Great work Randy... any chance you have some more surprises in store for us ;) :P
Great work Randy... any chance you have some more surprises in store for us
Great work Randy... any chance you have some more surprises in store for us ;) :P
Like a small-footprint up/down spinner for Discs of Tron??? :-\ :-\ :-\
Maybe an Mini-Wiz (all in one)? ;D BTW: I sent you a PM and also forgot to mention I have a spinner as well...
Those who know me,
Awesome. For those of us with more than one trackball: Will you be able to ship these with different names like you do the GP-Wiz so they stay in the correct order after each reboot?
Does mame support 3 axis... err axi um.... axissis per mouse?
Would you need analog mame to make this work?
could this be used to build a Star Wars yoke perhaps?
Does mame support 3 axis... err axi um.... axissis per mouse?
Would you need analog mame to make this work?
Are you going to have a cable that can jsut plug into a trackball? I believe the 6 pins of a tball are standardized. If not I know wico and happ are the same as they are meant to be able to replace each other. competition and all.
Mame supports whatever devices are recognised as controlers in windows... So effectively you could use this to power a trackball and a spinner, and no you don't need any special version of mame. You Just have to tell it what controls you're using.
Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
Real Star Wars yokes use potentiometers, not optics.
Would you need analog mame to make this work?You will need either XP or Analog Mame to enable two mice controlling separate players, otherwise, no standard MAME will work. (Two-player CABAL, Marble Madness, etc. needs Analog Plus or XP).
3 axis?
mouse = x and z
x =
Would you need analog mame to make this work?You will need either XP or Analog Mame to enable two mice controlling separate players, otherwise, no standard MAME will work.
So, just to confirm: I could use just this one inexpensive controller for both a spinner (X), AND a trackball (Y + Z), PLUS 3 mouse buttons (left, center, right)?
Probably more like X and Y for the Trackball and Z for the spinner. But I'll wait until I hear from the testers on that one.
Awesome.
I have to ask, why are there two large LEDs in your advertisement?
:D
Perhaps also to tie into the LED-WIZ and the fact that LED's are also going to be available from GGG soon (if not already).I have to ask, why are there two large LEDs in your advertisement?Cuz they's purdy!
:D
Besides, what do you think makes a spinner or trackball "optical" ?
:)
RandyT
Thanks for all of the offers from potential testers.
Are you going to have a cable that can jsut plug into a trackball? I believe the 6 pins of a tball are standardized. If not I know wico and happ are the same as they are meant to be able to replace each other. competition and all.
...If so, that would work great for how I would like to use this product. Plus, I would like to add to the requests that you produce a spinner!
Oh Oh.... hot swap optic boards? doable??
As for the optics... I don't know what your plan is, but wouldn't it be easier not to add optics directly on the board? Since there are two (assuming where the optics go... bottom left? ) but that wouldn't be all that useful. One might be (so you can just move it up next to an spinner and mount the whole thing there... or maybe a super small optic board that can be used in place of many others (so just the bare minimum optics super small easy to put on any board).
I have an old WICO here, but haven't bugged out the pins yet.
It should be the same as I used the same cable when I switched from wico to happ. But I can verify what pin is what when I get home.Are you going to have a cable that can jsut plug into a trackball? I believe the 6 pins of a tball are standardized. If not I know wico and happ are the same as they are meant to be able to replace each other. competition and all.
The crimp tool, female 6-pin housings and terminals are on the way. I have an old WICO here, but haven't bugged out the pins yet. Anyone have pinouts for this connector for the HAPP so I can compare?
I know the Betson and Happ wire up the same.
Randy,
If you have a trackball and spinner hooked up to this simultaneously, is there anything put in place similar to the OptiPac where one controls is disabled while the other is in use?
Let me take a guess at it. I'm betting RandyT is going to say no. The circuit looks like it is just a typical mouse microcontroller chip with header pins instead of IR componants. Am I right?
The board uses a generic USB microcontroller, not a "mouse microcontroller chip". It reports itself to Windows as an "Opti-Wiz" with a device type of HID Compliant Mouse when in USB mode. As a point of reference, just the chip used in this device costs more than 2 whole "bargain basement mice".Interesting, didn't go for the pre-programmed chips. Any particular reason, or just wanted it to show up at OptiWiz in windows?
The board uses a generic USB microcontroller, not a "mouse microcontroller chip". It reports itself to Windows as an "Opti-Wiz" with a device type of HID Compliant Mouse when in USB mode. As a point of reference, just the chip used in this device costs more than 2 whole "bargain basement mice".Interesting, didn't go for the pre-programmed chips. Any particular reason, or just wanted it to show up at OptiWiz in windows?
I'm looking at the board pic. What's the deal with the two blank boxes with 4 contact points each. Also with the pads labels X, Y, and Z solder points for the axis in addition to the header pins? Aso the three holes behind the usb port? Just wondering what all the possibilities are...
Any chance this will work in DOS?
Yeah, a big one. These chips run 3-4 times faster than the typical mouse processor. I think we did this dance once with the GP-Wiz. Just like a $2 joypad can't stack up to the performance of a full blown microcontroller with code optimized for that purpose, don't think that just because a device looks like a mouse to the computer that the hardware used is the same as that of a $2 mouse.This sounds confusing. So you are saying the code in my mouse isn't optimized to be a mouse or just that you used a faster chip than most mice, which I assume is to eliminate backspin?
This sounds confusing.
Mark has it correct (I knew I picked him to Beta for a reason ;) ). It reports as a mouse with 3-Axes. As long as you can configure your application to use the Axes properly, you won't need to worry about one affecting the other.
Yeah, a big one. These chips run 3-4 times faster than the typical mouse processor. I think we did this dance once with the GP-Wiz. Just like a $2 joypad can't stack up to the performance of a full blown microcontroller with code optimized for that purpose, don't think that just because a device looks like a mouse to the computer that the hardware used is the same as that of a $2 mouse.This sounds confusing. So you are saying the code in my mouse isn't optimized to be a mouse or just that you used a faster chip than most mice, which I assume is to eliminate backspin?
It reports as a mouse with 3-Axes.
The Opti-Wiz elegantly avoids this problem, but the Z-axis setup is fairly MAME-limited. (In other words, if you wanted to use your spinner with a PC driving game, or most other non-MAME emulators, I don't think most of them would allow you to control the action using (for all intents and purposes) the mouse scroll wheel).
If this is the case, and the Z-axis is actually fairly robust in terms of speed (say, in line with the X and Y axes of a regular mouse), it may be possible to use the spinner in non-MAME games.Well yeah, if the game can see the mouse wheel. You could use it to change weapons in quake1.
If this is the case, and the Z-axis is actually fairly robust in terms of speed (say, in line with the X and Y axes of a regular mouse), it may be possible to use the spinner in non-MAME games.Well yeah, if the game can see the mouse wheel. You could use it to change weapons in quake1.
EDIT:
I'm still curious about the speed of the Z-axis on the Opti-Wiz compared to a run-of-the-mill mouse though.
A huge benefit I see on this encoder compared to a mouse hack is the USB-B connector. It provides peace of mind that your soldered-on wires won't get pulled loose.Agreed. Another benefit is that USB A-B cables are readily available inexpensively in various lengths.
I'm pretty sure it wouldn't fit inside any of the production trackball cases, but you could easily velcro or hot glue it to the side or bottom.
Wow RandyT, what a New Year's gift.
Here's the question: What do I need to make this board work with two (or three?) homebuilt spinners? Is that what those blank boxes on the board are for--attaching the actual analog detectors?
Yes. You can add optical switches to the board and attach the board to your spinner directly (the optical switches face the opposite side). When doing this, the axis assigned to the onboard optical switches is selected by bridging the appropriate X, Y, or Z pads with a small drop of solder.
You can have a trackball and a spinner connected to the device, or up to 3 spinners. You just need 4 wires, 2 optical switches and a current limiting resistor for each spinner you want to build and attach. And as Tiger-Heli wrote, use a version of the software that supports the use of the Z-Axis (.84 and up ?)
Okay, so the doodads that gauge the movement of the encoder are called optical switches?
While we're on the subject and hopefully as a basis for discussion with folks in the know ( Urebel? )...
Due to a Windows / MAME oddity... MAME does not properly implement the Z-axis from what I can surmise. It does work well, but the sensitivity command is out of scale. This means that for best results the sensitivity must be set at 1 to 2% when using the Z-axis.
There are a bunch of technical reasons for this, but the Opti-Wiz is not the problem. Windows uses a WHEEL_DELTA system for reporting wheel events. Instead of reporting a single "tick" when a mouse wheel (Z-Axis) event occurs, it reports 120 "ticks" (the arbitrarily set value by Microsoft for future expandability), whereas the X and Y axes report only 1. If I'm not completely off base, MAME should be checking to see what the WHEEL_DELTA value is when using the Z-Axis and divide the values being sent by this value and then perform the sensitivity adjustments on the integer result. It does not appear to be doing this.
Hopefully someone can insert this code and submit it to the dev team to get the Z-Axis supported properly.
But the Z is still absolutely usable as a spinner (plus it's cool to use the spinner as a scroll wheel for those long list boxes :) )
How well does it scroll in windows? If it's well scaled, that's one reason the changes should be in mame, not the in the driver (noted as the last plus in why to change mame).
I'll agree with everything above. The spinner scrolls great in Firefox and Word, and plays great in Tempest- you just have to set the analog sensetivity way down compared to the x & y axis. I'm in favor of a driver and/or MAME level fix, at least until Microsoft fixes it at their end. Maybe it'll be in the next version of Analog+ :P
// return the latest mouse info
if (joyindex == 0)
return mouse_state[joynum].lX * 512;
if (joyindex == 1)
return mouse_state[joynum].lY * 512;
if (joyindex == 2)
return mouse_state[joynum].lZ * 4; // windows default Z to be 120 times bigger than X & Y; 512 / 120 = 4.26667Before somebody asks, using the Windows "# of lines" setting for the scroll wheel only adjusts in Windows apps, it has zero effect on gameplay in MAME.
Oh, crap.
The sensitivity of the Z axis needs to be slightly higher. Probably by adjusting the value in the MAME source you could get them all exact.
We're just changing 512 on the last line to 4, on line 1830 in src/windows/input.c file. With this change, mame's sensitivity would need to be set a little higher than if the X or Y axes were used. I suggest you beta testers try if this value of 4 works well (it could also be changed to 5, 4.2 (good to cast the solution to int32 JIC), 4.3, ect).
Ok, SirP, you got your wish.
I just wired up the molex 6-pin female to 10-pin female header wire harness. Plugged it in and pure TB satisfaction (after I completely rebuilt the WICO trackball some dirtbag misrepresented on Ebay....Grrrrrrr).
So we will be offering cables as well. They are time consuming to make, had to buy hundreds of dollars worth of stuff to gear up, yadda, yadda, $12.95 :) .
BTW, if anyone was ever wondering if the trackball boosters work on a WICO, they do ;)
RandyT
The Opti-Wiz
Sweet, I went ahead and placed an order for one to play with but I didn't see a place to specify the USB device number. Will this option be available? My next project has two trackballs and I don't want their order flipping.
When will these cables become available?
Sweet, I went ahead and placed an order for one to play with but I didn't see a place to specify the USB device number. Will this option be available? My next project has two trackballs and I don't want their order flipping.
Device numbers 1-4 can now be selected at the store.When will these cables become available?
Later today.
Thanks,
RandyT
I recieved my opti-wiz. Looks very nice, high quality. Came very well packaged.
Thanks RandyT! :)
Made up a little test rig today and thought I'd share:
Not a must have for me, but at the low opti-wiz price I can afford it. ;)
I will definitely be using these on my next project. Perfect implementation of a mouse interface.
I got one of these this week cause my mini-pac had horrible back spin problems with my betson trackball. With this, and the upgraded encoder wheels it's seems to the be best trackball setup i've ever seen for mame.
My oscar spinner has a small backspin problem with the mini-pac. I guess hooking it up to the z-axis would solve this, but I'm just a little worried about the z-axis spinner support in other applications. Anyone have an opinion on if the benefits of hooking it up to the opti-wiz would outweigh the negatives.
I got one of these this week cause my mini-pac had horrible back spin problems with my betson trackball. With this, and the upgraded encoder wheels it's seems to the be best trackball setup i've ever seen for mame.
My oscar spinner has a small backspin problem with the mini-pac. I guess hooking it up to the z-axis would solve this, but I'm just a little worried about the z-axis spinner support in other applications. Anyone have an opinion on if the benefits of hooking it up to the opti-wiz would outweigh the negatives.
Those upgraded encoder wheels are probably making most of the difference on your trackball. It sure would be interesting to move your spinner from the MiniPac to the OptiWiz and see if/how performance differs between them. You would want to hook it to the same axis on both to make it a fair test.
As for using the Z-axis, I don't know that that would improve backspin issues over using the X or Y axis. The difference between the axes is build into the way Windows handles the data, not the OptiWiz. The main reason to use the Z-axis is to separate the spinner from the trackball, not to improve performance.