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Exidy Multi shooter

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88mph:
Hi Richie--cool post.  I've been toying with the same idea.  I'm going to try things with the ACT labs gun first and see if I can get the accuracy that I need.  I'm hoping that dealing with a fixed mount (rather than free hand operation) has a beneficial effect on the accuracy of these guns.  If that doesn't work, I will see what I can do with using a mouse hack or perhaps something based on potentiometers.  (A mechanical hack such as this should be relatively straightforward, again due to the fixed mount on the Exidy hardware.) 

The mirrored arrangement should not have an effect on the operation of the ACT labs guns (from a physical perspective).  Whether or not MAME is configured to figure things out with the mirrored arrangement is something I still have to test. 

My gun should be arriving in the mail pretty soon--will keep you posted on my progress. 

Neverending Project:

--- Quote from: richieknucklez on April 01, 2009, 08:10:07 pm ---Also, I would want to use one of the Combat/Cheyenne Stationary positioned rifles.
Has anyone ever transplanted a pc based optical gun's guts into an actual Exidy style gun? Shooting with that light plastic toy gun just would not do.

--- End quote ---

User waveryder transplanted the guts of an Act Labs gun into a PS1 "Predator" style gun. There may be some info on his thread to help you, or you could send him a PM.

Good luck! I can already picture the front-end menu as a grid of screenshots where you have to shoot the game you want to select to play...

SavannahLion:
Just how much space is in those guns? Big enough to stuff the guts of a Wii controller inside? It's got a IR receiver requiring two IR reference points and the Bluetooth interface has already been reverse engineered well enough to make it functional on a PC. You have trigger buttons to tap into. They're extremely plentiful, probably more of those than the Wavebirds. Just wire power up through the post to save on batteries.

Not sure how accurate the controller is that close to the screen and you might need to deal with jitter, no different than an analog pot setup (which was my first thought to try).

CheffoJeffo:
I'll disagree with the Wii suggestion, but welcome corrections from those more knowledgable.

To what I have seen, the Wiimote does a decent job of moving the cursor around the screen in a manner corresponding to physical movements. To my experience (which is limited to playing HoD on the Wii), the placement of the reticule often does not correspond to the point on the screen at which the Wiimote is aiming. I try to play HoD on the Wii the same way that I would play in the arcade and I get ---my bottom--- kicked by my 9YO son. When we go to the arcade where actually aiming the gun is more important, the roles reverse. Add to that the challenge of a mirrored display and I think it becomes an untenable situation.

As TOK points out, precision is important in aiming in those Exidy shooters and the fixed mounting of the guns makes it more important that the shot goes where you aim. The more I think about it, the more I like using a pot-based positional gun as the basis for a cab like this.

One of the things I am interested in seeing about the Nanotech board is how it compares in MAME, being seen as a joystick instead of a mouse. I haven't actually thought much about it or bothered to look into the relative advantages (if there are any) of each for the application at hand (this is an area where someone like u_rebelscum may have already commented elsewhere and I just haven't researched it yet as I want to use arcade guns).

Of course, I may be totally off-base and missing the obvious ...

SavannahLion:
I agree that analog pots might work better. I was just offering a different solution given what I perceive as the limitations of MAME.

One thing I was considering is how MAME would handle the input for these specific games. I don't know since I don't have them in my library (no gun, no point) nor am I able to look at the source code right now. I've never tried an analog controller on MAME but it strikes me that if the pots are seen as a joystick, then no matter what position you place the pot, the reticle would continue in that direction thus breaking the relation between gun and reticle. If it's treated as a mouse input, same thing, a mouse is seen as a series of pulses, not a continous fixed value.

IMHO, this problem is a prime example of why I think MAMEDev should quit trying to cram obscure control methods into the limitations of a keyboard/mouse configuration. If they're truly sincere about documenting the hardware of these machines, then that includes the controls and their input. With USB, I'm sure there are all too many engineers all too happy to give us those interfaces.

But alas, that is a topic for another time.

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