Powerramp mini-review (poor mans Hot-Rod)


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Posted by spazzman on July 16, 1999 at 11:11:03:

Well I have been putting off building an arcade cabinet because I had been disapointed with the idea of trying to setup 2 six-button controllers and having to deal with ghosting. I had been doing some research on various input methods to help me achive my goal. Joystick port? Possible, but I would need to hack 2 $30 controllers and it wouldnt work with some emus. USB? Too spendy and flaky at this point. Keyboard? Ghosting. Dual keyboard? Possibly. I was thinking about the Hagstrom encoder, but I felt I was possibly limiting myself with only 18 buttons. (for the $45) model.) Then I read about Roswells machine... He used a power ramp joystick as an interface... I read his bit about the joystick and I thought it was a kick-ass idea to build a joystick that inputs keyboard commands.
But the Powerramp goes WAY beyond that. By this I mean they have 8 main buttons for play, 2 buttons for start and select, and an additional 4 buttons for 'macros' or what ever you want. The thing comes with a default layout, almost ready for mame. The joystick is mapped to the arrows. Buttons are ctrl, a, z and so on. But the reprogrammability of this thing is where it really shines!!! All you have to do is flip on the little program switch, hold down the button you want to configure (or push the joystick in a direction) , press the key on the keyboard you want and let your finger off the button. Bamm, programmed. Do button after button, until you get your setup complete. Then flip the program switch back off. Ready to play, no software needed. Kick ass! As if this wasn't enough, they give you 4 layers to program!!! So say you want it set up for mame, do all your programming, flip the switch from layer 1 to 2 and do all your programming for callus (or whatever). You can also pull up the default mapping at anytime with another switch. So technically there is 5 layers. The 4 you can program and the default one. By the way, the default levels button mappings are screened onto the stick. This thing has some sort of static ram because it retains the settings even after being disconnected. Another nice feature is that many of the buttons are 10-in-one programmable (good for fighters). This allows you to program the buttons for a long sequence of key presses. It is done the same way as I described earlier. Flip the program switch to on hold the button you want to program, enter the sequence on the keyboard, and let your finger off the button. Need two or more keys to go down at the same time? They thought of this too, and you press the scroll lock then press the keys and scroll lock again when programming. What ever keys you pressed in between scroll locks, will be entered at the same time. Sweet. 4 of the main 8 buttons are 10-in-ones as are the 'start and select' and the four macros. There is a flip switch so if you are playing a fighting game and you want you macro executed in the opposite direction, turn on the flip switch. Also the speed of the macro executing can be altered with the autofire speed button. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention there are 8 switches to turn on autofire for the main 8 buttons. There is an autofire speed switch with 4 levels of speed. This doubles to control speed of macro execution. Whew! Anything I forgot? Oh yeah, the real test... Can I use two? The answer is.... YES! I didn't fully delve into this, but did chain the two sticks up and then plugged in my receiver for my wireless keyboard. NO ISSUES! I was able to immediately program the second stick for mame second player keyboard commands. (Took all of 30 seconds). And the 2 sticks worked just fine! Amazing, amazing. Actually this wouldn't have been that amazing if I payed $60 per stick, but Act labs is offering these things for $20 a piece. So I ordered 2 on Tuesday and got them Thursday. Shipping was $11. I live in Oregon. I can't see a better alternative for the price that gives 36 inputs total (I could have four 4-button sticks if I wanted and still have 4 left over) and all the great programming options and the layers.
I wish the people at Hot Rod would have hooked up with these guys for their interface, oh well. Well I'm off to go play some more... I need to do some heavier duty testing of the 2 player stuff to make sure there are no issues. My friend is on his way over to help test Sam Sho 2 here we come.

-spazzman


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