Posted by u_rebelscum on 27, 2001 at 6:23 PM:
In Reply to: question about usb hacks posted by Lilwolf on 27, 2001 at 8:51 AM:
: Your the one that made the multi usb mame port? Great job!
: Question.. I have currently a bunch of steering wheels, a trackball (want a second), and am going to build a few spinners... (man, I need more time to fully realized my arcade machine)...
Me too! I have a not quite finished control panel I wish I could finish, but can't find the time to work the loud tools w/o having my neighbors mad at me for waking them at 1 am. :)
: anyway, I bought an opti-pac, but haven't got it working yet (might have blown it trying to get power... long store... actually short, I !@# up and put ground to positive and positive to ground...sigh)...
: but I'm starting to thing about going the USB route. (better support, hot swap ect).
: anyway, how hard is it to hack them? And has anyone found any good cheap usb mice that are easy to hack?
The OSCAR uses logitech's "first mouse/pilot mouse", a USB mouse for ~$15 where I live. I have an OSCAR in my almost-completed-but-already-playing-with control panel, so I know it works with my code. ;-)
: Hotswappable?
You can hotswap the USB mice & trackballs, but not while mame is running:
Mame only looks for mice at loading, so you can't add mice once you start a game. You need to exit the game, plug/unplug in the wanted mice, then start the game again. Unpluging mice in the middle of playing is not a good idea.
You can unplug, but mame will continue looking at the the same spot for the same mouse. You can replug the same mouse or same driver mouse in this case and mame will continue the same. But plugging in different (driver) mice will not be seen until you restart mame.
: thanks