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Which is better - I-pac or KeyWiz keyboard encoder?
TheShanMan:
I was surprised to still see a serial port and parallel port on my latest mb I bought a few weeks ago. Amazing how long this legacy stuff stays around.
protokatie:
--- Quote ---Just want to clarify - Andy recommended a product from a competing company that was based on a board that he sells to the competing company. So if the OP buys that product from Gremlin, Gremlin in turn needs to buy another mini-pac from Andy to replace it.
--- End quote ---
Ahh, ok. The way I had read it was that the thing gremlin was selling was only based off of the minipac (IE the chip and the way to wire it). I didnt realise that Gremlin was reselling minipacs... NM, sorries.
BTW, a few months ago I ran across the company that makes the chips in the IPAC, quite an interesting list of capabilities the thing has. With the right firmware, you could almost turn the thing into a full fledged CPU-like device.
Tiger-Heli:
--- Quote from: protokatie on January 31, 2008, 07:27:35 pm ---Ahh, ok. The way I had read it was that the thing gremlin was selling was only based off of the minipac (IE the chip and the way to wire it). I didnt realise that Gremlin was reselling minipacs... NM, sorries.
--- End quote ---
I can't state specifics, but I believe the chip is pretty common - any company selling the a competing device with the chip would be legal to do so. I imagine the mini-pac firmware is proprietary, so any company selling a device with the chip and Andy's firmware on it (if they didn't buy the board and chip from Andy) would likely be in legal trouble in short order. While Gremlin could in theory use the same chip and their own firmware to accomplish the same thing, I doubt Andy would refer to the product as "based on our Mini-Pac" and could be in legal trouble if he did so.
But it's not quite right to say Gremlin is reselling minipacs - I believe what they are selling is likely an entire coin return mechanism that incorporates the mini-pac in it's design. So it's not the same product that you buy from Ultimarc, but for each one sold, Ultimarc gets a new order to replenish Gremlin's stock.
Sorry for the long clarification (and any possible inaccuracies).
AndyWarne:
Just to clarify the PS/2 to USB converter/adaptor issue:
There are two types of device available:
Active converter modules.
These take the PS/2 protocol and convert to USB using active circuitry. These will not work with any PS/2 gaming device because they will suffer from a key-press limit and will also clear out the keystrokes every couple of seconds to avoid stuck keys. This is fine for a keyboard but would make gameplay impossible since any held-down key would be cleared after a couple of seconds.
Passive adaptors.
These can be used just fine with the I-PAC and the results are the same as using our own USB cable. The I-PAC auto-detects the interface its connected to and invokes different internal firmare for USB or PS/2. It is two devices in one. So running with one of these adaptors renders it a native USB device, not a PS/2 device converted into USB. The small green adaptor plugs fit into this category.
Just another comment relevant to a point mentioned earlier in this thread: the PS/2 pass-through on the I-PAC does not use any clock cycles at all if the keyboard is not being used.
Andy
Fozzy The Bear:
--- Quote from: AndyWarne on February 01, 2008, 10:12:42 am ---Just another comment relevant to a point mentioned earlier in this thread: the PS/2 pass-through on the I-PAC does not use any clock cycles at all if the keyboard is not being used.
--- End quote ---
Now that's interesting Andy. Can you explain how it achieves that?? I may be wrong here, but I'd have thought it would have to be scanning the PS2 Pass-through in order to know if a key on the keyboard has been pressed?? can you explain why that's not the case please.
Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
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