720

[Floyd10]

does anyone here know what the 720 joystick looked like? Pics would be great as well

[mahuti]

You can download a bunch of them, here.

[Floyd10]

SANKS

[subcriminal]

I played 720 quite a bit, must have been in the late 80's. All the cabs I remember used a trackball here in the UK but I just searched google and found this resto project http://www.geocities.com/civitat/720/720-Home.html
looks as if it has an un-sprung analogue stick...strange.

[Floyd10]

very interesting link

[Wade]

I played 720 quite a bit, must have been in the late 80's. All the cabs I remember used a trackball here in the UK but I just searched google and found this resto project http://www.geocities.com/civitat/720/720-Home.html
looks as if it has an un-sprung analogue stick...strange.

I'm sorry about that, 720 plays horribly with a trackball or spinner vs. the directional stick.

Wade

[Jakobud]

The original interface wasn't really a normal joystick.  It was just a big spinner, with a joystick attached to it, offset from the center.  So in the end, it is just a spinner and is playable with just a spinner, but it's quite difficult b/c you can't line up your landings very accurately with just a spinner.

[Floyd10]

yeah, IKWYM

[SirPoonga]

analog mame has the ability to do 720 more accurately and in several options.  jerryjanis will probably reply to this as he did most of the work for that.

[NoOne=NBA=]

You can find alot of good 720 info here.

There are good pics of the original controller, and alot of other links to help you get it up and running.

I've had pretty good luck using a Saitek analog stick, that I ripped the top off and removed the centering spring.
I didn't ever mount it in a cab, but did play with it enough to get a decent feel for it.
The stick just kind of falls off to the side, allowing you to spin it around the perimeter for spin moves.

[Minwah]

You can find alot of good 720 info here.

There are good pics of the original controller, and alot of other links to help you get it up and running.

I've had pretty good luck using a Saitek analog stick, that I ripped the top off and removed the centering spring.
I didn't ever mount it in a cab, but did play with it enough to get a decent feel for it.
The stick just kind of falls off to the side, allowing you to spin it around the perimeter for spin moves.

I have a balltop analog stick with the centering stuff remove atm...maybe with Analog+ it would play 720 quite well ?...

[jerryjanis]

analog mame has the ability to do 720 more accurately and in several options.  jerryjanis will probably reply to this as he did most of the work for that.

Yep, Mame Analog+ has support for using the original arcade controller in Mame, or a pc analog joystick.  Hopefully you can find out everything you need to know at my site (it's the link NoOne=NBA= posted a few messages up).  If there's anything you want to know about that isn't there, just mention it here and I'm sure we can help you out!

(Sorry I missed this poat the first time around - I got a job recently and haven't had so much as i used to, so I missed it!)

[RayB]

The original interface wasn't really a normal joystick.  It was just a big spinner, with a joystick attached to it, offset from the center.  So in the end, it is just a spinner and is playable with just a spinner, but it's quite difficult b/c you can't line up your landings very accurately with just a spinner.

It's a little MORE than just a spinner. On the arcade game, if you held the joystick/spinner to the upper-right, your charactr was always facing upper right. You can't get that kind of exact direction detection with just any old spinner.

[NoOne=NBA=]

If you look at the pics, it's a normal spinner with a second wheel that tells it where UP is on each pass.

That allows it to know which direction the spinner is in wherever you stop the stick.

[Lilwolf]

Also, most of the wierd stuff with the chains on it... That is just to give it some weird weight.  So it could be done without.  But that would change the feel considerably.

[SirPoonga]

If you look at the pics, it's a normal spinner with a second wheel that tells it where UP is on each pass.

That allows it to know which direction the spinner is in wherever you stop the stick.

Yep, also the encoder disc was something like a 72 tooth disc, it happens to be the same as one of Oscar's models.  The game caclulated direction based off that, but used the calibration disc to help keep it calibrated.

I think you could easily make your own 720 stick and use analog mame.  You could do it with one disc instead of two also.
A due north on the encoder disc just cut two of the teeth deeper and place a second IR set deeper to sense the deeper cuts.

It would be cool if you could get an oscar spinner (or other brand name) with the exact disc size from 720 with the above modification.  Also have a spinner knob that can accept a joystick that you can place over and attach.  I've had an idea for this but don't have the funds to make a prototype.

[NoOne=NBA=]

I picked up a real DOT spinner awhile back, and have been toying with the idea of retrofitting my Oscar DOT spinner, to create a 720 controller.

I was looking to fit a second encoder wheel on it, but the "deeper tooth" idea has some real potential, I think.

[u_rebelscum]

I have a balltop analog stick with the centering stuff remove atm...maybe with Analog+ it would play 720 quite well ?...

Instructions

Depends a lot on the analog stick (the POTs, the range of movement, and the driver).  

My old gravis analog stick plays pretty well if the springs are set to the lowest setting. Variable spring analog joy from 1991! (Need to recalibrate it once a day, though.)  
My gamepad analog stick, OTOH, sucks donkey; it is very diagonal unfriendly so going diagonal is very hard.  (Makes an okay 4-way in mame, though.)

One thing with all analog sticks is you don't have that feel of the original stick-spinner that you can't shortcut across the center.  (Unless you BYO to restrict it from doing so somehow.)

[Minwah]

Instructions

Depends a lot on the analog stick (the POTs, the range of movement, and the driver).  

My old gravis analog stick plays pretty well if the springs are set to the lowest setting. Variable spring analog joy from 1991! (Need to recalibrate it once a day, though.)  
My gamepad analog stick, OTOH, sucks donkey; it is very diagonal unfriendly so going diagonal is very hard.  (Makes an okay 4-way in mame, though.)

One thing with all analog sticks is you don't have that feel of the original stick-spinner that you can't shortcut across the center.  (Unless you BYO to restrict it from doing so somehow.)

Thanks  I gave it a try last night and it played OK...but the restrictor is quite square, meaning that I didn't get the 'circular' feel I imagine the real controller would have.  It felt pretty good considering, but the square-ness was not good.

Actually, I did have one problem in 720 with MAME Analog+: When I launched the game all would work OK...then I would play for a while, and after a seemingly random amount of time, the joystick input would just stop working.  I thought it could be my hardware at fault, but if I went into Analog Settings, I could re-map the joystick inputs no problem.  But then back in game they would not work.  If I quit MAME Analog+ and then tried again, same thing (work for a while, then not).  Not 100% sure if it is a bug or something with my system...I was using v0.83 btw.