Gift and project for Neo Geo hardware hacker types

[Nightmare Tony]

Cool, is the prototype still out there ? as an official unproduced neo geo accessory would be worth a small fortune.

It was still at SNK when I left when SNK moved up north. I didnt keep it. I kept the circuit stuff from the ticket dispenser prototype, though. That got torn apart into other projects.

[Tarma]

It's as if you are speaking directly to kenny.

lol, I was thinking the same thing as soon as I read that!

Except, of course, that Kenny's would have l.e.d.'s and be called a "princess wheel" and therefore could never be confused with SNK's proto

OT - although not for me, it's a great piece of info to release - thanks Tony!

[NeoTurfMasta]

thank you Nightmare Tony

time to convert a ps2 or ps3 wheel for the aes

I'd say all home console wheels dont use optical encoders, but regular analog pots. So this circuit wont work on those kind of wheels.

[NeoTurfMasta]

Is it any of these?

http://na.suzohapp.com/driving/50283700.htm

This is the only optical one they have. Quite expensive. However, hacking something like this is possible. I have some happ trackwheel stuff laying around that is basically the same thing. Once I get the parts in, I'll see how inexpensive we can get a wheel working.

Personally, my goal is to get one of these working on it. http://www.ultimarc.com/SpinTrak.html.

EDIT:

Please correct me if I'm wrong Tony. You arent hacking anything on the actual optical encoder are you, but pulling from the LR outputs of the encoder right?

[IDCHAPPY]

Very interesting Tony and great stuff

[FalcomAdol]

I am very interested in this, if someone can put together a complete parts list to build one of these in a box with a Neo controller input, I'd be in hog heaven.

[NeoTurfMasta]

Thinking of some wheels that might work:

Pole Position games
Off Road

Think of any game that you could spin the wheel and it would keep spinning. Those are what you need to look for. You can get those cheap on ebay, but no idea if the encoders are working or not. So something similar to the link I posted earlier could replace the old encoder.

[distropia]

Awesome, dude.

Now my dream is a bit nearer, a true driving game on the neo "ala outrun" with a steering wheel.

[Razoola]

very nice Tony!

[DanAdamKOF]

No, all digital, it uses the 90 degree offset type optical encoder. So a Centipede or Tempest control can be used on it. The upper flip flop tells direction and the lower one shot times the pulses to a solid signal so there is a kind of control where if you turn slowly, it turns more slowly.

The encoder I have in mind is like this: Incremental rotary encoder
Just so we're on the same page.
By "analog" I mean you don't at any point use a microcontroller, CPU etc. Just logic.

[ratson]

This is such a neat thing that I've put a noticed at the top of the forum and deleted the two Kiwi references (because he doesn't deserve any attention here). Expect more people reading about it.

Thank god you did, I would probably have missed it if you hadn't.

[Nightmare Tony]

The encoder I have in mind is like this: Incremental rotary encoder
Just so we're on the same page.
By "analog" I mean you don't at any point use a microcontroller, CPU etc. Just logic.

that is exactly the type, quadrature encoding system. Arkanoid, Pole Position, Top Speed use them.

NTM: there is no modification to the steering wheel assembly. The two photocell outputs simply go to the board inputs.

As an aside, granted the first licensing, a kewl member on here will be making and hopefully selling the boards. Plug and play fun.

[DanAdamKOF]

I'm gonna have to look into how the flip-flop determines output pulse length, my digital logic skills are not very high so it's voodoo to me how you count pulses from the sensors in one direction and output that to left/right for a length of time depending on how long you're spinning for. Gonna have to get out a logic simulator and some notebook paper at some point.

This actually has implications for another project I've fiddled with off and on, I was thinking of using a microcontroller to decode quadrature encoder sensor outputs to button presses (variable length or not) but that's such a hackish and overkill solution..

edit: Misunderstood I think, so you don't send a single pulse of a length, but a bunch of small ones for a period of time? Makes a little more sense to me. Flipflops are still voodoo to me, so they're simultaneously a memory of the last sensor state and a state table to determine direction based on the next state? We did one lab with them in digital logic but it was way simpler than that.

[Nightmare Tony]

I'm gonna have to look into how the flip-flop determines output pulse length, my digital logic skills are not very high so it's voodoo to me how you count pulses from the sensors in one direction and output that to left/right for a length of time depending on how long you're spinning for. Gonna have to get out a logic simulator and some notebook paper at some point.

This actually has implications for another project I've fiddled with off and on, I was thinking of using a microcontroller to decode quadrature encoder sensor outputs to button presses (variable length or not) but that's such a hackish and overkill solution...

the flip flop only steers for left and right. The one shot 74LS123 is what enables the actual joystick press through the AND gates. With too fast a time, it would make the control stutters so the 12K and 1K was the change to make it work out nicely.

and if you can use it to have into something different with ideas form it, please do. You got my respect on here for many years and am pleased to return the favor.

[DanAdamKOF]

the flip flop only steers for left and right. The one shot 74LS123 is what enables the actual joystick press through the AND gates. With too fast a time, it would make the control stutters so the 12K and 1K was the change to make it work out nicely.

and if you can use it to have into something different with ideas form it, please do. You got my respect on here for many years and am pleased to return the favor.

Edited my above post a bit but thanks for the info

FYI the project is adapting a PS2 beatmania IIDXcontroller to USB, it's a music game which has a turntable. The turntable uses a quatrature encoder, and some chip in the controller takes the sensor output and determines direction from it, then outputs left or right to the PS2. Unfortunately that chip that does that is also the main "talk to PS2" chip under a glop-top. So if I were to interface it to USB I would need to do the quadrature sensors -> direction handling on my own.

There's homebrew beatmania IIDX recrations on PC and the old "beatmania" (non-IIDX) series is emulated well in MAME, but using a PS2->USB converter introduces lag, I would rather natively interface it to USB by wiring the controller's buttons and turntable to a USB gamepad.

[Nightmare Tony]

Edited my above post a bit but thanks for the info

FYI the project is adapting a PS2 beatmania IIDXcontroller to USB, it's a music game which has a turntable. The turntable uses a quatrature encoder, and some chip in the controller takes the sensor output and determines direction from it, then outputs left or right to the PS2. Unfortunately that chip that does that is also the main "talk to PS2" chip under a glop-top. So if I were to interface it to USB I would need to do the quadrature sensors -> direction handling on my own.

There's homebrew beatmania IIDX recrations on PC and the old "beatmania" (non-IIDX) series is emulated well in MAME, but using a PS2->USB converter introduces lag, I would rather natively interface it to USB by wiring the controller's buttons and turntable to a USB gamepad.

One thing you will want to do. If the wheel on mine turns too slow, it comes out as a series of pulses to the output. You will want to fiddle around with the one shot time delay for something far faster perhaps.

[DanAdamKOF]

One thing you will want to do. If the wheel on mine turns too slow, it comes out as a series of pulses to the output. You will want to fiddle around with the one shot time delay for something far faster perhaps.

I'm not an EE but I was thinking a large capacitor to keep the output high for a while, while it waits for the next pulse. Just an idea after one minute of thinking.

It doesn't look like I could shove the circuit as-is into my idea and have it work exactly like I want, it'd take tweaking, but the groundwork is laid out.

[Nightmare Tony]

I'm not an EE but I was thinking a large capacitor to keep the output high for a while, while it waits for the next pulse. Just an idea after one minute of thinking.

It doesn't look like I could shove the circuit as-is into my idea and have it work exactly like I want, it'd take tweaking, but the groundwork is laid out.

Run with it and have fun. That be the important thing with it all

[Fortune]

This is really awesome! Thanks, Tony. Nice to see it got stickied at the top.

[massimiliano]

awesome Tony! Thanks for sharing

I clearly remember a neo drift out cab back in the time, here in Italy, using one of those steering wheels (spinning endlessy in both directions)... it was fun and stylish...

[werejag]

anyone have pics of the cab?

[Nightmare Tony]

anyone have pics of the cab?

I think I still have one I need to scan along with a bunch of other pix taken round SNK....

[NeoTheranthrope]

Fucking awesome thread!

[Mattroid]

This is absolutely made of win. Thanks, Tony!

[Renmauzo]

As I said in chat Tony, this is really cool! I really want to try the wheel out with Neo DriftOut; it would seriously never come out of the cab