Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: swamp2 on April 03, 2021, 03:04:29 pm
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Howdy. I've been off the forum for a very long time. Great to see a very active community still here. I recently had to majorly overhaul my Win98 PC powering my custom MAME cabinet. It is running Win98, MAME 0.73 and a SlikStick Classic (using an IPAC). I know - ancient stuff... The system was put together way back c. 2003. I need some help setting up some custom key maps.
I do not recall if my desired behavior is default or custom. At any rate I am trying to configure some keys to access MAME configuration controls directly from the SlikStik during gameplay. This avoids needing to use the keyboard. The most common example is emulating a Tab keyboard press from the SlikStik to enter the MAME configuration menu. I had this set up prior just fine using the so called "Shift" key functionality with the SlikStik. If I press and hold Player 1 Start key and then press the center joystick left, it is supposed to emulate pressing the Tab key (then other directions of the joystick can exit games (via Esc key), press Enter and control volume). This all worked reliably in the past. Now it works very intermittently, stops working and I can not figure out why.
I have tried deleting the default.cfg file in that MAME directory (as well as all of the files in that same directory). My old notes says this should fix this particualrt problem. It only seems to sometimes restore the functionality I am looking for. Regardless the capability then always disappears. I've also checked the default.ini file in the ctrl/SlikStik folder and it has lines for UI_CONFIGURE and UI_CANCEL.
Assuming it doesn't violate forum rules, I'll happily provide a $25 "bounty" for a robust fix for this issue!
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Hook up a keyboard and your joystick at the same time.
Use the keyboard to bring up the config menu. Use the joystick to remap whatever inputs you want. Really doesn’t matter what key presses it’s actually doing.
Done?
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Generally there are 2 parts to this.
One is programming the encoder to send the special shifted keystrokes
The other is setting up your emulators to accept the keystrokes and perform the desired actions.
You need to find out which of these 2 things is failing. Is your encoder sending shifted keystrokes? Which ones? Is it sending them consistently and reliably? (Maybe a microswitch is failing). Try opening notepad and performing actions and shifted actions and see what is coming up in notepad (assuming your encoder sends keystrokes and not actual gamepad output)
After you have that figured out you can move on to getting emulators to work but that will be easy after you determine the encoder works right.
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Try opening notepad and performing actions and shifted actions and see what is coming up in notepad (assuming your encoder sends keystrokes and not actual gamepad output).
Thanks. I've tried using notepad and it is not working as expected there. Shift (hold P1 start) and middle joy left should generate a Tab keystroke (for MAME game menu). It does not. However in the IPAC configurator it does show 16 (Tab key) under the SHIFTED KEYS tab under 1L (joystick 1 left). For the life of me I also can't get a 0 (zero) for the few Shifted keys that are not already set to 0 (almost all are).
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Use the mame config menu, not notepad, to see what keystrokes are being generated.
It doesn’t matter what they are, so long as they’re consistent.
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Thanks guys. Made some good progress last night. Issues were inconsistent limit switch behavior combined with a lack of understanding of the IPAC programming GUI.
I'm left trying to resolve the mapping between the labels on each connection on the PCB connections and the codes on the LEFT of the colons in this apparently proprietary SlikStik programming GUI. I can obviously trace each button to a labeled connection on the PCB. That doesn't help.
Some of the codes with U, D, L or R are obvious, but many others aren't at all. See attached. I expect the blue vs. white characters/digits are informative and by design. Andy from Ultimarc even replied to an email but basically only said the GUI is old and proprietary and to try a keyboard test program. Doesn't seem that will help as you can right click on the right side of each box and it tells you the key being pressed.
PS: I get you can do this in MAME for all games. I'd prefer a full understanding and control of the IPAC.
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White/Blue are player one, white/whie are player2
Ie: 11 is player 1 button 1
21 is player 2 button 1
1u is player 1 up direction
2u is player 2 up direction
1s is player one start
1c is player one coin