Ok we have lightgun support, now what?

[Howard_Casto]

Before actlabs decided to make their guns (Which might be released before the end of the year )  Alot of people were attempting to hack nes zappers to work in mame.  Their main stumbling block seemed to be the fact that mame didn't have the proper drivers yet.  Now that it does I'm curious to know if anyone who was working on this has tried their zapper in mame.  I think the actlabs guns will be great for vga monitors, but those of us with tv's and arcade monitors need another solution.  (I know they plan to make a tv version too, but at the rate they are going it could be years from now.)  

If you were hacking a gun please try it now and let us know if there is any progress or if the new driver changes are exclusive to the actlabs gun.  

[u_rebelscum]

....let us know if there is any progress or if the new driver changes are exclusive to the actlabs gun.  

I looked at the source code, and any mouse-type light gun  should work.  I don't have a light gun, so I can't say if any others really work or not.

[Howard_Casto]

Does mame calculate the x and y coordinates itself, or does it rely upon the drivers of the light gun?  If it gets the coordinates itself then you could very cheaply build a light gun, or even better hack one from an old nes/snes/ect light gun.  All one would need to do is wire the fire button and the light sensor through the parallel port.  I think that step has already been accomplished.  

[Sasquatch!]

I plan on using a TV for my next cab, and it would be sweet to have light gun support.  I anxiously await.

[u_rebelscum]

Does mame calculate the x and y coordinates itself, or does it rely upon the drivers of the light gun?

Yes to both; it relies on the driver to get the initial location and then translates into a standard "res".

Mame gets the cursor location with the win32 API GetCursorPos() call, then rounds the X & Y values from -128 to 128.  
The new code is in src/windows/input.c: osd_lightgun_read() if you want to check it out.

[Howard_Casto]

hmm, I checked it out and unless I'm missing something, the "lightgun support" is infact merely mouse support.  Other than blanking the screen I can't see any interaction with the gun.  All it seems to do is poll the mouse position, which would mean drivers would be required for the gun since something has to tell the mouse to move where you aimed.  On the other hand it's using a "getmousepos" call which means that the cursor movement isn't "locked"  That means that you don't need true drivers, and can use an app that uses the "setmousepos" call to move the mouse based on where you shot.  

Somone on this board mentioned ages ago that they had made a vb app that could detect the position shot from a nes zapper.  If they were to take that code and add a setmousepos call it should work in mame as mame will whiten the screen and thus give the pos for the zapper.

Ok that's my take on things so far, please anyone interested in generic lightgun support  check over what I've found and see if you can do anything with it.

[Dave C.]

OK, now if I am reading this right, the act-lab gun is basically nothing more than a mouse.If that is the case, why can't 2 guns be used in the same fashion that 2 trackballs are used? I realise that there is a screen flashand that detects where the mouse pointer and it registers a "hit or miss". but if you can run two trackballs in MM, you should be able to run two mouse pointers. only drawback that I can see without a change in mame is that If one gun fires, it will register both guns position meaning that no matter where the second pointer is, when P1 fires, where-ever P2 pointer is will register a hit and vice versa. Am I off or do I have something here?

[SirPoonga]

The gun also plugs into the video card.  It;d be hard to tell which gun was pointing where on the screen.

[u_rebelscum]

OK, now if I am reading this right, the act-lab gun is basically nothing more than a mouse.If that is the case, why can't 2 guns be used in the same fashion that 2 trackballs are used? I realise that there is a screen flashand that detects where the mouse pointer and it registers a "hit or miss". but if you can run two trackballs in MM, you should be able to run two mouse pointers. only drawback that I can see without a change in mame is that If one gun fires, it will register both guns position meaning that no matter where the second pointer is, when P1 fires, where-ever P2 pointer is will register a hit and vice versa. Am I off or do I have something here?

To play Marble Madness two players with two trackballs in windows, you need Analog+, right?  It only works in win98 & winMe, not the current OS winXP.  And I know of only a couple projects that do two mice at a time, none retail.

One way to get around this is have gun one use buttons 1 & 2, and gun two use buttons 3 & 4.  (in directX, mice can have 4 buttons).  When button 1 or 2 is pressed, the location registers for player 1.  When button 3 or 4 is pressed, the location registers for player 2.  This means special programming in mame.  (unless the drivers does it)

The big problem is hooking both guns to the monitor so that they both can determine where they are pointing.  The actlabs monitor attachment is only for one gun.  If the attachment dongle was able to plug two guns, then you'd only have to worry about the previous paragraph.

I think.

[Lilwolf]

The main trouble is there arent' any standard drivers for a second mouse these days.   So what do you use?

When you fire the button, it sends a pure white screen, then it counts until it sees that white pixel.... because of the way the refresh works, it draws left to right, top to bottom... so it knows when the first one was drawn, and it can calculate what pixel was drawn when it saw the flash.

Then they would need to keep track of both seperately.  It can be done, but not from the current drivers.

btw, I wish they would look into some other technologies... like the techmaster wireless joystick... it was sonic (no screen problems at all... and no flashing screen).  

[Zipper]

I'm worried that the lightgun won't work through my glass bezel. I've written to Act Labs with my query, but they say that they haven't tested it, and therefore cannot guarentee it will work  
Can any of you people here with the techy know-how tell me if this will work or not?

My first guess would be yes - but if the glass is in sunlight, then the reflection would effect the gun performance. Also the glass might slightly tint the bright white flash. So my second guess would be maybe not.

Anyone got any ideas?  :-/

[RacerX]

I'm worried that the lightgun won't work through my glass bezel. I've written to Act Labs with my query, but they say that they haven't tested it, and therefore cannot guarentee it will work

[Howard_Casto]

I really wish they would switch to sonic technology... you simply don't have all of these display problems or multi device conflicts.  You can point the thing at a friggin wall and as long as the referece points are on that wall it will register.  Why was actlabs so short-sighted as to ignore this method?  To add two player support all they would have had to have done would be to add a "mode 2" to the guns which would send an alternate code set to the reciever.  

I'm well aware of the drawbacks involving "signal bounce" but it's no worse than the problems light guns have regarding reflections.

[Lilwolf]

The sonic method had a L shaped bar that goes over the monitor... that kinda sucks... and it probably wont work with a glass bezel... but you can but it over it.

I asked Branden... he said that he liked the technology and they are interested in looking into it... btw, he was the one who told me it used sonic technology.  So he knows more about it then I do.  

btw, I'm going to try it tonight, but the old guns used a mouse driver to get them to work in mame... I wonder if it works better now..  If it does, it might be a great solution for people on a budget..

will report tomorrow (hopefully)

[Howard_Casto]

Well it would be if the drives were updated, it won't work on xp.

Most people are making the switch too, I wish somone would write new drivers for it.  

[Psyklops]

The sonic method had a L shaped bar that goes over the monitor... that kinda sucks... and it probably wont work with a glass bezel... but you can but it over it.

I asked Branden... he said that he liked the technology and they are interested in looking into it... btw, he was the one who told me it used sonic technology.

[Bob Sanders]

1. the monitor bezel shouldn't bother a lightgun arcade games that have light guns have bezels as well

2. why can't 2 guns work with light gun tech it works with arcade games and act lab's old light guns act labs is just being cheap and they dont put hardware that is powerful enough to track 2 guns simulataniusly

how often have 2 different people fired there guns at the screen withen 1/30 of a second???

[Howard_Casto]

L Bar?

[u_rebelscum]

2. why can't 2 guns work with light gun tech it works with arcade games and act lab's old light guns act labs is just being cheap and they dont put hardware that is powerful enough to track 2 guns simulataniusly

Don't blame the hardware, blame microsoft, or actually the operating system.  Micro$oft designed windows so you cannot track two mice independently.  Micro$oft does not have direct lightgun support in DirectX, but mouse and (multiple) joystick support.  

The old actlab guns needed special drivers for each game for the guns to work.  Actlabs could either go the same route as before and hope the game developers would write the drivers again (in most cases, the drivers were not written), or go with a mouse-type design that would work for most games right out of the box as well as the windows desktop.  They went the mouse way because of software limits of going the other, but sacrificed being able to add dual gun support for free.  2% games with dual support VS. 75%+ games & windows desktop, but no simple dual support.  Which way would you go?

Old school Atari football and Atari Soccer arcade games supported four independent trackballs.  But micro$oft takes all mouse type inputs (new actlab lightgun, mice, trackballs, touchpads, etc) and combinds them into one "system mouse", thus making support for two (mouse-type) lightguns very hard.  Most likely actlabs would need special drivers for each game, and maybe even a specially compiled version of the game, since most programmers now assume "there can be only one" (mouse).  Writing special drivers is the exact reason they didn't go the old way.

Changing the lightgun hardware (should) be pretty easy, if not exactly free.  IMO the problem is in fixing the OS and the retail game software.  Why would actlabs make a two gun connectioner to the monitor when it won't work anyway.  (okay, it will half work: all games will see only one gun)

If you couldn't tell, I'm still mad at M$ because mame:Analog+ cannot get two trackballs in winXP, while dmame can have two in old school dos (and so could old school arcade game Marble Madness).  XP is one step forward, another back, IMO.

[Bob Sanders]

just use different buttons you dont need the simultaneos support of two mice
the gun does not track the screen in real time only when a shot is fired the gun is tracked

dont give me some bull ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- that two people fire at the same time withen that 1/30 of a second


and if you make a arcade gun pls make it right emulate the arcade guncon best lightgun of all time

[1UP]

I don't know why they couldn't have used joystick emulation rather than mouse emulation (or both).  Windows supports up to 16 joysticks.  Seems it would be just as easy to have the guns give joystick coordinates that relate to screen coordinates.  At least this would work for us--most of the gun games in Mame support joysticks too.

BTW, joystick emulation could solve the dual trackball problem too.  There was a trackball for the Atari 2600 that went into the joystick port.  Those old controllers didn't use drivers, so I'm assuming that every controller just gave up/down/left/right inputs.  Maybe one of those old TBs could be hacked to give joystick inputs in Mame...  

[u_rebelscum]

Answering two posts here:

I don't know why they couldn't have used joystick emulation rather than mouse emulation (or both).  Windows supports up to 16 joysticks.  Seems it would be just as easy to have the guns give joystick coordinates that relate to screen coordinates.

Yes, but then most retail games (but not mame) would need special drivers to convert the data, or special patches for each game.  Most PC games already use joystick data to move in the direction the joystick is pushed and speed by how far it is pushed (like a joymouse on a laptop).  Actlab needed patches to games for the serial guns to work, and, thus, it worked on only the dozen games that added patches.

just use different buttons you dont need the simultaneos support of two mice
the gun does not track the screen in real time only when a shot is fired the gun is tracked

Yes.  But, then every single PC game, including mame (just the core, not every driver), would need to be patched to tell the difference:  "button one pressed means mouse coordinates is for player 1, but button three pressed means mouse coordinates is for player 2".  Not too hard to program, but actlabs needed very easy patches to games for the serial lightguns.  Very few game developers added a patch to their games, thus the lightguns sold very poorly, thus no developers added a patch, thus the lightguns sold poorly, ad infinitum.

It can be done, and the code easily added to mame if done this way, but I doubt more than half a dozen other games would add this patch.  Actlabs seems to agree.

dont give me some bull ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- that two people fire at the same time withen that 1/30 of a second

Oh ya, I forgot to mention two people shooting at the same time.  You would be very surprised how likely it is to happen.

Example: There is a pause in action with nothing to shoot at.  A target pops up in the middle of the screen and both players shoot at it.  If reaction speed of players is ~1/4 of a second, the chances is ~1 out of 8 that they shoot at the same time.  Now, what if one of the players would have hit the target, but the other player's location is registered instead, so both shoot the missed location.  

Example two:  newbie is waling at the trigger, just shooting all over the place averaging 2 per second.  About 1 out of 15 times the vet pulls his trigger, it is at the same time as the newbie, and about 50:50 that his shot will register at the same location (miss) at the newbie's.  String that out over the length of time the newbie hits the continue button.

Example three:  Heavy duty spot, with bad guys all over the screen.  Both players shooting quickly, about 3 a second each.  Odds are ~ 1 out of 10 for each trigger pull for player 2 is at the same time as a pull from player 1.  Multiple that 3 times a second, over the time the scene is heavy. Some games are always heavy duty.

(If two mouse was supported in the OS) With two mouse support, it would be okay for both guns to be shot at the same time, if the (single) video-to-gun connector has two gun inputs, treats the trigger pulls real time, and sends the "flash started" signal to both guns.

and if you make a arcade gun pls make it right emulate the arcade guncon best lightgun of all time

I want the best there can be, too.  The different button is not the best.

BTW, I used to think the different button == different gun was a workable solution, too.  But I then learned it won't work for any games unless they get patched, and then after the patch people will complain when once every 3 minutes (180 seconds, or 1080 of your 1/30 seconds), the lightgun does not register correctly (because both guns were shot at the same time). :-/

[neo777]

Answering two posts here:

Yes, but then most retail games (but not mame) would need special drivers to convert the data, or special patches for each game.

[u_rebelscum]

If the hardware was made intelligently, it would 'Buffer' the shot and delay it a split second before letting reading the postion and sending the signal to the pc.

I haven't thought of that; I like it.  But I wonder:

It would add, what, $1.50 to manufacturing cost (including R&D), and $10 to final retail price?  The second gun could be bought without the connector, though, probably cutting the total retail price of buying two.  

Hmm, an okay trade-off I guess, if games would see the data correctly.

I doubt a delay of 1/30th of a second or so would be noticible to the player nor the game.

Maybe not, but . . . Wave your hand in front of the monitor.  See how far it can move in 1/60 of a second? (Actually, your monitor probably runs at a faster refresh rate, so it moves that far in even less time.)  I probably would't notice it; I'm not that good at the guns in the first place so I'd think I naturely missed.  But I bet people good at them could notice.

And that still does not address the fact that every single game would need to be patched for them to understand the lightgun data correctly.

[Lilwolf]

As an idea (and one I like)

how about combining them?

what?

button1 is for player one.  button2 is for player two.. mouse presses come in together (ie, if you press both buttons on the mouse, since they come through as two different mouse events...).

only trouble... you could only have 1 button each...

but if they could add a cheap usb keyboard encoder (ahhmm...not sure if possible)... they could add additional buttons (that didn't coilate with a screen location).

this would probably work for most games.

[Frostillicus]

speaking of sonic technology, anyone ever own a 3dzonemaster from techmedia? That had the L-shaped receiver that was mounted on the upper corner of the monitor.  I first thought of using my old one for mame(tracks the mouse and felt like a gun), but could not find a driver for xp    I think the manufacturer went out of business - can't find a driver anywhere on the web.
too bad, it was rather fun to play with many many moons ago.
It doesn't look very sophisticated - and the receiver could be a bit less-klunky looking if it's intended use would be for a cabinet.  plus it plugged into the serial port - so it didn't matter what type of screen you used.
I agree with Lilwolf that sonic should have been the way to go.  

[neo777]

I looked up some reviews on the zonemaster.  I originally thought people were refering to inferred sensing... and I couldnt see that as being too accurate...

But, I found that it used a form of sonar.  In any event... the reviews pointed out the the accuracy was pretty aweful... and prefered the standard mouse.  Heres part of a review from

 http://www.joy-stick.net/reviews/other/3dzonemaster.htm
--------------
Performance 60%- The overall performance of the 3D ZoneMaster can be summed up in one word- "Yuck".  No matter how used with different configurations the control in mushy and inaccurate.
With Quake II I bounced off the walls no matter if I used the placement of the controller in the air or the hat switch for movement.  trying to hit a switch button with this thing was very difficult if not possible.  Moving targets were even more difficult to frag.  Every first and 3rd person shooter I played gave the same poor performance and control.

The only game was playable was Virtual Squad.  The controller allowed me to aim at the various targets with success but my scores were higher and I was less frustrated by simply switching to my mouse.  Plus the graphics of the game are weak by today's standards.

The 3D ZoneMaster gave decent performance as a Windows remote/mouse.  I used it as a navigational device in Netscape and to get around the Windows environment.  Control wasn't superb but did get the job done.  I still prefer the system mouse any day.

The biggest factor for comfort was having to extend your arm to keep the controller in "the range" of the receiver.  Extended use results in a sore arm.  Its just not a natural way to control anything.
--------------

 Even if the technology could be a little more updated... the cost would probably be a nice $100+   And, I wonder if 2 devices would actualy work together.   Not to mention, this still leaves developers the need for special drivers for 2 players.  And finally, the L-bar may not be long enough for some tvs,  or too big for thier monitors.   What then?!   Make a few different versions?  That would add to the cost too.

[Howard_Casto]

speaking of sonic technology, anyone ever own a 3dzonemaster from techmedia? That had the L-shaped receiver that was mounted on the upper corner of the monitor.

[u_rebelscum]

button1 is for player one.  button2 is for player two.. mouse presses come in together (ie, if you press both buttons on the mouse, since they come through as two different mouse events...).

With mame at least, you could run into a timing problem since both guns are seen as one mouse, and mame does not buffer inputs.
Outline:  gun 1 fire = mouse button 1, gun 2 fire = mouse button 2, both treated as same mouse.  Mame reads mouse input from directX's unbuffered current state (not the mouse events*).
Example:  gun 1 and gun two both fire.  gun 1 gets into the buffer first, with the mouse event (x=1,y=1, button 1 = click), gun 2 is right behind with mouse event (x=5, y=5, button 2 = click).  For gun 1 location to be correctly read, mame must poll the mouse after the gun 1 mouse event is stored in directX's mouse current state, but before the gun 2 mouse event over writes the location with its coordinates.  If directX processes the gun 2 mouse event before mame reads the mouse current state, the old state is lost, and mame will think both guns have gun 2's coordinates.  
So: gun 1 event => mame mouse poll/read => gun 2 event is fine.  
But: gun 1 event => gun 2 event => mame mouse poll/read is not.

* Mame lets directX process the mouse (& joystick) events.  directX takes the mouse events, processes it, and stores the data in a "current state" memory location, that mame can poll and read the data from.  Almost all directX games let directX process mouse events for them, unlike most applications that use the win32 or java mouse APIs.

only trouble... you could only have 1 button each...

directX mice can have 4 buttons in 3.0, 8 buttons in 5.0 and up.  No trouble with number of buttons.

I've been thinking about this lightgun frequency problem and I'm beginning to wonder why everyone sees it as such a problem.  Yes the aiming calculations of the gun are dependant upon the refresh rate as well as hor/vert frequencies, but your telling me that a driver couldn't be made that let you configure this?     I mean how hard could it be....  Setup a calibration program that puts a very tiny dot in the center of the screen.  Hold the gun to this dot, pull the trigger, and blamo!  Now the computer knows how long it takes that monitor to draw half the screen double the value, divide by the bit depth and you know how long it takes to draw one pixel.  Am I wrong on this?

This is exactly how the new actlabs lightgun is going to work.  With a calibration program and everything.  Calibrated a little differently than the way you discribed, but basically the same:  start calibration program, move gun straight up & down past edges of screen, move gun left and right past edges of screen.  This way takes into account CRT monitors' 17" == 16" visible property more precisely.  Actlabs even has a stupid video on-line.

As for this 1/60th of a second debate.  Let me assure you that you CAN have two players shoot at exactly the same consistently.  Me and my cousin did it all the time, but we were both trying to shoot the same thing.  Fortunately game designers are aware of this and make lightgun games to where the player 1 side of the screen has targets altenating to the player 2 side of the screen.  The only exception are boss characters but as they are as big as a house generally both players are shooting in the same direction in which case it doesn't really matter as your both hitting the target. If you don't believe me go to your local arcade witha  couple of your friends.  Have one play the game with you and the other stand in the back and take note of your hits.  What you'll find is once in a while (and i mean very rarely) player 2 will get credit for a shot player 1 made and vice versa.  That's part of this natural flaw in lightgun technology regarding firing at the same time.  I think they might have a solution now though, as this doesn't seem to happen on most of the newer gun games, just the older ones.

Okay, I'll take your word on it.  I'm looking at it from an (input) programmer's point of view, and if the real arcade games had the problems I've been discribing, mame should not try to fix them, IMO.  But many (non "real emulation" type) people think these "bugs" should be fixed, so they might not like it.  And thus poor sales (and poor reviews, and bad press for actlabs).  Thus the second reason actlabs is reluctant to put out a two gun model.  (The first being that all games would need to be patched.)

[bob sanders]

have you guys played that real fire fighters gamee

look a system16.com for info

well it had a water hose and it was constantly on the screen does not flash and the water goes where you point it so no gyroscopes

i didnt see any big ass L bar on the 60 inch screen either the room was also well lit as optical guns only work full time if its in a real dark location

what technology are the water hoses using i dont got a clue

[neo777]

most likly it was a pot based control - much like the t2 guns.

[u_rebelscum]

most likly it was a pot based control - much like the t2 guns.

Can't be: the ends of the firehose are "free standing" , and are connected to the cab only by the fake water hoses and sometimes an anti-theft wire.

[Bob Sanders]

ok so any ideas how it works

[Andy Geez]

I know all about Sega hardware.. here is how it works..

Sega IR/Gun hardware

Have you ever seen games such as HOTD2, Confidental Mission, Brave Fire Fighters and such?? These
games use screen sensors around the screen (normally intergrated in the
screen bezel, on some games you don't even notice them), and guns that can pick up the sensors (most accurate system
to date), the advantage of this system is that it doesn't matter what your
Screen is, also the Gun IO board converts to standard protocols (such as
bits for trigger and sflag which is either 0 or 1 if the gun is in the
sensor grid or not (for pointing away from the sceen and reloading), but the
really nice part is it converts the gun positions to Analogue X/Y so 0/0 is
top left and 0xff/0xff is bottom right (just like a regular analogue
joystick), this is the only way I can think of for people playing gun games
on a PC (without touching MAME code, just let MAME thinks you have 2
analogue joysticks).

Downside though is that the Sega Spare prices for this equipment is mega
bucks!!

Gun IO board is

[brandon]

best I can tell the white flash really isn't always necessary.  I have a Guncon on my PSX and if you shoot something dark the screen will flash if you are aiming at something bright it will not.  The Guncon is always checking where you are aimming, not just when you pull the trigger.  If you go to the calibration screen you can see the cursor following the guns position without the trigger pressed and no white flash. It only flashes when it feels "lost" but if the screen is bright enough then there is no need for the flash.  If 2 people fired at the same time the screen may flash at the same time but the location of the the 2 sensors would be at different places on the raster so it would register two different locations.  If these 2 seperate coordinates could be translated to 2 different mouse XY in the OS then I don't see the problem.  Then again what do I know

[Howard_Casto]

have you guys played that real fire fighters gamee

look a system16.com for info

well it had a water hose and it was constantly on the screen does not flash and the water goes where you point it so no gyroscopes

i didnt see any big ass L bar on the 60 inch screen either the room was also well lit as optical guns only work full time if its in a real dark location

what technology are the water hoses using i dont got a clue

LoL.  The sonic guns don't require a big a$$ed bracket to work.  What they require is the three eraser tip sized sensors mounted in those brackets. (Which in an arcade game are usually mounted behind the bezel.) Sonic technology uses the ancient principal of geometric triangulation to detect the position of the gun and thus it only needs 3 points of reference to track the forth (the 3rd sensor is for the  z axis.)  Also in most setups this is constantly polling.

That's actually one of the benefits of sonic technology, but the programmers have yet to take advantage of it.  Since there is a constant poll the positon can be buffered and in the event of an error during the firing sequence, it can take a good guess at your intended positon based on previous values.  

Also rebel regarding your anger towards m$ it's misdirected.  Blame game developers.  When m$ first started to make directx, they looked towards existing game hardware for dos games as to what to support.  Think about it.... joysticks were a rareity and 90% of the games out there were played with a mouse and keyboard.  The few (and by that i mean two) lightguns available at the time were very unsuccessful.  It would have been silly for them to waste time making support for them.  Also with the exception of emulation, trackballs have never been a popular gaming device.  

Well later down the road joysticks become more popular expecially since hardware manufacturers started making custom drivers to allow more axis/buttons per device.  Well guess what m$ responds by updating dx's joystick support.  

My point is m$ is out there to make money and arent' going to waste their time on unpopular hardware support.  But if manufacturers make a custom piece of hardware and it becomes successful they will  respond by giving it directX support.

As for the dual mouse thing, I believe that was left out so that it would be easier for mouse manufacturers to make mice drivers and for the consumer to setup your mouse.  (Imagine having a mouse setup panel like the joystick one.  Normal consumers would be lost.)  Remember that the computer mouse is primarily used to for business apps and thus they come first.    

I understand your frustration but you have to remember that this community and the hardware it likes to use is very much the minority.  

[u_rebelscum]

Also rebel regarding your anger towards m$ ... Blame game developers....

Well, them too, but it's a sort-of "Chicken or egg?" arguement.  I was saying "chicken first" (OS), and you're saying "eggs first" (small businesses).

The situation is:
No app (business or game) company will write a program that uses two mice anymore (there were some dos CAD apps that did), because no mouse manufacturer will design their mouse/mouse drivers with more than their one mouse in mind, because m$ has designed winXP for one and only one mouse, because no app company has written a windows program that uses two mice, because.... (repeat)

Microsoft is the only company strong enough to break (or enforce) this cycle in the near future.  It writes applications, writes/funds/distributes games, builds mice, builds game input devices, writes drivers, and writes the OS.  Microsoft is a 5000 pound chicken that can sit anywhere it wants.  It can, should IMO, re-add the multiple mice feature it had in win98, enable/write games to use them, and write/enable applications to use them.

Another point for the "chickens first" side; look how ms is pushing the PC video cards with the upcoming dx9 specs.  Zero cards out today meet the specs.  I think ms should do the same with the input device market.

It would be best if both ms and the other manufacturer and programming companies get together and get it together. (bad play on words, sorry)  But M$ can forge the way on its own, being both the chicken and the egg.  This is why I blame MS.

As for the dual mouse thing, I believe that was left out so that it would be easier for mouse manufacturers to make mice drivers and for the consumer to setup your mouse.  (Imagine having a mouse setup panel like the joystick one.  Normal consumers would be lost.)  Remember that the computer mouse is primarily used to for business apps and thus they come first.

Well, dual (triple, ect) USB mice work in winMe/98 with no complicated control panels and no confused users.  There still is the "system mouse", the one windows mouse cursor people use.  In addition to this virtual mouse, each USB mouse can also feed its data to it's own "mouse".  All mice, including all USB mice, always feed the "system mouse".  Applications look for only the "system mouse" events, and still work fine with two to more mice.  No confusion.  No special mouse manufacture drivers.  If you have more than one USB mouse installed in your computer running winMe/98, your computer is proof that multiple mice don't cause a hitch for applications and users that think "mouse cursor"="mouse".  And the separate multiple mice work for applications written to use it; see mame:analog+ for proof.

And even with only the "system mouse", I'm sure some people would love to able set mouse 1 to X sensitivity and Y accelaration, and touchpad 2 to M sensitivity and N accelaration, and trackball 3 to X sensitivity and N accelaration.  I feel that all laptop computers need this (the touch pad needs very different settings than a mouse, IMO).  Put it behind an "Advanced" button with the default for all mouse devices to have the same setting (like now), to save all those people from being confused, but let the "advanced" users have the ability.  I bet graphic design/CAD/CAM people (running business apps) would use it the first day this abilitiy came out, after buying that second trackball or mouse they (haven't bought yet)/(returned before) because of the settings conflicts that happen now but could be avoided with the ability.

Multiple mice has it's business uses.  IIRC, there were CAD programs for dos that were able to use two mice as separate inputs.  CAD app usage is way up since then.

I understand your frustration but you have to remember that this community and the hardware it likes to use is very much the minority.

I know.  I just get frustrated when a feature gets dropped in an "upgrade".  Like multiple mice feature being dropped when ms upgraded to XP.  

Sorry for my rant

[Lilwolf]

Well, dropping features is one of microsofts bid downfall

there are at least 4 different incompatible versions of the String in MFC.  Why?  different departs use them... and they never got put back together.  This sucks for developers who want/need on strong api to write two... so when you start merdging code with other departsments you aren't converting every data type to another... (btw, can you tell I was dinged for this one)

Multi mice isn't that useful with mice.  It's amazingly difficult to find desk space for one mouse, let alone two.

What it was useful for is trackballs where you could have multiples next to each other.   But even then, your kinda pushing it.

In games it would be... but no games are developing it.  Trust me, if ID had 2player support on one machine running two usb mice... it would have been in XP.   Counter strike... same thing.

It's just that nobody was really using it but us.

What we need to do is create our own driver (optimouse.sys) and run with it.  It will be easier to do it with a serial device then a usb, because we can have complet control over the serial connection... but that wont help act labs at all.

But if act labs can get two guns running in 98, I will just stay there for my arcade cabinet.

[u_rebelscum]

there are at least 4 different incompatible versions of the String in MFC.  Why?  different departs use them... and they never got put back together.  This sucks for developers who want/need on strong api to write two... so when you start merdging code with other departsments you aren't converting every data type to another... (btw, can you tell I was dinged for this one)

Yuck.  

Multi mice isn't that useful with mice.  It's amazingly difficult to find desk space for one mouse, let alone two.

What it was useful for is trackballs where you could have multiples next to each other.   But even then, your kinda pushing it.

In games it would be... but no games are developing it.  Trust me, if ID had 2player support on one machine running two usb mice... it would have been in XP.   Counter strike... same thing.

Yes, multiple mice for use as separate inputs is in low demand (except by us ).

But many computers, especially laptops and CAD/graphic design workstation (ie: business computers) already have two mouse devices (but only used as one mouse pointer).  Laptops have that touchpad mouse, and a ps/2 or USB port for external mice, and somtimes that joy-mouse.  Many CAD/graphics design people use a mouse for windows and a trackball for actual drawing.

It's just that nobody was really using it but us.

There are other stuff online that did multiple mouse stuff.  The one I got the idea how to was for kids to draw on the same picture on a computer.  Sharing a mouse, or having two mice control the same pointer is not the most productive way for kids to work together.  But it too was not a "business" app.

One business app I think should like multiple mice is the 3D market.  One mouse/trackball (the right hand one) continues to control the pointer for drawing, selecting, etc, while the other mouse/trackball (the left hand one) changes to only controlling the view (pan, zoom [move while pressing botton 1], rotate [move which pressing button 2]).  The pointer mouse could still select zoom, pan, and rotate tool, but IMO, the single mouse pointer is doing too much in today's applications.

What we need to do is create our own driver (optimouse.sys) and run with it.  It will be easier to do it with a serial device then a usb, because we can have complet control over the serial connection.

Yes, creating a driver is the only way we can make sure it's possible (instead of waiting for M$ to do it for us ).   And even USB is possible too.  But it's not possible for me to write a driver (yet).    

However, me, in regards to multiple mice/trackballs/lightguns: picture of kid pounding fists, yelling "Now! now! now!" LOL

[Howard_Casto]

I'll agree with all of that, but for gods sake if someone invests the time in writng a driver make it for a usb interface.  Usb is much cleaner, has a higer baud rate than a serial port, and most importantly will still be around in a few years.

A good start would be to take a generic usb human interface device controller chip and build around it.  I know next to nill about usb though, so excuse my ignorance.