DescentBB

Updated 4/28/10

I failed to include shipping charges of parts
to me. So it is actually $31 and change. The
easiest and safest way for me to ship is priorty
mail w/ delivery confirmation at a total of $5.60
So $37 total delivered to you (assuming USA).
If you want one you can send a check or use paypal.

Pic of actual device below.





*************************************
I have been beating the bushes trying to get old friends and players to come back.
Seems they all need a converter to get their joystick working.
Anyway, I did a simple board layout to get a sort of
Dongle device.
The parts will be here next week.

I am happy to just break even. So that is $30.08 + whatever the cost of shipping to you.
I am guessing that is maybe $5 by mail and $10 or $15 by UPS or something.

These are not fancy. I did them as a dongle to make them easy and as cheap as possible.
You could of course get a little project box if you wanted and cut a hole and mount the DB15 connector.

Pictures below (it's a mock up - but that is what it will look like)

The picture shows a 6ft USB cable, they will in fact have a 3ft cable.

Let me know if you need one or more.

Put me down for one. I've built several of the other converters but I like the small profile and the fact that this one is one piece. Let me know how to pay.

Got mine in the mail today, great work, very cool Thanks !

oh dear, completely missed this thread. Would you still have one that I could order?
many thanks!

Hey Pandora,

Yes I have some left.
I sent you a private message with the info.
If you have any trouble with the PM, let me know.

Got mine last night. Works like a charm. Wow, haven't used a 3d pro since like 2000 or something when I broke my last one. Now I have to get used to the button placement as I've been using either the Sidewinder Pro 2's or the Logitech with the buttons on top.

Thanks again Sickone.

I'll be ordering one soon.

PM sent, Sickone. Thanks!

foil - answered your PM..

I got mine today and it works like a charm. I'm trying to figure out how to get it to work on Kubuntu Linux properly. It's probably something I'm glazing over...

wow Jake - That I would have no idea on.
From what I understand Grendel basically reverse engineered the Microslop digital interface. I have no
idea if there is any dependency the MS OS.

There's no MS dependency (at least, AFAIK). The stick should show up as a general HID with control axes and buttons. Not sure how joysticks work in Kubuntu, though.

Foil wrote:There's no MS dependency (at least, AFAIK). The stick should show up as a general HID with control axes and buttons. Not sure how joysticks work in Kubuntu, though.

x2

BTW, got my adapter today. Works like a charm.

Many thanks to Grendel and Sickone for the design, board, and assembly.

I am happy to help. Grendel deserves the applause.
I imagine it was a good bit of work to develop the device.

These still being made?

Strife,

I still have a few left.
If you want one Private Message me
for instructions on how to pay, etc.

Take care

So you build these? Sounds cool! I'd like to order one of these Grendel USB to Game Port adapters, if you've heard that it works with a "MicroSoft SideWinder Force FeedBack Pro". Thanks, Jim

[quote="Sickone"]Strife,

I still have a few left.
If you want one Private Message me
for instructions on how to pay, etc.

Take care[/quote]

Cheers Sickone, my converter arrived intact and works perfectly on my laptop. Thanks a lot! Great little device!

Does anyone know if there is a way for me to copy over calibration settings over from one PC to another? I've been playing Descent on the same undercalibrated weird settings for 2 years now and I fly best with it, and it's nearly impossible to reproduce the same settings on my new PC, meaning I fly like Stevie Wonder. Any ideas? I doubt it, but worth a shot!

hey ya

are you sure you just haven't
missed setting the joystick deadzones ?
I alot of guys set those to 0 (no deadzone)
Also in Descent itself you can set the senstivity
from the default 1.00 all the way to 4.00

Nah man, I'm talking about the calibration settings in Windows, not in game. Besides, I don't really play D3, D1 and D2 over Kali are my domain . I was just wondering if there was a way to copy over the windows settings.

The calibration data is stored in the windows registry somewhere, but exporting / importing it may require extensive edits since the location it is stored may not be the same device id on different Windows installs.

I'd love one of these if you have any left, Sickone. I've been meaning to build a v2 but haven't gotten around to it for months.
Torrent of questions:

Is the Teensy soldered to a PCB under that heatshrink, or is it in a socket? They're handy little microcontroller platforms and being able to whip it out and have it doing some other jobs for me when I'm not playing descent would be a huge bonus.

I'm in the UK, is sending it over here (marked as a gift, of course) going to increase the postage price a lot? If so, would you be willing to send it to a relative of mine who lives in the US and would then send it on to me?

Hey ya Trukkle,

don't know if I ever responded... I don't see it anyway. Sorry - I have been preoccipied, I am actually in a Hostpital right now- should be home tomorrow - Friday at the latest.

- I do still have some adpters
- Mailing costs the same - the difference is I can't get delivery confirmation. (International that add's like $18 ). So what I have done with orders to the UK or Germany, etc. Is I get shiping confirmation - so there is proof I shipped it. Then the price comes in the same, just as long as the mail system doesn't screw up. I have sent I think 7 or 8 out of country with out any problem.

- The Teeensy Board is soldered to the board. So you could solder other wires to it if you wanted to by slicing open the heat shrink.

The money can be paypal'd to me


If being able to remove the Teensy is important, I might be able to de solder and socketize one - i will have to look when I am home this weekend.

I am also moving this to a private message, so we can carry on the conversation.

What is your paypal I'd like to get a converter for my precision pro. I take it, it works for both 3D and precision pro?

PsiStorm wrote:I take it, it works for both 3D and precision pro?

Yes.

Got my converter from Sickone today, shipping to Germany took about a week, the thing works perfectly!
Thanks a lot

Glad to hear it. A week isn't bad for US to Germany.
I am glad it works perfectly. I haven't had any defective units. Each unit was tested three(3) separate times during build/program/test and packaging. I tried to make sure no one got a DOA unit.

Still have a few left if anyone is in need.

Take carte

<Max voice> Oooh! OOOH! PICK ME! PICK ME!!

Woo! They arrived!! \\o/

Very nifty!

I have discovered one issue with the software tho' - It works just fine in WinXP, 2k and Gentoo Linux, but in Win98 it is going a bit weird.

As far as I can tell, the problem is this:
The stick produces raw values from -512 to 512, but Windows '98 doesn't seem to support negative numbers and caps the interpreted values at 0,0 until the axis in question goes past the half-way mark, at which point it outputs sane values again right up to 65535,65535 (Bottom Right).

Would it be possible to modify the Teensy code so it outputs from, say, 0 to 1024 instead of -512 to 512?


There is a note about it in the Microsoft Archives here - Specifically in \"Device Usage and Usage Page -> Logical and Physical Ranges\"

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/hidgame.mspx

Cyker wrote:I have discovered one issue with the software tho' - It works just fine in WinXP, 2k and Gentoo Linux, but in Win98 it is going a bit weird.

As far as I can tell, the problem is this:
The stick produces raw values from -512 to 512, but Windows '98 doesn't seem to support negative numbers and caps the interpreted values at 0,0 until the axis in question goes past the half-way mark, at which point it outputs sane values again right up to 65535,65535 (Bottom Right).

Would it be possible to modify the Teensy code so it outputs from, say, 0 to 1024 instead of -512 to 512?

Yes, but that would violate the USB HID 1.11 specs

Cyker wrote:There is a note about it in the Microsoft Archives here - Specifically in "Device Usage and Usage Page -> Logical and Physical Ranges"

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/hidgame.mspx

Seems that the HID parser in 98 isn't very flexible:

Device Class Definition for Human Interface Devices (HID) Version 1.11 wrote:- While Logical Minimum and Logical Maximum (extents) bound the values returned by a device, Physical Minimum and Physical Maximum give meaning to those bounds by allowing the report value to be offset and scaled. For example, a thermometer might have logical extents of 0 and 999 but physical extents of 32 and 212 degrees. [..] When linearly parsing a report descriptor, the global state values of Unit Exponent, Physical Minimum and Physical Maximum are considered to be in an “UNDEFINED” state until they are declared.

- If both the Logical Minimum and Logical Maximum extents are defined as positive values (0 or greater) then the report field can be assumed to be an unsigned value. Otherwise, all integer values are signed values represented in 2’s complement format.

- Until Physical Minimum and Physical Maximum are declared in a report descriptor they are assumed by the HID parser to be equal to Logical Minimum and Logical Maximum, respectively.

At one time the code actually had physical min/max tags in the report descriptor, I took them out to save space. If you PM me your email address I can send you an image w/ the tags put back in, that should fix that issue:

HID Game Controllers and DirectInput wrote:Logical ranges, of course, can indeed be negative. It is recommended that the device translate its logical range by the minimum value, thereby making all physical values non-negative. For example, a joystick might report its X-axis with the logical range -512 to +511. A corresponding physical range of 0 to +1023 would retain full resolution while ensuring that the resulting physical values are non-negative.

Just re-flashed the Teensy and... it works!!

Woo!

Thanks Grendel!

In fact, thanks to Sickone and KoolBear (Wherever he's gone! ) too; You three totally rock!

\\o\\ \\o/ /o/

If you have any left I'll buy two!

Got mine and they work GREAT -- tested on Windows 7 64bit with Rebirth and XL! Thank you!

I just got a used sidewinder 3D Pro stick at the thrift store
for $.89 cents ..

But windows 7 64 bit won't find it.
It works with windows XP hooked up into a game port located on th back of a sound card.. But it has NO USB support..
Is that what that adapter is for posted here..

( Rebirth ) for Descent2 download anywhere .. ??
Links )

I want to try to run descent2 on a windows 7 64 bit box. The disc won't install.. I herd there was a way to extract the rebirth files and uzip them into the descent2 dir. Is this a way to install it.. Any links How ?
Thanks MK ..

You extract the files you need from the descent2.sow using 7zip. That's how I did it anyway.

MK-Defender wrote:But windows 7 64 bit won't find it.
It works with windows XP hooked up into a game port located on th back of a sound card..

W7 does not support game ports.

MK-Defender wrote:But it has NO USB support..
Is that what that adapter is for posted here..

Yes it is.

MK...

You need to install D2 first, then put the rebirth files into that directoy. Then you run the rebirth version.

Rebirth by itself won't play, you must install D2 first.

I really had no problem doing that from a CD

I got it running .. copied the files.. it works.

Thanks guys . I'll have to play around with the sound files and networking . opening router ports..

Joy stick works too No more joyfix

I had several poeple ask for units when I had two left.
Both ndicated they'd get back to me right away. A number of days went by, I even messaged them. No response. That is all fine.

Another user wanted one bad, and since the other two didn't respond I sold one to him.

Bottom line.... I have `1 unit left and that is it!
So if anyone wants it it, it is 1st come 1st served... who ever gets mey the money first.

so if you want one,. now is the the time/last chance.