Posted by Andy Warne on 27, 2000 at 8:47 PM:
In Reply to: Trackballs and spinners: Optical vs. keyboard posted by Ohso on 25, 2000 at 2:25 AM:
I have been thinking about this in connection with my I-PAC interface. The first thing is that using the keyboard port is out. It just is'nt suitable for this, neither does MAME work in the right way for using a trackball th "press keys" via some kind of interface. As MAME is designed to accept a trackball via the serial interface that's what we are stuck with for now.
A simple change to Opti-MAME would accept 4 COM ports so enabling 4 trackballs using a dual com-port card in the PC. The way to do it properly would be via USB but that would require a lot of MAME work because a complete USB driver would have to be written. There is a piece of software which translates USB into a virtual Com Port but it is not free and would require tweaking for 4 ports. If anyone has any thoughts on this and wants to get involved with the software side, let me know. I can do the hardware, including a USB device.
www.spaceinvaders.uk.com