building a programmable Pad?

[Snoooootch]

Yes, Mr. Rufus. I know how to solder, and to use a millimeter. I have the tools to do so, also.

[Rufus]

Sorry, somehow missed this earlier.

Yes, Mr. Rufus. I know how to solder, and to use a millimeter. I have the tools to do so, also.

Ok, the physical construction part of building the stick should be straightforward for you then.

Do you have any experience with Arduinos or another microcontroller platform? Do you have any programming experience at all?

Do you care if you need the programmable pad to be attached to a computer while it's doing its thing?

[Snoooootch]

I have none, other than what little recognition I developed through using dreamweaver.

I am definitely willing to learn, though. What do I need? I have soldering tools and a ps3.

[Snoooootch]

I have none, other than what little recognition I developed through using dreamweaver.

I am definitely willing to learn, though. What do I need? I have soldering tools and a ps3, and of course, my PC. My technology abilities are above average, if that helps.

[Rufus]

In terms of parts, you'd need:
A 5-volt arduino - this one seems like a decent choice:
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11098
A USB cable and USB capable computer for programming and interfacing that will work with the arduino.
Hookup Wire
Soldering supplies
A common ground digital controller as the base of the pstick/ppad.
Some stuff to mount the arduino inside the stick.

You would solder a line from each of the buttons, and each of the directions to one of the IO pins on the arduino, and mount the arduino inside the stick. (There's plenty of room in there.) Then, in order to use the pstick capability, you'd have to connect the USB cable from your computer to the Arduino. The Arduino can electronically drive the buttons. The stick will still work as a regular arcade stick.

There's a fully working Arduino pstick program on this thread: http://combovid.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=502 . The user interface isn't the greatest right now - I think Wolverine Master had some trouble getting it to work properly - but I can probably improve that.

For what it's worth, I'm not sure how much easier programmable sticks will make things.
Frame rates on modern systems aren't consistent or constant, so there's some tuning required if you want to get things 'just so' for longer combos with 1-frame timing.
...

Let me look into GIMX. It may be a superior alternative. Let me do some reading.

[Snoooootch]

Sweet! So far, that doesn't sound difficult. I have a TE I can use for this. I'll purchase this stuff on Friday for sure. I have most of the tools I need, from the looks of it. If this works well, I'll need to find a way to get 2 working for me.

[Rufus]

Hold off a little, there may be a better way:
http://gimx.fr/wiki/index.php?title=GE

This should allow your computer to plug straight into the PS3, and has its own macro stuff.

[Snoooootch]

wow, that sounds great!
... What am I looking at?

[Snoooootch]

Googled it. Got to this

[Rufus]

Googled it. Got to this

http://blog.gimx.fr/

is probably a better place to start looking.
It's for doing stuff with Keyboard/Mouse from the computer, but macro capability is there. If it works it might be much easier than what I did.
I'm going to see about getting it working as a project for handicapped gamers.

[Rufus]

Ok, I'm running down the parts to test the GIMX thing myself. Regardless, you have a choice - either try with the GIMX thing which will be a device that plugs from your computer into the console, or you can do the sort of stick mod that I did in the other thread with a microcontroller.

[Snoooootch]

Is it working for you so far? The GIMX?

[noodalls]

From my limited time playing with GIMX, I seem to remember that it didn't really seem set up to run at 60fps. This may have changed since then.

[Rufus]

Is it working for you so far? The GIMX?

Still waiting on parts.

[Rufus]

Got the parts. Then real life happened.