Weirdness in setting Happ Trackball buttons in MAME

[jasonbar]

Howdy-

Well, I've *finally* got my I-PAC4 set up.  Because of my huge number of buttons on my control panel, I was forced to use all 3 "mouse" (Happ Trackball, actually) buttons.  Mouse 1 buttons 0-2 are assigned to player 2's buttons 1-3 in MAME (.115, optimized for my processor, high score patch).

Unfortunately, I'm coming across some weirdness in making these settings, a weirdness which was not there before.

To set Player 2 Button 1, I tab into the "set general controls" menu, select player 2, scroll down to button 1, hit enter, the entry highlights, then I hit mouse button 0 and it assigns it nicely as "MOUSE 1 BUTTON 0".  Same works nicely for assigning mouse 1 button 2 to Player 2 Button 3.

BUT!  When I try to assign mouse 1 button 1 (right click on the Happ trackball), I get aaallll sorts of weird different text appearing as the assignment...and what I get seems somewhat dependent on how fast I tap that button.  Super-quick taps sometimes results in Mouse 1 Button 1 coming up as Mouse 1 Button 0.  Sometimes it's Mouse 1 Button 0 Mouse 1 Button 1.  Sometimes it's a ridiculously long string of crud like Mouse 1 Button 0 Mouse 1 Button 1 Mouse Y- Mouse X+ that goes clear across the screen.  I can never get it to come up as plain old Mouse 1 Button 1 (which I know I had done before...).   

So, after messing w/ it for a bit, I ended up leaving P2B2 set as Mouse 1 Button 0 Mouse 1 Button 1 and tested a few games.  It seems to play perfectly, strangely enough...each button does its own unique function & there's no "cross-talk" or anything.

Still, it doesn't seem right & I bet it might end up causing me some headaches sometime, so does anybody have an idea what's up?

Can I get into one of the ini or cfg files & set this in notepad?  But will that solve my problem...?   


Thanks!
-Jason

[TOK]

I can't help you specifically with your problem, but I can tell you I'm using a very similar setup and don't have the issue. My trackball buttons are mapped to the bottom row of the player 1 side (buttons 4 through 6). MAME accepted these uneventfully and everything works fine.

Not sure if that streams your troubleshooting or not. Sounds like an odd problem.

[jasonbar]

Thanks for sharing your experience--but I don't think that helps me... :[


I was thinking it was maybe some grounding issue or crosstalk or...?  I can see how it might glitch between the buttons & think there were multiple button presses, but I'm puzzled by how it thinks I made a mouse (trackball)movement also just by pressing a button...


Oddly, the only difference that I made in my setup between way back when (when it set Mouse 1 Button 1 just fine) & now is that now I'm also using the 3rd trackball button.  However, that 3rd mouse button is now attached to one of my panel button's microswitches (NO contact), but it still should be just a plain old open circuit between its 2 leads, just as it was while it was dangling in space.

I'll wiggle my connectors & try again.

Mysterious...

Thanks,
-J