The ultimate orb solution, at last.

SpaceOrb drivers and software discussions
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vputz
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Re: The ultimate orb solution, at last.

Postby vputz » May 03 2009, 18:53 PM

Scuba:


[quote]I don't have the knowledge to make what you guys are making here but am curious if you are at the stage of taking orders for this adapter and how much it would be.[/quote]

Sure you could! No, seriously--I would bet you would have no trouble building the interface board even if you've never soldered something in your life, if you start from the premade board ([url]http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/orbshield-p-280.html[/url]) and follow the directions on the site ([url]http://orbduino.sourceforge.net/[/url]).



I don't sell the boards directly (and make no profit off them--I had Seeed Studio do the prototype and they have a few extra). Cost is $6.50 for the board, plus a handful of parts you can probably get from Radio Shack (about $20?), and you need an Arduino microcontroller board (about $30?). So unfortunately you are looking at about $60 to bring the old orb back to life, with arguably more features than ever before, but it's not a trivial amount of money (the good news is it works with the desk-mounted Spaceball devices, which are turning out to be even better gaming devices than the orb, in my opinion).



But seriously, if you are nervous about building one, it's dead easy. I've built a few for people in the past, but unless I buy all five of the remaining boards at Seeed, stuff/build them, and sell them with a labor overhead, it's just a bit too much trouble (although it would force me to fix the minor design flaws and order a new set, I guess).



I'm almost done with the next "revision" of the software (just updating with the fixes Ron and I have hammered out) and when that's done and the Magellan is added I may try and get a bit more publicity and see if more folks are interested--at the moment there are five of these adaptors in existence (heh) so numbers are still very small.

TurtleMan
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Re: The ultimate orb solution, at last.

Postby TurtleMan » May 19 2009, 15:35 PM

[quote="Scubadan"]...I have been loathed to throw it out for all these years as it cost me an arm and a leg...[/quote]

Ha, I remember paying $99.99 for my first SpaceOrb, back when it was a new product. Way expensive back then. But when they were discontinued, I got three of them for $9.99 apiece. I guess things evened out in the end...



t-man

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countryatheart
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Re: The ultimate orb solution, at last.

Postby countryatheart » May 20 2009, 20:58 PM

[quote="vputz"]I'm almost done with the next "revision" of the software (just updating with the fixes Ron and I have hammered out) and when that's done and the Magellan is added I may try and get a bit more publicity and see if more folks are interested--at the moment there are five of these adaptors in existence (heh) so numbers are still very small.[/quote]
Hey Victor,

Sorry I haven’t been active here for awhile, I’ve been very busy with family and work. I wanted to let you know that I am very excited that you’re almost done with your next software revision and all your Orbshields are sold at Seeeds! When you are ready to test your software I am here help when I can.
Last edited by countryatheart on May 22 2009, 11:09 AM, edited 1 time in total.

Agent_13
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Re: The ultimate orb solution, at last.

Postby Agent_13 » May 21 2009, 22:37 PM

I have not been here for a few months, and I just found this. I'm completely blown away! I would be very interested in purchasing at least 2 of these from you when they are finished. I even have a few new Orbs if you would like to do a trade. Thank you Victor for keeping this device alive.

vputz
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Re: The ultimate orb solution, at last.

Postby vputz » May 23 2009, 16:57 PM

[quote]all your Orbshields are sold at Seeeds![/quote]

Well I'll be darned, they are! Maybe it's time to do that revision then (just moving a few components so it sits easier; same basic design). Wow, that's cool. So there are 10 shields out there in the wild now (grin). Thanks for letting me know!


[quote]very excited that you’re almost done with your next software revision[/quote]

Heh... um, see, work happened. Been a couple delays! But I may be able to work on it tomorrow (finally) and get the spacemouse working (which hopefully will mean the 5k as well). I'm not sure on the spacemouse... I don't like the button placement, but it has a solid feel to it. I did play through most of Fable with the 4k and it worked very well actually (a couple issues with keys getting "stuck" that I couldn't pin down).



Glad this seems to be working for folks!

vputz
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Re: The ultimate orb solution, at last.

Postby vputz » May 24 2009, 11:29 AM

Got some time to hack today--and have some good news and some bad news.



Good news: The Magellan SpaceMouse is understood! I have it working with the Q4 sketch and it seems to be translating buttons and axes into keyboard and mouse movements. This is good news, as it *may* enable us to use the Spaceball 5k devices (and the Magellans are interesting by themselves too).



The bad news: Joystick reports are somehow magically broken.



Man, it's driving me nuts; I can't figure out what's doing. Take the Q4 sketch: if I enable joystick reports, the whole thing goes offline. It's nuts--I can't for the life of me see what's different that's doing this. So I'm not updating the software and site just yet until this is sorted. What a confusing mess--thought I was done with that sort of nonsense!

vputz
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Re: The ultimate orb solution, at last.

Postby vputz » May 24 2009, 17:59 PM

Well, after playing Q4 with the Magellan, I'm torn on it. It has a larger dead zone than the 4k--for movement rather than turning. So that's interesting. Fewer buttons (9 buttons and two "click buttons" on either side which just seem to duplicate two of the other buttons. But it "feels" pretty good and movement is limited by hard stops, so it may be a bit more durable. Unfortunately, right now maxing out the Y axis seems to roll over and I get weird response, so there's some work to be done. At least the interpretation seems to work.



No idea what's going on with the joystick updates. Actually I do have an idea, but it's a bit goofy and has to do with how HID updates work. I've found an updated version of the USB library I'm using which should alleviate some problems, at least, so I'll give that a go tomorrow if I have time--and then this little coding vacation may be over and we'll be back in delays. Sigh.

vputz
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Re: The ultimate orb solution, at last.

Postby vputz » June 10 2009, 6:31 AM

No news yet, I'm afraid--I posted on some V-USB forums about the problem with joystick reports but haven't gotten any good answers--and work has gotten silly busy. I just wanted to post to bump this above the flood of spam we seem to be having.

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countryatheart
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Re: The ultimate orb solution, at last.

Postby countryatheart » June 10 2009, 21:40 PM

Thanks for the news Victor, sorry you’re having trouble with joystick reports. I wish I could help but I really don’t know how. Yea, the spam here is out of control and I am very surprised Jay hasn’t done something about it!! If this spam continues you might think about a messageboard on your site when you have the time...just a though and not a request. Later my friend.

vputz
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Re: The ultimate orb solution, at last.

Postby vputz » July 14 2009, 16:51 PM

Uff!



Not that it'll change much for the few people using it, but I think I fixed the joystick reports (by splitting up the report into two). I need to run some more tests to make sure everything's fairly stable and try getting it working with the new version of Arduino, and I don't want to sound optimistic, but I may actually get this release out. Sorry for the massive delays! Had some extra time last night, and hopefully will have time Sunday to update documentation and package everything.

vputz
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Re: The ultimate orb solution, at last.

Postby vputz » July 22 2009, 9:06 AM

Well, for better or worse, Orbduino 1.0 has been released! Check the download page at [url=http://orbduino.sourceforge.net]http://orbduino.sourceforge.net[/url].



I made several modifications but none are too great. The demo sketches should be illustrative; you don't need nearly as much setup or boilerplate code to get something working. I tested with the SpaceOrb, SpaceBall4000, and my Magellan SpaceMouse (should work as the SpaceBall 5k), with Arduino release 0016.



And with that, since it's getting more stable, I'm starting a new thread for bugs relating to that release. At some point soon, I'll throw together a quick youtube video and try to get a bit more interest in the device and library.



Same thing as usual--unzip the library .zip file into your arduino hardware/libraries directory, and the sketches .zip file into your arduino sketches subdirectory.



OLD SKETCHES PROBABLY WILL NOT WORK, so use a bit of caution.



Enjoy and report problems in the new thread!



Vic

Whodda
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Re: The ultimate orb solution, at last.

Postby Whodda » September 08 2009, 21:38 PM

Been gone from here forever......nice surprise upon my return. I've been busy playing in the sandbox for some time. Excellent work and progress since my last visit. Any idea when more boards are going to be available? I would like to try one of these out.



Damn fine job Victor!!!



Tim :mrgreen:

vputz
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Re: The ultimate orb solution, at last.

Postby vputz » September 09 2009, 7:50 AM

Tim--



You can always build your own still! Actually I have been very busy, but Seeed studios (the folks who made the boards) have offered a kit service, so I may make a "publicity video" of sorts, post to eg the Make magazine blog and/or Arduino sites, and make a bunch of kits for sale. Since this isn't exactly a for-profit venture, it may take a bit of time, but I think it's worthwhile--and if people could see how relatively easy and useful it is, we may get some interest.



The board+orb works pretty well still. I have been using it recently for RTS and FPS games (Dawn of War II, Quake IV, a few others). I've run across a periodic quirk where it's not recognized, but that could be just my board getting bashed around a bit.

Agent_13
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Re: The ultimate orb solution, at last.

Postby Agent_13 » September 27 2009, 16:46 PM

Hi,

I'm just curious about the current state of this. I would love to throw one together, and give it a try. I noticed that the boards are out of stock. Will they make another run of them? Do you have any spares that I could purchase from you?



Thanks for all of your hard work on this.



Jeff

vputz
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Re: The ultimate orb solution, at last.

Postby vputz » September 28 2009, 3:53 AM

Hmm... no, they haven't restocked, but now I feel bad as I've had a few people ask, and presumably they don't want to etch their own boards either (I don't blame them). So I'm going to get another run of boards done, maybe 10-20 kits (I'm also going to try and get some more publicity and interest). Give me a couple weeks and let's see what happens; I'll post here and on the Orbduino site.


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