INSTALLATION
The picture below shows wiring of the maximum number of pots, ie 4
pots. It also shows an example 4 switches. Note that not all four pot
positions need to be used for pots. You can connect buttons instead to
any input. The direction of the pot control depends on the wiring of
the two outer connections on the pot. If the pot works "backwards",
then swap these over. Note Mame can also be configured to reverse
analog control directions.
The "Start1" input changes the selected buttons to the shifted
set, buttons 13-28 in Windows.This behaves in exactly the same way as
the I-PAC shift button. All the other inputs are ordinary buttons.
ALTERNATIVE CONFIGURATION WITH A STANDARD DIGITAL
JOYSTICK
If you are not using analog controls, but using a regular micro-switch
joystick, simply connect the 4 joystick switches to UP, DOWN, LEFT and
RIGHT in the same way as the I-PAC boards.
The button assignment is shown
below, which is a screen capture from Control Panel, Game Devices in Windows.
Open Control Panel, Game Devices. You will see two A-PAC Gamepad devices shown.
Select each one and check for correct operation. The top one in the list is the
player 1 side, the lower one is player 2. This capture below shows the display
for
ONE SIDE of the board , ie one gamepad device.
The button display for the other device is identical.
The above controls
are duplicated for the Player 2 side of the
board
Calibration
If you are using controls which don't
cover the entire range of travel of the pot, you will need to calibrate the
control. All you need to do is click on "Control
Panel", "Game Controllers", and then highlight the upper or lower entry for "A-PAC
Interface", and follow the instructions. This will ensure that a full movement
of the control device corresponds to a full movement in the game.
"Trick" Calibration.
You might want to calibrate so that an
analog control produces full movement in the game over a small movement of the
control. You can easily do this. During the calibration process, when it asks
you to move the control to the limits of movement, if you only move it to, for
example 50% of the travel, this will be logged as the full-travel position, so
you will get a full game movement over 50% of the actual control motion.
Other Settings
MAME has a setting for "Joystick
Dead Zone". This is useful when you are using an analog control in a digital
game, as you can tweak the "travel" of the control, ie how far you have to move
it before it registers as an emulated switch press.
Using with MAME
To use this device with MAME,
all you need to do is enable joystick support in MAME.INI. The play buttons and
joysticks are then automatically assigned in MAME because this device is seen
as two gamepads which MAME expects. You may need to assign COIN and START
buttons. If you start with a digital (switch) joystick and then re-wire to an
analog stick, there is no need to change any settings.
FAQs
