We want to replace an old Myriad workstation (with on-board gameport) with a new model with no gameport.  Would adding a USB joystick adapter allow us to reuse the existing joystick port remote start wiring?

Thanks

Simon Bradley

Simon,

the not very helpful answer is "it should work" we tend not to deal too much with the joystick port methodology for remote starts anymore - exactly for the reason you stated - getting on board joystick ports are VERY rare.

For the last 5 years most of the remote starts have either been on Advantech PCI1750 hardware cards (or similar) or their USB interface with 16 inputs and outputs.

If it's only a couple of quid it might be worth a go to try it, as long as it presents into Windows (TM) as the standard joystick device we should have no problems.

regards

DB

Regards

David Boulton
Brand Manager
Broadcast Radio Ltd

David

Thanks for that - given the hassle involved in any alternative I might just give it a go (and if it doesn't work, I can take it home and play games!)

Cheers

Simon

Good news, i've just been doing some testing of using Joystick interfaces on Myriad v3.5.9 and they do work correctly so you should be fine.

As long as the joystick appears in the "Windows Control Panel">"Game Controllers" (previously known as Joysticks I think) and tests ok then Myriad should be able to see and use it.

In v3.5.9 you can only use the first 4 buttons of a joystick, but we've just added some extra handling that will be included in the next release that can handle a lot more buttons as well as the 4 direction 'Point Of View' pad that some controllers have.

To test it out, you would think we would use some very high-tech testing harness with all sorts of bells and whistles.

In fact we used a wired Guitar Hero X-Plorer for an Xbox 360 and plugged it into a Windows XP box - amazingly it worked straight away!

Because the "Strum Bar" works by pretending to be  POV button, so rather tragically we all then took turns firing 'You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet' in a true smashie and nicey Guitar style

------------
Peter Jarrett, Technical Director
Broadcast Radio Ltd.

Bill Bailey: No win, no fee, no basis in reality. Just a room above a minicab office in Acton and a steady stream of greedy simpletons whose delusion is only matched by their clumsiness

Just for future reference, we have installed remote starts in our Studio 2 using a USB Game Controller (we had no space for a sound card with a game port on and didn't want to buy another Hardware Card at this stage).

http://cablestar.co.uk/products/usbgame-usb-to-15-pin-female-joystick-game-port-adapter-cable.html

Happy to say that it works a treat through an Alice Air 2000 Mixer. We had to put a few resistors in to the connector to trick Windows into thinking it was a joystick, but all is well. All for a tenner, can't be bad!

Adam

Adam,



What value resistors did / do you use and across what pins - this is the same adaptor we used in our old system - if you can give me any information that would be grate.



Cheers

Ben

Ben P
Presenter, Techie, Geek

You will almost certainly find this useful! 

http://www.blitzfamily.eclipse.co.uk/paulblitz.co.uk/tech_tips/techtip/art13.htm

I used 10k resistors, cos I had loads of them.

Cheers

Simon