Posted by Marshall on 10, 2000 at 11:31 AM:
In Reply to: Re: Andy Warne: When will Opti-Pac Plus be out and how much? posted by Andy Warne on 9, 2000 at 7:04 PM:
Andy,
Glad to hear you're making progress. I am looking forward to this device being available.
My requests/questions, etc:
If possible, keep the physical size of the device the same or smaller than the I-PAC. I am planning to have a box with a keyboard encoder and an opti-pac plus inside. This will stay connected to the PC and I will be able to connect various control panels using a 40-pin ribbon cable. The box I am planning to use has room for two I-PACs so if the opti-pac plus is the same size or smaller, I'm in good shape.
I assume two trackballs would be 16 inputs (plus the nebulous N terminal). If so, this would be perfect as I need 24 inputs for the keyboard encoder and would have 16 available for the opti-pac plus.
How will the device hook up to the PC? In short, are there going to be two separate cables going to the two serial ports and connected to headers like the original opti-pac? Or one cable with an eighteen pin receptacle on the card end splitting into two DB9 connectors at the computer? Or serial ports on the opti-pac going to the serial ports on the computer? If I get to vote, I would prefer one cable into the card which splits to two DB9 connectors.
Have you considered making the device serial or USB compatable, similar to the way the I-PAC is DIN5/PS/2 or USB compatible? This would be nice for people who would like to be able to use USB in the future but can't now. Personally, I don't know if I would ever use the two trackball capability, but I would like to have it on the card. However, I plan to have a Wingman Warrior on one com port and most computers only have two. On the other hand, two USB ports for the opti-pac plus would be standard on most newer computers, and I think something like sixteen or more (more than I'll ever use) is the maximum supported.
Anyway, that's all I can think of for now. Keep up the great work and let us here on the message board know when we'll be able to buy one.