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making your own frontline style controller
wugly:
ikari sticks are 12 position rotary sticks not 8 position. You can use two eight way sticks and two fire buttons too move aim and shoot two different weapons. This is sort of similar to robotron but you do not get as many rapid fire shots to make up for being sloppy as you do in robotron, this can get very confusing at times. Second most rotary sticks I have ever tried to use in mame never worked 100 percent perfectly and they always had too much motion in the different directions compared too my regular joystick which also screwed me up. Anyways frontline was always my favorite game and they only way I could truly enjoy it is with a good facsimile of a frontline controller
cw:
12 or 8 you can use it to control the rotation.....
SavannahLion:
--- Quote from: Spyridon on August 04, 2009, 04:40:03 pm ---Wow, you lost me on the build, but congrats on getting it working. Front Line is a great game and not at all playable on my MAME cab (luckily I have a dedicated one).
--- End quote ---
Yeah, same here. A simple circuit diagram could easily shave off nearly the entire last paragraph describing the controller. I had a vision of one layout, then I got confused 1/2 way in, either because I lost track of the diodes or got confused on the "square" bit. I'll digest it later and figure out what he's trying to do.
What is the name of the supplier of the switch? Is it available through Digikey or Mouser? Is that 31302MB supposed to be a part number?? What is the switch schematic?
Lots of useful information, there's just too much to glean.
wugly:
Here is the simple circuit layed out with my bad drawing and the switches technical specs. The switch terminal 1-1 and 2-1 are attached to gnd. terminal 1-2 thru 1-8 are connected to points 1-7 with terminal 2-5 connected to point 8. I take no responsibilty for the knob not lining up with where the gun is pointing just arrange the knob to point in the right direction when you are done. With my knowledge of rotary sticks as it is I do not see how a rotary encoder which sends one set of pulse when you turn the stick cw and a different set when turned ccw would be able to work on my version of mame 109 for frontline. My version of frontline has only 8 way joystick inputs for turning the guns. I might be wrong on newer technology or mame version but as to what I know at this point I do not see how you could use a rotary stick to play the game. The name of the company that makes the switch is Electroswitch, it is in weymouth Ma usa. This is a special order switch and is something that they do not normal stock so a 1 month delay is to be expected for an order
Spyridon:
Does your controller spin freely or does it "click" into position at each section? That's what is neat about the Front Line controller. You have that clicking at each position. (kind of like changing the channel back before remote controls)
For reference for those not familiar with the controller, here are some photos:
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