Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: AndyWarne on March 18, 2005, 04:00:38 am
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Hi all,
You can check the A-PAC out here: www.ultimarc.com/a-pac.html
It's a new interface which emulates TWO gamepads. The direction inputs can be connected to analog sticks (pots) or switch joysticks and it will auto-detect.
It can of course be used for any other analog controls such as steering wheels, pedals etc.
32 button inputs are available, or a combination of buttons and analog controls.
Look out for our forthcoming range of analog joysticks too!
Andy Warne
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a must have for analog devices...As always, great work Andy. This is in my BUY list.
Could you hook it up along w/Ipac-2/4 ? It looks like its a ps2/usb connection from the pic.
Now looking at it more caefully, it looks like just USB, so DOS is out of your any O/S decription.
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Cool, now I don't have to order an analog from the USA. ;D ;D ;D
Any pics on the flight sticks?
Now WE need a lightgun solution.
Keep up the good work.
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LOOKS COOL!
I love the idea that the capaciter can be changed per control panel in my setup!
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Whoo, whoo. I'm putting POT based spinners on my next panel now!
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Excellent!
You're always cooking up something cool, Andy. Where would the MAME community be without you?
Kevin
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Mmmmm!!! Four Player Warlords
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did warlords use paddles or spinners?
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I guess no one is gonna be buying Dave's AKI interface anymore then?
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I thought Paddles, and a quick look at controls.dat confirms.
But really, I've got my eye set on this for a yoke and pedals.
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did warlords use paddles or spinners?
http://fe.donkeyfly.com/controls/report.php?theGame=warlords
2600 beat me to it.
NOW, were to get an arcade analog flight stick for a reasonable price, BYO steering wheel/yoke, etc...
With all these new products that have been coming out no wonder I say a cabinet is never done!
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OK.. Let me get this straight. With the A-Pac I can use my Happ steering wheel and pedals with MAME??
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You can use a happ 270 steering wheel and pot based pedals. You can use digital pedals too, but those are just like button presses.
The thing you can't do is a 360 wheel.
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So it's not compatible with optical analog devices, like 360 steering wheels, trackballs and spinners.
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I guess no one is gonna be buying Dave's AKI interface anymore then?
Well, each has it's pros and cons:
http://dave.bit2000.com/aki.htm
http://dave.bit2000.com/AKIdoc.html
http://dave.bit2000.com/akifaq.html (http://dave.bit2000.com/akifaq.html)
The AKI is $32.99, and ships from New York.
The AKI supports 5 axes and 14 buttons.
The AKI auto-detects whether or not you're using 5k or 100k pots.
The AKI is available in 9 different hard-coded USB IDs to keep multiple boards from swapping order on boot-up.
The AKI comes with a 10 foot USB cable
The AKI has no shift function.
http://www.ultimarc.com/a-pac.html
The A-Pac costs $39.00, plus shipping from Europe.
The A-Pac supports 4 axes and 24 buttons, and you can add two more buttons for every axis you don't use.
The A-Pac has a shift function, providing for even more buttons.
The A-Pac requires you to determine whether or not you have 5k or 100k pots, and connect the correct capacitor.
The A-Pac comes with a USB cable of unknown length.
The A-Pac's availabillity of different USB IDs unknown.
Anything else I'm missing? Andy?
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So it's not compatible with optical analog devices, like 360 steering wheels, trackballs and spinners.
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Kremmit, Thanks for the break down.
Andy, are you planning on releasing a PS2 adapter anytime soon? As I know you have an Xbox one and you said an PS2 would be coming soon.
Keep up the Great Work!!
-GG
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I guess no one is gonna be buying Dave's AKI interface anymore then?
Well, each has it's pros and cons:
http://dave.bit2000.com/aki.htm
http://dave.bit2000.com/AKIdoc.html
http://dave.bit2000.com/akifaq.html (http://dave.bit2000.com/akifaq.html)
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AKI sounds like it had more time put into it (no offense andy) but it's got all the different functions you want to see. Extra axes, less buttons, I guess thats fine.
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AKI sounds like it had more time put into it (no offense andy) but it's got all the different functions you want to see. Extra axes, less buttons, I guess thats fine.
Usually, I keep well away from arguments, but there have been unsubstantiated posts like this or people trying to get others works (Like Andy's for free).
Most of the people who provide are our small community with fine Hardware spend time and thought on their products. Andy has always supported this community and offered excellent support. Not to say the AKI is bad, but this thread is an announcement for this particular product.
If you had taken the time, to read the product description on his website it clearly says more axes can be added if there is demand. And from his comments he clearly picked the one with the most axis's with the least user confusion.
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I'm not knockin his product. I'm sure its a fine product. I was just wondering about teh comparison of products. Maybe we should do the comparison on another thread, instead of arguing which is beter or how much something sucks. We dont want this to turn out like the GP49 thread.
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Sorry, Hoagie_one not directed at you. Not my thread so do what you want.
Some people here should remember that Ultimarc and his competitors are not Sony. They do not sell millions of these things and I don't are trying to make a quick buck. I'd say all have other jobs and this is just a side project. If you'd rather not have them sell anything and want to go back to hacking a keyboard, keep saying crap that isn't true, trying to steal, or complaining that they didn't respond to your email in an hour. You'd give them no incentive to provide a product.
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I fully agree. I know we were all raised with the saying, "if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all". The naysaying gets pretty old and gets on everyone's nerves after awhile. I'm waiting to see the thread titled, "The color red is better than blue".
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I have not taken offence at anything here, I have no problem with comparisons with other products.
Nor do I want to knock the AKI interface out of the market, there is room for several suppliers here.
I thought long about adding more axes. The reason I did'nt, at least for the first version, is that the logical layout of the board, with the directions available for either analog or digital controls, and one player per side of the board, would be upset if the board had more analog axes. The board as it stands can be used for MAME with no analog controls at all, without any MAME reconfiguration other than enabling joystick and maybe some assignment of coin and start. So I intended it to be a dual purpose switch/analog interface. It does not necessarily need to be used in analog mode at all.
I think I might do an alternative version, with more of a bias towards analog, possibly 8 analog axes. I am going to stick with the external capacitor because many pots are 10K and there are even some 50K ones out there as well as the more common 5K and 100K.
Andy
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I'm waiting to see the thread titled, "The color red is better than blue".
Red IS better than blue, so there's no reason to debate it.
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On the subject of having different USB IDs available for multiple boards, this is of course easy to do, but I can't really see the benefit. If there is a request for this I will add this feature.
Multiple boards can be used even if they all have the same ID. Windows does not get them mixed up.
Andy
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Andy, why not add the Z to both player 1 and player 2? So a possible 6 axis...
btw, I use the 5th axis more then 1-4 on the aki (ok, its really the 3rd). But thats because the foot pedal is attached even if I'm running a control panel without an analog joystick on it. (IE, I can use the Z axis pedal with a 360 wheel....and I would have LOVED to add a 6th (player 2 Z-axis). because I have to partially hack a solution for dual 360 steering wheels (since player 1 & 2 x & y are all on my no-cable swappable control panel setup)... and I will never get dual 270's... but don't care really...
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Can you use the Apac, the Ipac4, and an optipac at the same time?
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Can you use the Apac, the Ipac4, and an optipac at the same time?
I guess you'll have a USB - Apac, PS/2 - IPAC/4 and a Serial - Opti-Pac.
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Can't you use USB for all of them?
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I'm waiting to see the thread titled, "The color red is better than blue".
Red IS better than blue, so there's no reason to debate it.
I'm sorry but you're wrong. Blue is clearly superior, anyone can see that. :)
-S
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I'm a big fan of green, but i always like the underdog
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So it's not compatible with optical analog devices, like 360 steering wheels, trackballs and spinners. Except for the Omega Race spinner that is. ;) That's what the Opti-Pac is for. ;D
Which is funny that those are called analog devices, when in fact they use an encoder disc which is 1s and 0s :)
Which is funny that those USB analog joysticks are called analog devices, when in fact they use a protocol which is 1s and 0s. [/sarcasm]
What makes the mice analog is that they can sense when more than one spoke/gap goes by, and transfer that data. Spin slow, and you get deltas of 1 and 0. Spin fast and you get deltas of 4 and 13, 7 and 8, and most values under ~32. It might be possible to get deltas as high as 127 per mouse send; I doubt they can go higher.
Please don't confuse the people between analog vs digital music (stored as 1s & 0s or not), and analog vs digital inputs (two values on/off, or more than that).
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Andy:
I wish this had been announced 1 week earlier when I started my most recent project.
I just hacked an old MadCatz Play Station steering wheel which had 10k pots. (Side note: it seems a lot of PS2 devices use 10k pots in the analog controls)
I replaced the 10k pots with 5k pots and wired it to Dave's AKI interface. If I had the A-PAC board is it correct that I could have just used the 10k pots?
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Andy, do some more testing as to why different USB IDs are needed. It is because many, many, many computers will randomly swap the order of identical USB devices on reboot. Try plugging in 3 or 4 of the suckers and do some reboots, and turn the computer on and off and such and you will likely find that they eventually end up listed in a different order to windows.
Even if your computer doesn't do that, a lot of them do. This problem drove me insane and caused me to tear up my hacked USB gamepads and buy my first I-Pac YEARS ago.
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Andy:
I wish this had been announced 1 week earlier when I started my most recent project.
I just hacked an old MadCatz Play Station steering wheel which had 10k pots. (Side note: it seems a lot of PS2 devices use 10k pots in the analog controls)
I replaced the 10k pots with 5k pots and wired it to Dave's AKI interface. If I had the A-PAC board is it correct that I could have just used the 10k pots?
you'd just have to use the corrisponding capacitor.
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first, i'd like to say that adding a device numbering scheme would be nice. the mroe complicated our machines get, the more interface devices were gonna have, and the larger possibility for needing two of these on one comp.
also, i like the eight axis idea. that way us driving cab guys could always have our pedals hooked up and still have enough inputs for our yokes and analog sticks.
and lastly, how does mame like analog sticks? do games actually accept this kind of input? thanks for the help guys. and keep up the good work andy.
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I ordered mine (along with a trackball and a t-stick plus)!!
It is so cool that something new came out right when I was working on a new project.
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My only question is concerning the "no calibration will ever normally be needed". Is the analog to digital conversion going to be able to handle pots OK that have their movement limited by the way they are used in controls? And pots that have different ranges?
It would seem so by the description, but how does it know what the range is? Does it still need to be calibrated in Windows? Is there something in Mame to set? Hopefully it isn't per game...
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Kremmit, Thanks for the break down.
Andy, are you planning on releasing a PS2 adapter anytime soon?
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I hope nobody thinks I was trying to poison this thread, I'm ecstatic there's another offering on the market. It's just that the first thing I did when I saw the product announcement was to compare the two for myself. I figured it was sure to come up here anyway, so I posted my findings.
Andy- If you do implement a version with more axes, why stop at 8? Folks buying the high-axis-count version are likely using another encoder (Ipac) for their buttons anyway, so why not max it out? That would remove the need for multiple USB IDs, as nobody would be using more than one of these if they supported 24 axes!
And, Green is definately superior to Blue or Yellow- It has everything they have, all rolled into one.
I don't want to hear about Red, though. That would be comparing apples to oranges, and can lead nowhere.
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My only question is concerning the "no calibration will ever normally be needed".
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Kremmit, Thanks for the break down.
Andy, are you planning on releasing a PS2 adapter anytime soon?
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I hope nobody thinks I was trying to poison this thread, I'm ecstatic there's another offering on the market.
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Andy, do some more testing as to why different USB IDs are needed. It is because many, many, many computers will randomly swap the order of identical USB devices on reboot. Try plugging in 3 or 4 of the suckers and do some reboots, and turn the computer on and off and such and you will likely find that they eventually end up listed in a different order to windows.
Even if your computer doesn't do that, a lot of them do. This problem drove me insane and caused me to tear up my hacked USB gamepads and buy my first I-Pac YEARS ago.
Thanks for this. USB IDs it is then...
Just out of interest, were you using Windows 98 at the time? There is a Microsoft document that states that this issue is something addressed in Windows but does not specify a version, although it is a recent doc. But of course not all Microsoft docs are 100% accurate hehe.
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It was windows 98SE, which is still very common among cabs and cabinet builders. I can't test it on XP because I don't have any identical USB equipment anymore.
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XP does it and it's extraordinarily obnoxious. I've got a computer at work with a couple of printers without USB IDs and windows periodically autodetects that they got plugged in again and re-autodetects them. So when I open the Printers window it will list the same printer 5 or 6 times.
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XP does it and it's extraordinarily obnoxious. I've got a computer at work with a couple of printers without USB IDs and windows periodically autodetects that they got plugged in again and re-autodetects them. So when I open the Printers window it will list the same printer 5 or 6 times.
Man, we have a USB printer at work that gets readded so often that sometimes there will be 30 or more copies of it listed, and only one of those will work.
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I hope nobody thinks I was trying to poison this thread, I'm ecstatic there's another offering on the market. It's just that the first thing I did when I saw the product announcement was to compare the two for myself. I figured it was sure to come up here anyway, so I posted my findings.
Andy- If you do implement a version with more axes, why stop at 8? Folks buying the high-axis-count version are likely using another encoder (Ipac) for their buttons anyway, so why not max it out? That would remove the need for multiple USB IDs, as nobody would be using more than one of these if they supported 24 axes!
And, Green is definately superior to Blue or Yellow- It has everything they have, all rolled into one.
I don't want to hear about Red, though. That would be comparing apples to oranges, and can lead nowhere.
Well we do sell more red buttons than any other color hehe!
There really is a practical limit of 8 on axes on one board, otherwise the CPU on the board can't keep up with the poll-rate of the USB protocol. That little 8-bit processor has to do some 16-bit arithmetic.
A board with a high number of axes would be a different animal to the design intention of this board, which was to provide a versatile board with 32 inputs for switches, and the directions being analog if required. That's no reason not to do another version though, and I will do so. To do it properly a new PCB would be needed though as the markings would not be very helpful.
Aw, shucks- eight axes is probably enough- I just figured if the board could do more, why not? But if you have to build a new board to go past 8, then I doubt it's worth it. I suppose that if 2-player Cybersled (2 analog joys per player) ever works in MAME, and somebody wants a Cybersled panel and say, racing pedals, without hooking and unhooking anything, then they would use more than 8 axes. But how many people is that?
On the other hand, an 8 axis version may be pretty popular down the line, as that would support 2 player console emulators for Playstation, X-Box, and any others that use two players with dual analog gamepads. Personally, I want 8 axes right now to build a Mutant Storm (http://www.retroblast.com/reviews/mutant.html) cab!
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Could this interface be used to make a cab like this... http://arcadegames.home.mindspring.com/driving/ , a driving cab with one 360 wheel, one 270 wheel, and one pedal?
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Could this interface be used to make a cab like this... http://arcadegames.home.mindspring.com/driving/ , a driving cab with one 360 wheel, one 270 wheel, and one pedal?
You won't be able to use a 360 wheel with it, but you could do a 270 and pedals.
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Whoo, whoo. I'm putting POT based spinners on my next panel now!
BTW, where can you find these? Happ's "track wheel" looks like it's also an optical control from the exploded view -- is that right? Who else sells them? CAn you get them new?
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The only problem with this board is that it is USB only so that rules out DOS and older hardware although I suppose DOS users can still get 4 analogue inputs from the gameport.
More importantly, it presumably means the board won't be compatible with the X-Box and Playstation converters.
I think a better solution would be to have console compatibility built into the I-Pac/A-Pac/Mini-Pac boards instead of producing separate converter boards, even if that means they end up costing more.
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Whoo, whoo. I'm putting POT based spinners on my next panel now!
BTW, where can you find these? Happ's "track wheel" looks like it's also an optical control from the exploded view -- is that right? Who else sells them? CAn you get them new?
Look for Pong controllers on ebay. Lots of different ones out there. You can also use paddle controllers from home pong systems, or simply get some spinner knobs and mount them to pots.
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hmm...pot based spinner. that would be real nice for the arkanoid and other games of that nature, right? but what kind of pot would you want? a 100k? alot of my pot based items are already 5k, so i'd love to stick to what i've got. also, do they have pots with long shafts? man, so many new ideas this week. i don't think my mind can take it.
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pot based spinners have some issues..
either the don't spin, or they jump from high to lo at some point.
This isn't really designed for spinners.. Would be great for omega race... but that controller would only be good in omega race... that assuming that the driver works well with original controllers... and this isn't always the case. (I have an original omega race control panel... but the pot is busted... sigh)
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im interested in the adapters too. id like to make an aracde steering wheel panel for my cab that i could use for my console drivers too.
will your new xbox and the forthcoming playstation adapters work with this in combo with a steering wheel? and how about using a 3rd party dreamcast converter with your ps2 converter? will that work, or will i have to wait for a dreamcast converter for the Apac?
im definatly wanting one of these. i just need to clear up my understanding of it all first...
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And, Green is definately superior to Blue or Yellow- It has everything they have, all rolled into one.
I don't want to hear about Red, though. That would be comparing apples to oranges, and can lead nowhere.
You've completely poisoned the Red vs. Blue subthread by introducing new, non-original colors into the debate.
I'm just glad to see that the true MARKET research, done by Andy, supports my original claim that Red is better.
My claims were based on a visual poll of posted projects.
His claims are based on actual SALES of buttons, whether they are subsequently posted in the project forum, or not.
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pot based spinners have some issues..
either the don't spin, or they jump from high to lo at some point.
Pot based spinners (Paddles) are also known as 270 degree wheels, Analog Pedals, and Analog Joystick axes. Do these all have issues?
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No... they do what they do and do it great.
By spinners I was thinking Omega race specific (there are a few others also). These look like spinners but use pots.
there are two type of pots that can be used for these.
One that only turns part way... but these would be bad since you couldn't continue to turn left after a bit.
One that turns all the way around, but at the end, it jumps back to 0 (whats sent to the computer). This would also be bad since you would have to make sure the drivers in mame are expecting this. Many mame drivers do not handle the real controls from the real machines because the mame developers want to get them working with normal hardware (ie, mouse)...
But 270s will work great... Starwars controlers great.... Omega race controllers great (if they work with Omega race is another issue).
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No... they do what they do and do it great.
By spinners I was thinking Omega race specific (there are a few others also). These look like spinners but use pots.
there are two type of pots that can be used for these.
One that only turns part way... but these would be bad since you couldn't continue to turn left after a bit.
One that turns all the way around, but at the end, it jumps back to 0 (whats sent to the computer). This would also be bad since you would have to make sure the drivers in mame are expecting this. Many mame drivers do not handle the real controls from the real machines because the mame developers want to get them working with normal hardware (ie, mouse)...
But 270s will work great... Starwars controlers great.... Omega race controllers great (if they work with Omega race is another issue).
Ah, I wondered why you were bashing them, but I was only thinking of travel-limited pots, like a Pong Paddle. The A-Pac won't know those from a 270 wheel, and should not have any issues. I forgot about free-rotating ones, like on Omega Race- those would be the ones with the issues you mentioned. I suppose these would need some special code to be used, either in MAME, or a Windows driver, or hardware support built in on the A-Pac.
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I've been wanting to make a throttle control for my LEGAL Lunar Lander (thanks Star Roms!). Though JUST for that a joystick hack would be much cheaper. This does bring up a question. I haven't played lunar lander with a joystick in sometime, just a spinner to control the throttle. If I remember for lunar lander it only looks at the joystick UP. So how would one wire a single pot to act as only a windows joystick up? Aren't there racing games where the gas is up and the brake is down but the actual hardware the pedal are seperate?
Good possible uses for this:
Simulate 49way games, Pigskin, Arch Rivals, and Sinistar support analog input to simulate a 49way. Blitz doesn't but then get the PC version and use this product with that :)
Warlords! Which reminds, will have to look up 2+ player simutaneuos paddle games now to see how useful this actually is!
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So, uh, we can connect a Star Wars yoke to this I assume?
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MAME usually takes a logical approach to analog controls. For example a pedal control starts with the pot near one end and MAME would see this as a "pedal up" with the other end of the travel being "pedal down".
Most analog controls don't use the full pot range. So the full logical travel can be obtained by running through the Windows calibration routine, just once for each control. This will ensure full logical travel. In fact you can tweak the travel if you wish, so as to get a full logical travel over only part of the physical travel.
It's perfectly OK to connect only one up/down pot, and have the left/right as switches.
Another neat feature is the MAME joystick dead-zone setting which means you can tune an analog stick when you use it as a digital, by selecting the joystick physical throw before the direction is seen as activated.
Andy
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Andy- Can you say when the 8-axis board will be ready? Put me down for the first one!
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first, i'd like to say that adding a device numbering scheme would be nice. the mroe complicated our machines get, the more interface devices were gonna have, and the larger possibility for needing two of these on one comp.
Also, usefull for when I get my changable control panel working, can have different IDs in the 2 panels so they need no configuring when swapped over.
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Thanks for this. USB IDs it is then...
Andy, did USB ID's ever get added to the A-PAC. I noticed that nothing prompts the user for them on the website or the order page. Do you have a rough idea when they will be added?
Also, some addtional questions on the devices: From your website:
Note: Two of the inputs have special functions: The
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I have supplied 5 USB ID'd boards to one customer by request. I will try to get ID'd boards added as a selection to the website as soon as possible.
The pot value must be the same on each side of the board, so no, you can't have one pot of one value and 3 pots of another value. They must be in pairs.
Andy
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hey andy,
since were asking about functionalities, how did the more-than-four axes boards work out? while i love ultimarc interfaces, i still can't justify spending more for a board that only supports 4 axes (plus shipping, dang sea...) when i can get one with 5 axes for the same price (including shipping, dave's aki board).
what would be the maximum axes? and you mention how windows displays them as vertical bars, but do they still have positive and negative directions? would price increase? also, i'm sure that each side of the board would have to have the same pot values, as they do now, right? i have no problem with this since all my pots have been 5k so far. thanks for the info, and the new product.
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Flinkly,
Andy said earlier that 8 would be the maximum number of axes per board, although I suppose you could plug in as many boards as you wanted.
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It was windows 98SE, which is still very common among cabs and cabinet builders. I can't test it on XP because I don't have any identical USB equipment anymore.
From what I've seen, you can avoid the swapping problem by:
1) using a motherboard with more than 1 pair of ports, and
2) plugging devices with identical IDs into different port pairs.
Each pair of USB ports on a motherboard is tied to a single USB controller that shows up in device manager. Most current motherboards have 8 ports. 2 pairs on the back panel, and two pairs accessible via motherboard headers for front panel USB or extra ports on a bracket. 4 pairs = 4 controllers.
Items should only be able to swap when they are both attached to the same controller (plugged into the same port pair).
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I'm waiting on the 8-axis version, too.
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yeah, with the eight axis thing, i'm not looking to use them all right now, but if i'm to buy an a-pac, it better have eight axis. now i understand why the buttons are there on the first versions, but still, i could use more axis more than i could use more buttons. by the time i get my swappable panel cab built, my possible button count will be through the roof. of course i'll never use more than two players worth of buttons, but that's just me.
i'm just looking to get the extra axis cause you never know when your gonna need them. i might want to add more pedals for two player driving.
and as to the controller itself, lets say all my arcade equipment has 5k pots. if i set everything up in mame right, can i hot swap controllers? say a swap between a 270 degree wheel and a star wars yoke? or just flat out attaching a star wars yoke where nothing was attached before? i'm sorry if this has already been asked, but i have read this whole thread, just not recently.
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8 axes really isn't all that many; it's what you'll need to emulate 2 players worth of gamepads with dual analog joys. (PS2, Xbox)
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well, enough for two pot based 270 wheels and four potted pedals for gas and brake. this is the most i could see myself using...
if i'm right, that's 6 axes. i'd never see myself using two yokes. i guess i'm saying it's enough for me. so how about my hot swappable question?
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well, enough for two pot based 270 wheels and four potted pedals for gas and brake. this is the most i could see myself using...
if i'm right, that's 6 axes. i'd never see myself using two yokes. i guess i'm saying it's enough for me. so how about my hot swappable question?
Add clutch pedals and you're up to eight.
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and as to the controller itself, lets say all my arcade equipment has 5k pots. if i set everything up in mame right, can i hot swap controllers? say a swap between a 270 degree wheel and a star wars yoke? or just flat out attaching a star wars yoke where nothing was attached before? i'm sorry if this has already been asked, but i have read this whole thread, just not recently.
AFAICT, you can hot-swap like this, but you will likely need to calibrate the newly installed controller in Windows.
For that matter, if you are using DB25 connectors or the like, you could install different capacitors across the same pins on your SW yoke and 270 wheel and hot-swap even if the pots are different.
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It was windows 98SE, which is still very common among cabs and cabinet builders. I can't test it on XP because I don't have any identical USB equipment anymore.
From what I've seen, you can avoid the swapping problem by:
1) using a motherboard with more than 1 pair of ports, and
2) plugging devices with identical IDs into different port pairs.
Each pair of USB ports on a motherboard is tied to a single USB controller that shows up in device manager. Most current motherboards have 8 ports. 2 pairs on the back panel, and two pairs accessible via motherboard headers for front panel USB or extra ports on a bracket. 4 pairs = 4 controllers.
Items should only be able to swap when they are both attached to the same controller (plugged into the same port pair).
Good information, thanks Krick. Just want to add that for an older mobo, you can add a PCI add-on card with USB ports which would be seen as a separate controller and avoid the problem as well.