Posted by crazyclimber on 9, 2001 at 3:46 PM:
Been into the emulation scene for quite a while now, but have only recently gotten to the point where I could no longer tolerate the keyboard and mouse for controls. Every so often I would check the net for pre-made joystick setups like the V-stick and what have you, but then it appeared as though the only choice left was/is Hanaho's Hotrod. Not suprising, as I believe most of the others were just mom & pop type hobbyists who became overwhelmed. Anyway, I finally found the Hotrod for sale for $99, so I picked one up and am quite pleased at this point.
Although I can easily see myself getting sucked into the seedy (j/k) world of making my own arcade cabinet in the not-to-distant future, for the moment, due to limitations of time and space, I am simply trying to obtain the best controls to use MAME and the like on my pc.
I've read through the message board here and have checked out the Imperial trackballs for the pc, but I have a few questions about them. It's hard to tell from their black and white drawings, but could they simply be used as a stand-alone trackball? I've tried some of the trackballs you can get for the pc from, say CompUSA, but they really aren't very good. I wouldn't mind spending $80 to get a quality trackball that performed well. But, I was wondering how well it would work just straight out of the box hooked up to the mouse port? I could glue on some rubber feet to stabilize it, but I wasn't sure how the oddly shaped case would feel. Also, does it need any particular drivers or do you just plug and play, configured as a basic mouse? Also, someone mentioned that the smaller trackballs were like ones used in Centipede and Millipede, but the larger 3" ones were used in games like Missle Command and Crystal Castles. I guess size just comes down to a matter of preference? Oh, one other Imperial question...does the clearish red 3" trackball come pre-lighted from underneath, or is that something you would do after the fact?
Ok, now for the spinner. I know there are at least two people or companies making these and a review of both is forthcoming. Twistygrip used to make a nice-looking stand-alone spinner, but I think they went under. Anyway, I saw where at least one of these two (the Oscar I believe) is ready to hook up via serial or mouse port right out of the box, whereas the other I couldn't really tell. Either way, I realize I would have to either mount it into my Hotrod cabinet or just build a stand-alone case. This doesn't frighten me too much as it's just basic carpentry and doesn't require any electronics knowledge, unless I decide to mount a few buttons and then it could get hard...
So in theory, I should be able to run the Hotrod through the keyboard port, a trackball through the mouse port and a spinner through the serial port all at the same time and everything should be great and lovely? :)
Thanks for any answers/opinions and sorry for the length!
cc