Posted by CaVol on 26, 2000 at 8:36 AM:
In Reply to: Yeah, but you gotta love us! [more] posted by JP4 on 26, 2000 at 4:43 AM:
Nice work. I had envisioned laying out my control panel very similar to the way you did yours - Two sticks accompanoed by a lot of buttons with a ball and wheel in between. As for a steering wheel - could you not pop one on top of the wheel somehow and use it that way? I may also try to put a third joystic on the panel that only does 4 way. I'm pretty much gonna play the pre-90s "classics", but I may want to add in some recent racing games like Rush if that is even emuxable.
So, I guess I'll build the control panel first - right now I'm leaning toward getting a USB interface. The price seems nice and I anticipate getting a motherboard with 2 USB ports. Do you think the LP24 combined with perhaps a joystick hack would work just as well? The USB board seems to be the best deal. One USB board I saw went for $50 and had 28 inputs. That would be enough for 3 stix and 15 buttons. Seems good enuff to me. If I needed more inputs I could use a joystick hack to expand cheaply. Or would it be worth it to just go ahead and get the KE72? Any insight on that would be appreciated. I could hook the ball and wheel up as you did using mouse and serial ports. Where would pedals go? I guess I would add these on later and would like to get pedals that give out proportional output. I haven't read much on pedals - I need to find some info on that. I have no idea where they would hook up. I guess they would work like a wheel, no?
One other question about your site - You mentioned something about quick connectors - I have no idea what the wiring is like and if you could expand upon that I'd appreciate it. How exactly do you hook up the wire to the buttons and joysticks? do you crimp on adapters and then plug them into the buttons? Any help would be appreciated. That question might have a long answer! Also the swappable control panel idea sounds great - I will check out those projects you mentioned. I wondered if you could build a panel that was somewhat "modular". I don't think I'll be able to have two standard 8 way sticks, 1 4 way stick and another stick with a trigger for Tron all on the same panel! If there was a slick way to swap out stix, the board would look a lot nicer. Thanks for the help - I'll see you around!