Posted by The Maverick on 1, 2001 at 9:57 PM:
In Reply to: Can you turn an eight-way j-stick to a four-way using settings in MAME? posted by King Of My Castle on 1, 2001 at 4:30 AM:
A four way joystick has four switches and will only activate one switch at a time. An eight way stick also has four switches but is built so that it can activate two switches at a time in the diagonal positions. There is no way you can program software to change the fact that sometimes your 8 way stick will activate two switches in a four way game. However, you can tell the software to give a preference to one direction when both switches in a diagonal direction are pressed. I do not consider this remedy the same as having a four way stick... Hence my answer to your question that this does not "turn an eight way into a four way."
On the other hand, you can use software to make an eight way stick function effectively as a two way by adding the two diagonals as an option for each direction (i.e. left = left, left+up, left+down.)
the Mav