Posted by Andy Warne on 9, 2001 at 10:33 AM:
In Reply to: IPAC Questions for Andy posted by jarr_d on 9, 2001 at 1:54 AM:
(Just back from holiday in Sunny Spain, and surprise, surprise it's still raining in the UK!)
Yes you certainly can program each board differently.
In USB mode you could use many of them, there may be a limit to the number of keyboard device drivers that can be loaded but it's probably quite high.
In PS/2 there would be voltage drop problems as the chain would get rather long. I couldnt really say now many as it depends on the PC as well. Some have more current/voltage available on the keyboard port than others.
: I'm wanting to use 2 ipac's.
: From Andy's site:
: USING TWO I-PACs TOGETHER: On the second board connect a jumper wire from "Coin A" to GND. (don’t connect a button to this input) This will force the second unit into permanent "test" mode. In this mode every input generates a different code from normal mode, so expanding the code set to 55 buttons. The second board can be connected to the pass-thru connector of the first. Or either connect both boards to USB or the first to the keyboard port and second to USB.
: Instead of doing this, could you program the second ipac to an alternate set of codes? say, the ones that correspond to the 3 and 4 player keys?
: And if so, couldn't you hook up as many ipac's as you wanted?
: I'm sure to program any given one, it would have to be the only ipac plugged in, but couldn't this be done?
: just giving this some thought,
: jarr_d
: who now has 1/2 dozen db25 connectors, pins, ribbon-wire and 50 feet of cat-5 awaiting.