Posted by Druin on 9, 2000 at 10:50 AM:
In Reply to: Sometimes that is a good thing! posted by robert mcelwee on 8, 2000 at 5:47 PM:
:As this thing grows the parts we need to buy will get cheaper, the help we may need comes easier, and the software we use gets more advanced. I have only been doing this for about 1.5 years but I have noticed a big change already. A year from now it will be no big deal getting a rotary joystick or spinner to work with mame. It won't be as fun as building your own but hey, I want a spinner and rotary and I don't want to spend a fortune or forever working on it.
Thanks to the growth of the scene and the exposure of help, I was able to have the insight to create that Rotary joystick interface, as you mention due to the available quantity and quality of information and inspiration available. I was using MAME since around 1998 for nostalgia (I own a few Jamma boards but I don't even have a cabinet to play them with so I can't use them) but even having some Rotary games on hand, I never even considered making them more playable with my abilities. I just accepted the dial keys as a handicap of the keyboard and went on not playing those games. Then as I saw more obscure interface projects like the twisty spinner, seeing that people were being innovative to overcome obstacles like this, I began to start thinking myself and the Rotary Interface was conceived.
Then after I developed it, Torgo on this message board helped perfect is implementation in MAME by pointing out the configurability of the dial keys in MAME, which I wasn't conscious of at the time, and that was a limitation I had encountered in overcoming another limitation (the MAME dial keys in the first place), only possible via shared knowledge and inspiration to further a hobby. I've gotten a lot out of the scene in terms of even just learning about woodworking, and I haven't built anything even yet.
Many other interests I have, I end up searching all kinds of search engines and special help sites to try and uncover the weirdly concealed secrets that noone wants to share, but everything is open in this scene and support is endless. It is a fulfilling hobby to pursue no matter who enters it.