Sidewinder game pad hack for MAME?


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Posted by Wes on November 02, 1999 at 16:40:18:

I am designing an arcade control panel. My original idea is to use the joystick port for 2 joysticks and 4 buttons (so I can have limited use of the panel in non-arcade games,) the serial port for a trackball, 2 spinners, and 3 buttons, and a keyboard encoder for other buttons. Then it hit me...

Why not hack the MS Sidewinder game pad? You'd get the 2 joystick axes and 10 buttons. This would do away with the need for a keyboard hack (no ghosting problems, no keyboard splitter needed.) The panel would definitely have compatibility with non-MAME games. I could still have the trackball/spinners thru the serial port.

the only drawback I can see...
-Cost. Sidewinder pads are more expensive than $2 Gravis gamepads.

The only other question I can come up with right now is...

-I know MAME supports the sidewinder, but does it support 2 sidewinders at once? This would be really cool, I could have 2 separate control panels daisy-chained, each with joystick and 10 buttons, each with a spinner. Only one of them with a trackball (unfortunately.) Maybe even up to 4 joysticks chained?!? Even if this isn't possible, I might be able to use the Profile Activator, to have the joysticks mimic keystrokes for use with MAME.

What do you guys think? The more I think about it this sounds like a really good idea.



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