Posted by EmuMannen on 25, 2000 at 3:34 AM:
In Reply to: I'm way off posted by AD on 25, 2000 at 1:44 AM:
It would be possible to connect a gamepad to the pc with I-PAC but I don't know if it is the best solution in this case?
I-PAC is a keyboard encoder. Look at it as a serie of switches where each switch (when shorted to a common ground) will send a specific key to the pc trough the keyboard port. So if you want your gamepad to communicate with a pc as a keyboard then this could be the right solution (one example of a commersial gamepad using this strategy is the PowerRamp MITE from ActLab).
A pc gamepad is usually communicating with the pc trough the game port. There are solutions (search the net) on how to hack a console gamepad to communicate trough the game port and also other solutions like communication trough the serial and parallel ports.
And about the cables, keyboards just have one cable and inside of that is just a few other cables. It is still possible to sent over 100 different key codes over those few cables. How is that possible? You could look at it as the connection between a computer and a modem. The keyboard is actually a serial device with an on board controller in the pc and a keyboard controller in the keyboard. They are communicating between each other over a serial line according to a specific protocol.
Most console ports that I know of and also the game port on a pc doesn't work that way. Could some game port and console gurus fill in please.
/ EmuMannen
: I don't think they work like this. Does anyone have any suggestions though about maybe using the IPAC as a possible way to interface controllers to pc?