More cool hardware to play with.

[Toonces]

In case you like Blinky Lights (who doesn't?), there's a new product being produced by GroovyGameGear.com. It's a USB interface for LEDs. Up to 32 strings of LEDs can be powered and controlled from a USB device. This is the same company that makes the GPWiz49 interface that switches Williams/Midway 49 way joysticks into 2/4/8 ways automatically based on the game being played. GameEx has built in support for the GPWiz49 and based on that support, the possibility exists to have it control LEDs as well! I just ordered one of the new LEDWiz interfaces and plan on switching out my buttons for some translucent Happ buttons soon. With the new LED interface I hope to be able to not only indicate joystick mode via LED's embedded in the control panel but also light active buttons!

The software for the LEDWiz is still very much in development but as time goes on it can only get better. The maintainer of controls.ini is already talking about creating an app to control the LEDs based on controls.ini and possibly merging it into his new app that switches the joystick modes for the GPWiz49. I think GameEx has everything already needed to support the LEDWiz out of the box as it already parses controls.ini and passes a mode statement to a batch file or program in the run before and run after config boxes.

Here's the link to the LEDWiz for those that are interested. LEDWiz

and a link to a short video of a bunch of LEDs under control of the device. LEDWiz in Action

There are soooo many possibilities for this thing. I think it's pretty exciting. It doesn't have to control LEDs, it could be a relay that it controls and then the relay can switch anything on or off under computer control. The possibilites are endless!

Anyways, I want to say, sorry if this sounds like an ad for the above company. It is not. I use their GPWiz49 interface and am extremely happy with it and just ordered the LEDWiz as it seems like a lot of fun to see what I can do to my cab with it. I am already planning on lighting the translucent buttons I have with RGB LED's so I can change the colors of the buttons and light only buttons that are used by a particular game.

Anyone else with any ideas on what could be done??

Toonces

[WTB]

I've been watching this thing too. I purchased translucent buttons just for this occasion! I'm really excited about this thing and I also really hope to see a release of gl.tter's Light Signal Engine (Over at BYOAC). I think it is such an awesome idea! To have just the buttons you need light up! I've also thought about maybe doing something funky with a multicolored marquee, or eventually using the cheat system to highlight in-game events. (One example offered is when the ghosts in pacman turn blue, a bunch of LED's would flash!) Oh, oh! Or maybe attach a relay, and then in a baseball game a red, revolving police light would go off for every home run. I'm gonna start saving and maybe start playing with this stuff in a few months.

I think in the next year or so, we'll see a bunch of really innovative ideas for custom light setups. I can't wait!

-Matt

[Toonces]

The controller was delivered today. I am going to start playing around with gl.tter's code and seeing what I can break!...I wonder if his code would work if integrated into GameEx. It's just a generic light processing engine after all and GameEx would certainly be capable of setting light modes based on game type. Of course, game events wouldn't react to that. hmmm, just thinking what I can do now.....

Toonces