Wireless controllers

[mnm1200]

I'm currently in the planning stage for my MAME cab.

I've got a lot of old systems ,controllers, and games but I can never really get to play them (wrong connectors, have to connect 5 devices to get the thing to work, etc.) so I want to put everything on my cab and run S-Video/Composite/Component or soemthing similar to my TV and play the authentic controls via a separate box.

I would like to have most (if not all) of my controls wireless or even better the box itself be wireless. If I make the box wireless and have the adapters inside the box, will the computer be able to recognize the signals and interpret them properly?

thx

[mnm1200]

No one?

[crashwg]

What you're going to need is some sort of wireless USB adapter or a wireless Ipac of sorts and hack all your controllers to use a single wire for each input plus ground...  Neither of which I've ever heard of but if you come accross something that'll work feel free to share because you'll probably make alot of people happy with that sort of information, including myself!

[Adeptus]

Adapt all your controllers to PS2 or XBox (if you can find/make adapters for all of them?) & hack a wireless pad from one of those systems.
Connect the wireless receiver to a USB adapter.
Just make sure the wireless controller/adapter combination will work, before you start hacking

[Flinkly]

hmmm, interesting idea.  xbox controllers would be the easiest, as they are already usb.  but to find a small enough controller to hack that could fit into a sega controller, let alone a nes controller...

but what about a pc controller...if you limited yourself to a single analog joystick design, you could probably get a really small controller for the pc, but then you could only play games up to n64 and the equivalent.  as for paddle controls, i don't know what you'd do for that.

[Flinkly]

eh...batteries  .  nevermind, i'll stick to wired.

[Adeptus]

Actually what I was thinking was, put the wireless controller in a box & connect all the other controllers to it.

in fact, that way you won't need adaptors to ps2, but you'd have to hack all the controllers you want to use

So in a way the hacked wireless controller would be acting as almost a wireless Ipac (as crashwg put it)

[SirPoonga]

Batteries aren;t that bad.  You can get rayovac 15 minute batteries.  They charge in 15 minutes.  I have them in my 360 controller and it lasts about 2 weeks of playing.

Definately get a PS2 wireless controller and a ps2 to usb convertor.

[Crowquill]

I second using PS2 controllers and adapters. My RadioShack PS-->USB adapter works great with my Logitech wireless pad. I'm planning on using this setup on the "super console PC" that I'm building. That way I can just switch the transmitters from the PS2 and be able to play.