FreeLists / haiku-development / [haiku-development] Re: Some questions

[Gabriele Biffi <mlist@xxxxxxxxx>]

Fredrik Modéen wrote:
> The Gameport "driver". Don't know what to call it as it's not a plain
> driver but uses extention also for getting the game device information.
> This is how R5 gets USB games devices today and also SB-Live GamePort
> devices.
>
> The Gameport "driver" sends the information that a game devices are
> generating to BJoystick and this part are not type (type as GamePort, USB)
> dependent.
>
> I do think that wee need the "driver" but with some modification, like not
> publishing devices you don't have as it does today.
Actually there's no way to tell if a joystick is connected to a 
gameport, unless some proprietary extensions I don't know of. Also, the 
port support 4 axis and 4 buttons, so it is possible to have 2 joysticks 
 with 2 axis and 2 buttons each with an Y-splitter cable; but it 
doesn't work with all the ports and all the joysticks. Over the years, 
makers such as Microsoft and Logitech used the game port in _very_ 
creative ways...
An ideal design for a game port driver would be to just publish the 
ports and just report the raw readings, then let the user create the 
joystick device by let him choosing which port it is connected to. This 
approach allows for different uses, back at school we used it in some 
electronics projects.

Regards,

Gabriele