Posted by spazzman on July 22, 1999 at 12:50:57:
In Reply to: Re: can you give me some idea of how to do this? (NT) posted by Brian Deuel on July 21, 1999 at 13:13:11:
Do those Omega race spinners spin freely or is there a stopping point after a couple spins?
To understand what I mean by hacking a joystick, first off you need to understand how a standard PC joystick works. In this day and age of advanced joysticks and peripherials that connect to the joystick port, we have to remember that when the joystick port was conceived, it was only capable of having 4 potientiometers and 4 buttons hooked up to it. That basicly means that at the maximum, you could have 2 joysticks with 2 buttons each. Each stick uses two potentiometers (x-axis and y-axis). The computer got input from the joystick by sending voltage out and getting back different voltages. A potentiometer in a joystick is capable of giving off 256 different values (0 thru 255). If for example you held the joystick to the far left, you would get a 0 reading on the x-axis. If you held the joystick to the right, you would get a 255 reading on the x-axis. During this time, the y-axis would be at 128, right in the middle. So using this information, maybe you begin to realize that the potentiometer in your joystick is the same as in your Omega Race spinner, (or an Atari paddle or driving controller). And theoretically, you should be able to cut the wires in your x-axis on your joystick and wire in your spinner in its place. This may leave you asking how the microsoft sidewider and gravis gamepad pro and other similar devices with 10 plus buttons work. Easy. These devices actually have computer chips in them and they are able to communicate with the computer. So the joystick is talking to the computer in zeros and ones (digital) versus playing the voltage game. Game consoles have been doing this since at least the days of SNES. I assume you already know how modern mice work, and understand why it is not possible to hook up a potentiometer to a mouse. Spinners from tron (and I would assume all games forward) are possible to hook up to a mouse, since they use the same 'light-chopping' that a modern mouse does. I hope this gives some insight to things. I am by no means an expert so if you talk to someone that is an expert, definatly listen to what they say. Hopefully some here in the group can help out if I messed up.... Drop me an e-mail. I would like to hear how things are going....
-spazzman
spazzman90@hotmail.com