@andros5000 said in Spinner and Trackball Suggestions:

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I have this https://dreamauthentics.com/product/tornado-spinner/ for my arcade machine. It works great with Tempest. I do not have a Trackball but I was looking at this https://www.ultimarc.com/trackballs-and-spinners/ as a possible solution.

@petrockblog that would be great if I were the original purchaser but unfortunately it came with the nes project so I guess I'm shit out of luck.

I mean, I'm not sure how it makes any real difference, the PowerBlock is the same age as it would have been otherwise but I do understand, it's what retailers do.

The original guy actually never got it working either, sadly I think it is may be a why he cancelled the project and sold it to me. Oh well, I shall find another solution.

@djmoss I am so glad that things are working for you now. Happy Holidays!

I had tried all 3 methods on my pi 3. I used the manual cmake steps, I had tried the wget install.sh method, and I had also tried the GUI option in the retroarch "optional package" menu. I ran into no errors during any method, but nothing worked. Nothing was responsive in jstest. When performing the GUI option pi 2.5, it worked. (I didn't try other 2 methods on the pi 2.5 as my first attempt worked).

I think its my pi. I bought it a few years ago and this was my first time trying to use the GPIO headers. I downloaded a pigpiod GPIO test script and it identified some of my pins as bad. I think I'll grab a pi 4.0 in the near future.

I made a video going over my gamepad design if anyone is curious.

Ok with the new recent version of amiberry it is possible to toggle the autofire on one button but it is still not possible to play the game with this because 3 types of buttons are needed:

Firebutton 1
Firebutton 1 toggle autofire
Firebutton 2

Is it possible to configure this to the gamepad buttons to 3 e.g. A, B, X? I can't find anything to setup a key for autofire.

Thank you for your help.

RetroPie is v4.7.1 Released November 4, 2020.
PI3 B+, SDXD-16GB ,
2x Logitech F710 Gamepads
keyboard + mouse are also connected

@vabchgent The orders are usually shipped within five working days. Shipping to the US then can vary between two and six weeks as I was reported from other customers. I keep my fingers crossed that your order arrives as soon as possible!

@sincion What controller type have you connected?
Do you have other peripherals connected to the RPi?

Hi!
Yes, in general, that is possible. I know from several customers that they did exactly that.

Can you show an image of your hardware setup?
Instead of using a switch you could try and only short-circuit the switch pins on the PowerBlock with, e.g., a jumper. That should turn in the Pi.
Does that change anything?

@tsarevfs Hi, unfortunately, the PowerBlock does not provide this capability because it does not loop through the data lines of the USB connector.

I am so glad to hear that :-)

I did a similar project not too long a go. E.g. built RetroPie into Atari 2600 case. Anyways - yes, key presses that ControlBlock sends when using MAME layout are hardcoded into it's driver:

URL: https://github.com/petrockblog/ControlBlockService2/blob/master/src/controlblock/gamepads/MAMEGamepad.cpp#L41-L141

To change e.g. switch 'z' to send something else than z, say a, you would modify lines below and replace KEY_Z with KEY_A. And recompile and re-install the driver (instructions here https://github.com/petrockblog/ControlBlockService2).

URL: https://github.com/petrockblog/ControlBlockService2/blob/master/src/controlblock/gamepads/MAMEGamepad.cpp#L68-L70 to

Available KEY_* events (that you could replace KEY_Z above) are found from here: https://github.com/petrockblog/ControlBlockService2/blob/master/src/controlblock/uinput/UInputEventCodes.h

I hope this helps you forward. I did a slight re-write for the driver myself as I wanted all the Atari 2600 switches to provide their original functionality. Which isn't straightforward since official ControlBlock driver doesn't support switch where both on and off indicate certain state (e.g. on -> colorTV, off B&W). I suppose I could clean up my code a bit and put it up to github sometime.

ugh!! i must have moved it while reformatting my sd card! this was the problem. thanks for the help!

Sorry for this late reply.
I am glad to hear that things are working now for you!

Hi, sorry for this delayed reply.

I can confirm that the GPIO terminal pins as well as the USB ports do not serve power when the Pi is shut down with the PowerBlockling. I just tested it (again) with a Pi 4.

Hope that helps!

Sorry for this delayed reply.
Thanks for the images! Just to confirm, the PowerBlock needs to have the USB micro connected to the PowerBlock PCB.
To rule out any software configuration issue, you could try and load this RetroPie 4.6 image that already comes with a readily installed PowerBlock driver: https://www.petrockblock.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/retropie-4.6-rpi2_rpi3-powerblock.img_.gz

In addition, I would suggest to remove any USB device except a keyboard to be sure not to get any interference from an USB device. The overall goal I have in mind with these actions is to find a stable status with a working PowerBlock.

Can you give me an impression until which point the boot sequence comes?

Thanks for the kudos!

I found the way, Thanks!! Now on my way to install Pc Super cd rom

Hi! I am sorry to hear that! We tested the PowerBlock with quite a few extension boards and that should not happen at all.
Please contact me via email or webform (https://www.petrockblock.com/contact/) so that we can arrange a replacement.