Posted by Wes on November 03, 1999 at 22:06:04:
In Reply to: I Think I Have Almost Exactly What You Need posted by Rob Caskey on November 03, 1999 at 06:57:26:
: Check out this thing I did. It discusses the pros, cons & how tos of this type of thing.
: The short answer is only mame32 supports multiple sidewinders at all & so it only works under windows. 1 sidewinder is supported fairly decently by normal mame & all buttons work (except digital mode) BUT you have to uninstall your win drivers for sidewinder so you cant play any other games besides some emulators this way.
I'm getting different results, I chained 2 sidewinders and DOS MAME recognized both w/ all buttons (36b8). Of course, this is with the windows drivers uninstalled. Reinstalling the driver for other games is not an issue for me.
: Check out the enclosed url.
Hmmm, the link is pointing back to the arcadecontrols home page.
Some other notes on what I have done so far...
I wanted all 14 buttons to be available for my joystick. I found on the circuit board there's wiring holes for each of the buttons! (16 total... 2 extra, one for the 'mode' button and one unknown that's labelled 'INTXA') Since I need 14 buttons and one ground, that's 15 connections. I shared a ground hole with the left index button. What common connector has 15 pins? DB15 joystick cable. So, I bought a joystick extension cable and cut it, drilled a hole in the bottom of my sidewinder and ran the cable through and wired up the connector. Now I have a still useful sidewinder with an external button interface attached! I am going to use the other end of the joystick extension cable to run to my control panel's barrier strip. Then, I house the sidewinder in the box and hook it up.
I'm gonna have 2 control panel boxes, each with a sidewinder in it. I can chain the sidewinders for 2 player action, or for 2 joystick games like crazy climber.
Now, to find the right material for the enclosure and to work on the trackball and spinners...