Posted by Dr. J on March 07, 2002 at 00:32:50:
I'm pretty sure you mentioned before that you had a set of the Act Labs guns and that you had offered them to whoever would program support for them into Mame. I just thought I'd match your offer. If someone out there reading this is good at programming, and get's this into mame properly, you may have two sets of guns to play with.
I just got a pair and realized that they work BEAUTIFULLY in windows. Even if I'm only in the gaming-options window in the control panel. It's a real shame that they're not put into mame (especially since Police Trainer showed up at the Mame WIP page). I don't have much programming experience, but I don't see how it could be too difficult to add, especially since there are quake mods for the guns.
Anyway, I was considering emailing Actlabs and asking why they don't program support into mame themselves. Especially since mame is open source and they're bound to make money indirectly from it. (all you have to do is look at the hundreds of examples on this site alone to realize we're all nuts and are willing to pay good money on our hobby) I think you mentioned you had emailed them before, and I was curious what they said.
Also, for people who complain that it only works with particular monitors and at particular refreshes, that's not completely true. I know that they work on Wells Gardner VGA monitors. They should work on any VGA CRT monitor with 15-pin D-sub input.
If Act Labs guns get Mame support, at the very least the majority of Mamers will have an option. As for others, the Act Labs guns would be a good starting point for the creative hardware-hackers out there (which is something I also intend to try).
Maybe we could start an emailing campaign to certain mame programmers, or to Act Labs developers, at least so they realize the demand.