this the U-HID Nano or is there a new A-PAC?  I'm a little confused by the web sites.

The new board is this one:  http://www.ultimarc.com/a-pac1.html
I will tidy up the links as soon as poss.
Andy

[Turnarcades]

Quote from: Turnarcades on Yesterday at 21:40:33

Andy, there is one conceivable problem for me that I can spot straight away and I also have additional questions:

1) You say there is a PS/2 option but it only appears as a clickable option on the website when buying the board on it's own; there is no option for PS/2 on the 'standard board with joystick harness' like there was previously. As you know, we prefer to use the PS/2 connection if possible (only using the necessary USB version when having the Opti-harness) so the PS/2 option being absent from the 'standard board with harness' complicates the ordering process for us. Can you please add the PS/2 option to this category?


OK I fixed that one in the store.

Thanks for that, though the downside now is the PS/2 option is more expensive than the USB option, rather than the other way round. Plus I've just realised there is no keyboard pass-through like there was previously, only an optional extra. Bummer. This means that until a simple 4-player harness is created, using two of these devices for a 4-player panel means using 2 USB ports, rather than having them run in serial like could be done previously. It will require the additional pass-through connector and the optional PS/2 connector being purchased, forcing the price up.

If this is indeed the case, maybe this information should now be clarified on the Mini-Pac info page, or some kind of instructional diagram put up in the support section to illustrate the arrangement?

So far this change reads as not being for the better as far as being a builder is concerned as it puts the cost of a 4-player panel up by around £10 and compromises the PC connectivity options.

[AndyWarne]

So far this change reads as not being for the better as far as being a builder is concerned as it puts the cost of a 4-player panel up by around £10 and compromises the PC connectivity options.

But we have a better solution for a 4-player panel, the U-HID board. Actually the situation depends on how many inputs you need. If you can let me know we can likely put together a solution for 4 players which is neater and more economical than using 2 Mini-PACs.

[DeLuSioNal29]

Quick question:  Will the new A-Pac work with a "Gorf" flight stick?  I have one in the garage and was thinking about replacing my digital flight stick with this one.

Thanks in advance!

~ DeLuSioNaL

[AndyWarne]

It should work. I dont know the details of the stick. If it has pots it will work.

Andy

[Ummon]

Quick question:  Will the new A-Pac work with a "Gorf" flight stick?  I have one in the garage and was thinking about replacing my digital flight stick with this one.

Thanks in advance!

~ DeLuSioNaL

Gorf wasn't analog.

[Turnarcades]

So far this change reads as not being for the better as far as being a builder is concerned as it puts the cost of a 4-player panel up by around £10 and compromises the PC connectivity options.

But we have a better solution for a 4-player panel, the U-HID board. Actually the situation depends on how many inputs you need. If you can let me know we can likely put together a solution for 4 players which is neater and more economical than using 2 Mini-PACs.

Using the ordering part of the site I've just gone through various combinations of hardware that we would currently need to accomplish the same as we currently get now. Whilst having the 'mini-pac' version of the U-HID board is around the same price as the old mini-pac (little more expensive for PS/2), on pricing the creation of a new 4-player solution (using the regular U-HID), it is around the same price as buying two old mini-pacs was previously, but not as simple for connection and limited to USB.

After reading the 'OEM' page of the U-HID section it is a little reassuring that reduced-function boards are available at a reduced cost, but this remains to be seen as we do not order in bulk. This of course still raises the issue of the USB connection: previously I experienced issues with the USB version of the old mini-pac as detailed in previous conversations (something to do with the registry) and the old mini-pac USB could only run on USB 2.0, not USB 1.1. Whilst this was not too much of a problem previously (we only tended to have trackballs and spinners on higher-end machine requests with a better PC), many of our customers still opt for the basic PC, which is a P3 system with only USB 1.1.

Is the U-HID family of devices compatible with USB 1.1? The obvious concern is that if it is not, this new hardware is eliminating compatibility with our tried-and-tested setup. Even if it is compatible with USB 1.1, surely the same registry problem exists as on the old mini-pac and it will also suffer from the simultaneous key-press problem that USB 1.1 had?

[AndyWarne]

All our boards are compatible with USB 1.1 and always have been.

The "Registry problem" is a bug in Windows. Its not a Mini-PAC issue. Its a well-known problem which Microsoft never fixed until Vista. The issue is caused by the fact that Windows XP does not re-detect and replace registry entries if a USB device is unplugged and reconnected. So any errors in the registry are always there until deleted.
The errors usually get in there if a device is repeatedly plugged in to different USB ports on the PC. It could also possibly happen if an I-PAC is replaced with a Mini-PAC on the same PC. It never happens if the device is not unplugged and is extremely rare in all cases.

A quick search will reveal many information pages about this problem from varioius vendors. Here is one:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/fastFaqLiteDocument?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=hr&docname=bpy20135

To work around this Microsoft problem I added some functionality into the WinIPAC installer which deletes the offending entries. Once this is done the problem is gone.

One unfortunate feature of this problem is that if WinIPAC is run and the board programmed, it by-passes the issue until the next reboot, because this process invokes a filter driver. This leads the user to incorrectly believe that the problem is the board had lost its setup and that reloading it has fixed a problem. This is actually not the problem though, the board is fine and the issue is in XP itself.

Andy

[DeLuSioNal29]

I had no idea, I assumed it was analog since it has such a smooth feel to it.

Anyway, my goal is to get it working with Tron in MAME.  The flight stick I currently have stinks.  Especially with the diagonals in the cycle games.  (Same as everyone else).

Anyone know if it will work with an ipac?

[Ummon]

I had no idea, I assumed it was analog since it has such a smooth feel to it.

Anyway, my goal is to get it working with Tron in MAME.  The flight stick I currently have stinks.  Especially with the diagonals in the cycle games.  (Same as everyone else).

Anyone know if it will work with an ipac?

It's a digital control. Yes.

Craig, that's so funny that people opt for such a low-end machine. But it being the UK, I'm not necessarily surprised. I don't think people would go for something like that from a vendor here in the US.

[Turnarcades]

Craig, that's so funny that people opt for such a low-end machine. But it being the UK, I'm not necessarily surprised.

That's a little offensive. Are you implying Brits are cheapskates or something? It's not like we're a third world over here or some backward economy where the latest stuff isn't available. People simply want to leep the cost of their custom build down and I can demonstrate that a lower spec is usually sufficient for their needs. There are many members here who build cabinets with lower-spec machines as top end hardware is not required for the games they intend to run.

From our point of view, our cabinets are aimed at people with a low-medium budget so making best use of older hardware is the way to go in this range. I spent a long time finding a widely-available, suitable model PC and eeking the most out of it performance-wise. When potential customers see what I have made possible at this spec they are more than happy to stick with the 'basic' PC and keep the cost of their cabinet down, particularly the more casual gamers who only want to add MAME and a handful of classics to their cabinet.

I can understand many people's need for higher spec and many do opt for much higher specs as I would too, but that bit you said about the UK just sounds a bit bad - apologies if I've misread it.

[sinkhead]

Craig, we've been had! They must have laughed for months after saving all the quad core Space Invaders cabinets for themselves...

[Ummon]

Craig, that's so funny that people opt for such a low-end machine. But it being the UK, I'm not necessarily surprised.

That's a little offensive. Are you implying Brits are cheapskates or something?

If anything I'm saying US folks gotta have fancy, new-fangled stuff, even if they don't use it. Getting old machines from a vendor would be, like, insulting to them. New is cool, you know.

[CheffoJeffo]

New is cool, you know.

And Ummon knows cool!

[Turnarcades]

If anything I'm saying US folks gotta have fancy, new-fangled stuff, even if they don't use it. Getting old machines from a vendor would be, like, insulting to them. New is cool, you know.

Having to spend top dollar to be cool is also elitist. More often than not, buying new is being ripped off as you get the same tool to do the job but you are more seriously out of pocket. Take cars for example - a friend of mine just paid £15000 for an ugly medium-spec hatchback brand new. Right now I'm looking at buying my dream car - a TVR Speed Six - which can now be had for about £12000. Who's the mug?

Even more insulting in the current economic climate would be to dangle cool, unaffordable gear under their noses that they know they could not have, much like the £3000 offerings of other similar PC-based arcades in the UK.