RARusk

Thanks. I did a little bit of work on the joypad case tonight (trimming off excess glue from where I installed the plug holder). I would have done more but I acquired "Red vs. Blue" (Season Three) after work and, well.....

"How are you powering the optical encoder?" The +5VDC from the joypad interface. I have been masking around the laminate in preparation for the paintjob. I hope to get that started soon.

I am most of the way finished with the main unit. I am about halfway done with the interface and most of the way done with it's stand. The cable will probably be the last thing done. I will post more pictures as I progress.

In this picture you can see the bottom of the encoder and main board. I cut away the encoder area from the Logitech unit with a Dremel and glued it, along with the necessary screw posts for the main board, into the main unit with plastic welder, an excellent adhesive that behaves like plastic when it hardens.

In the next picture you can see the underneath of the top half. This is where the firebuttons are attached. You can clearly see where I had cut out the original plastic. I was fortunate to find the microswitches where the back contact is bent at a 90 degree angle. Any microswitch that had the back contact sticking straight out wouldn't allow me to fit it in the case.

As some you may know from this topic, I managed to get the rotory optical encoder from the Logitech Wingman Warrior joystick to work with "Tempest 2000". However, the hard part was to construct something that would allow me to fully use this encoder with the game. There are four parts to this project. The main unit (the encoder and firebuttons), the interface (a hacked joypad), a stand for the interface, and the cable that will connect the main unit to the interface. I am now far enough in the construction phase to allow for a sneak peek. In the picture below you can see the main unit itself. The case was a Capcom Fighter Joystick for the SNES. The red and black mottled stuff you see is arcade laminate. I had some leftover from another project and used most of the remaining laminate on this one. You can see the encoder knob on the left and the three arcade firebuttons on the right. I started by cutting away the joystick and button supports. Then I glued on .060 thickness plastic and cut out holes for the new stuff. Then I layered on the laminate after that. I still need to do a paintjob along the sides and middle.

These are the three MODs I got: Cannonfo.MOD D2ktitle.MOD Tempest.MOD I still would like to find a program on OSX for MOD conversion because I got a bunch of others on an old machine I would like to listen to again.

Anybody here that knows of a program that can convert MODs into MP3s for Mac OSX?

I don't have "Mission: Impossible" but I'll bet that it is a lot better than "Daikatana" which I do have.....

Excellent! Glad it's all working out. Honestly, get youself a Dremel set. Once you get one you'll wonder how you got along without it.

I have been a FAQ writer for the past four years and my personal opinion is that, because of the anarchaic nature of the internet, you're not going to have much control of where your FAQ goes after you initially post it regardless of what site(s) you prefer. So instead of the doing the "list of what sites can host my FAQ" routine (although I had initially thought that those who did that were being overly defensive - this topic has cleared that up for me) I just state that if you want to host it to ask me first. If you understand and respect your audience then that respect will come back to you. I have never turned down anybody who has asked and I can get a feel of where my work has gone from those who do ask me. I try to present myself as professionally as possible within my work but add a little humor and insight along the way. But I also want to be seen as a nice and helpful person which is why my distribution policy is the way it is. GameFAQs is where I first went to get help on "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" when it came out and it is here where I was inspired to do my own work. It is the first site to get my latest updates and, thanks to this topic, I may add something to the beginning of my indicating that GFAQs is where my latest work can be found first. I post on some of the message boards from time to time but usually when I have something useful to add or something fun to share. I agree that they need to cut down on the message boards. I find it incredible that they have a board for every single game on the site including imports I have never heard of. If you're wondering, this is the list of work I have done (as taken from the beginning of one of my guides): Strategy Guides *************** --"Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories" (PS2) --"Grand Theft Auto III" --"Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" --"Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" --"Stubbs The Zombie" --"The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay" One of the earlier versions of my TCoR: EFBB guide can be found in the book "GameFAQs Presents.....The Ultimate Xbox Strategy Guide" published by Future Network USA. FAQs **** --Differences Between The Three Versions Of "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" for PlayStation 2 --"Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" Suggested Music List FAQ (for Xbox and PC versions) --"Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" Hidden Text FAQ --"Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" Hidden Text FAQ I haven't done any updates in awhile. I am currently building an arcade style rotory controller for "Tempest 2000" (Atari Jaguar). When I am done with that I will probably do some updating to my guides (hopefully in about a month).

Considering the tools at hand that is a very professional job. As for me, I have quite a few tools. But the main one is my wonderful Dremel set which has helped in many of my hacking projects. I have just started putting the arcade laminate on my rotory project. I still need to cut out the paddle section out of my Logitech Wingman unit and put it into the new case. I had a feeling you yanked your encoder from the other unit. I knida feel a little guilty whenever I destroy another controller so I can make a homebrew unit (like the Capcom Fighter Stick I am using for the rotory controller case). I still need to work on the Jag joypad and the stand it goes on. *sigh* A lot of work still to do. BTW, how's your unit handling?

"I'm glad you like the size of the encoder I used." Until now I always envisioned these encoders to be these large potientiometers. Whenever I saw pictures of Tyrant's homebrew controllers I always wondered how he managed to fit one of those inside the controller. Now I know. By the way, did you buy another encoder to use in your project or did you yank it from the Chaos Reins rotory controller?

Impressive. I didn't realize they made rotary assemblies that small. As for myself, I am currently doing my own rotary controller project using the Logitech Wingman Warrior optical paddle. I am going to graft the assembly into what used to be a Capcom six-button fighter stick for the Super Nintendo. The three main buttons are going to be arcade fire buttons and the unit will be connected to a Jaguar joypad that will serve as the interface for the rotary controller (but can still be used as a regular joypad in a pinch). I will also be using some leftover arcade laminate from another controller project for the top of the rotary controller. I still have a ways to go before I am finished but I hope to have it done within the next three weeks. I will post pictures of the unit when I am done.

There is a large capacitor on the motherboard (1 Farad) that will keep the time for a few hours before completely discharging. I've heard that if you replace it with a large capacitance aerogel capacitor (the largest one I think) you can maintain the time, when off grid, for about a week. However, these large aerogel capacitors will run you about $30 minimum.

Your game save should still be on the hard drive. If it is not then it may indicate a bad hard drive. As for resetting the clock, there is no battery inside the Xbox to maintain the time function when the unit is unplugged unlike most units (PS2, GameCube, DreamCast). I did, however, place a rechargable battery inside my Xbox which retains time for about a couple of days before dying. It's better than resetting it every time I turn the thing on.

Good points all. I stand humbly corrected. Just putting in my two cents.

Considering that these phones also do text why not bring back some of the old InfoCom games like "Zork" and "Planetfall"? At least you don't have to rely on graphical performance and maybe even create new text games,

Even though I erased two game saves from the CD unit, and the unit (plus the game save battery) is about 15 years old, it is probably best to replace the batteries in the cartridge just to be safe. If room inside the cartridge permits one can put in a plain battery holder (for a CR2032) and slap a new one in. I did this to at least two cartridges and they work fine. And there is an electronics shop here in San Antonio, MTronics, where I can get a battery with the solder posts if I don't have the room for a battery holder.

<Darth Vader> Impressive. </Darth Vader>

Yeah, I did find the built-in memory but I wouldn't mind finding a memory cartridge to use with it though. To be honest, all I really wanted was the PBC since I had a Genesis (model 2) already. But the guy wouldn't sell it by itself so I took everything. Considering I had been looking for a PBC for years I felt the $45 was a worthy investment despite the extra stuff. After all, if I just walked away I might never see one again in the wild.

Finally got the Sega CD to work. Interesting thing though. The power requirement for the CD unit is 9V 1.2 A. Well, the Atari Jaguar Power Adapter is 9V 1.2A and had the exact plug needed to fit the CD unit! So I managed to power it up but it kept opening and closing the drive door all by itself. I reopened it (I opened it up last night to clean it out) and found that the mechanism to clamp onto the CD wouldn't close properly so I fixed it and now it runs properly. Now all I need is a CD game and a memory cartridge.....

Thanks for the answer. I noticed on your webpage that you have a schmatic to connect a digital mouse to the Jag. Will a digital mouse work with "Cannon Fodder" or is this strictly homebrew?

According to the Jag FAQ the Pro Controller has an additional five buttons that correspond to the keypad. I just want to verify if the following is correct: X=Keypad 7 Y=Keypad 8 Z=Keypad 9 L=Keypad 4 R=Keypad 6 The reason for asking this is for my joypad interface covered in another topic. Thanks in advance.

98% of the time I go to a flea market and/or thrift store I don't find anything of any value to me. But it's that 2% when I do find something that makes me go back to the flea markets and thrift stores. Today was one of those 2% days. And a damn good one at that. I went to one of the flea markets here in San Antonio (near Fredricksburg Rd.). I encountered a seller that had a Sega Genesis 1 unit complete with a Power Base Converter (I had been looking for one of these for years) and a Sega CD (model 1) as a bonus. I paid $45, however, the unit also came with everything on the table that had the word "Sega" on it. My additional haul is as follows: Controllers --Genesis Arcade Power Stick (x1) --Standard 3-Button Genesis Joypad (x5) --6-Button Genesis Joypad (x1) --Sega Master System Joypad (x1) --Sega Master System Light Phaser (x1) Games --Rescue Mission (SMS) --Shinobi (SMS) --Double Dragon (SMS) --Aztec Adventure (SMS) --Great Football (SMS) --Madden '92 (Genesis) --Madden '94 (Genesis) --Joe Montana II Sports Talk Football (Genesis) --Forgotten Worlds (Genesis) --Altered Beast (Genesis) I should also note that none of the games came with instruction manuals and there was no power adapters for the unit. But I managed to get the Genesis and PBC to work with the adapters I already had (I'll need to find an adapter for the Sega CD unit later). Not bad otherwise. I'll also need to open everything up and clean them out of dirt and other stuff later. Oh yeah, a picture of the Genesis unit, PBC, and Sega CD attachment is included below.