🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <DE6wn...@news.cis.umn.edu>,
   Jon <rein...@maroon.tc.umn.edu> wrote:
>to...@netgate.net (Todd Munk) wrote:
>>postm...@thepc.thegap.com (Dermot Murphy) wrote:
>>
>>>Please can anyone suggest best(?) joystick for me to buy?
>>
>>>Thanks,
>>
>>>Dermot
>>

Well, if you're into games that require digital sticks instead of analog 
sticks and you've got a bit of cash to burn, I wholeheartedly recommend the 
U.S. Logic Keyboard Emulator Control Pad. It's a SNES-style joypad that 
connects between the keyboard and the computer.  The big advantage is that, 
unlike conventional digital joypads that use the analog port, you can use it 
without losing 25% of your PC's speed.  Normal analog joysticks (and joypads 
that connect to the normal analog game port) work by charging a capacitor 
through resistors inside the joystick and then counting down to see how long 
it takes for the charge to disappear.  A tiny resistance (when the joystick is 
at the end of one of its axes) results in a big charge; a big resistance (when 
the joystick is at the other end of the axis) results in a little charge.  A 
centered joystick produces a medium resistance and a medium charge.  The 
problem is that the CPU itself has to keep checking to see whether or not the 
charge is gone, even if the resistance will be only one of 3 values (as in the 
case of a joypad).

On the other hand, the keyboard reports "key events" (left shift pressed, "j" 
key pressed, "j" key released, left shift released) as they happen, and these 
events can be read in an instant.  What the U.S. Logic keypad does is generate 
key events like the keyboard.  It can be programmed so that the joypad acts 
like cursor up, down, left, and right, and the buttons act like space, escape, 
left-shift, right-shift, tab, enter, "%", "G", "g", etc.  It has six buttons 
and two levers along the top.  The left lever can be programmed like one of 
the buttons.  The right lever acts like a "shift" key and lets you generate an 
additional 7 keys by pressing it along with the other lever/buttons.  To 
program it, you flip the switch to program mode, hold the button, and press 
the key on the keyboard.  You can program it to auto-repeat for the button at 
30cps instantly or after a brief pause if you want.  It retains settings when 
you turn off the computer.

The only -REAL- problem with it is the cost: I paid over $55 for it at 
Computer City.  On the other hand, it IS nice being able to play DOOM with a 
joystick without losing any speed (which is why I never really used my Gravis 
Gamepad... the speed penalty wasn't worth it).  In any case, there are bound 
to be other companies that will be making similar products, and I'm sure that 
by Christmas similar products will be available for slightly more than a good 
analog joypad costs today.

-------------

What I'd REALLY like to see is a ninja-converter that lets you use ANY SNES 
joystick as a keyboard emulator (so I could buy one of the awesome $100 
arcade-quality SNES joysticks and use it with my PC), and which converts any 
IBM analog stick into a serial mouse (with transparent switching between the 
mouse and joystick... like maybe reporting the movement of whichever device 
last had a button pressed) so analog sticks could be used with games without 
killing performance as well.  In the case of analog sticks, it would basically 
serve to off-load the charge/monitoring activity from the CPU and just report 
the actual value. Since most games support using the mouse anyway, it would 
work with most programs out of the box.  Gravis???  Are you working on this???