Oh, no worries... it's perfectly understandable. I know how school can be... but be prepared to be reminded from time to time. ^_^

I'm working on Kupid now.

I think I'm just going to worry about the signal timings/accuracy issues later. I'm really tired of it, so I'm just going to start
programming the cursor movement algorithm.

Live broadcast right now - click on link in my sig to see the live view of Kupid in action.

I have successfully hooked a keyboard up to RPG Maker 1 and typed out a paragraph!

You can see the saved vid through the link below in my sig (the title of the vid is "Major Progress!").

There are a few problems with button misses still, but it's working better than I hoped, if a bit slow. Nevertheless, I am optimistic that the Kupid project will reach completion (though it remains to be seen how functional it will be; it may not be possible for me to overcome these button misses).

I am still working on it, and streaming LIVE. Not the most exciting stuff to watch, probably, but it's there if you want to see it in progress.

As I reach milestones, I will continue to post updates.

I was there through most of the progress yesterday, and I'm rather impressed how far you got in just one sitting. And it seemed like the speed got going to a pretty decent pace (around the speed of texting on a phone with a qwerty keyboard).

Though the missing singal still happens quite often... which kind of takes down the total wpm a good bit as you'd then have to backspace the letter it did put in and stike the key again in hopes that it'll get the letter you want. But when it gets on a streak... it's really impressive watching the cursor haul ass.

The problem happens mostly when the Kupid is moving the cursor a long distance. The problem may be that the PS1 MCU has an anti-bounce algorithm (bounce is when letting up on a button causes an unintended second signal to be sent, so usually MCUs have anti-bounce capability to prevent unwanted button presses). So a long string of rapid button presses could be interpreted as the result of button-bounce, which the PS1 MCU would then filter out.

A possible solution to this may be to put a short pause in the middle of a long button press sequence. It may solve at least part of the problem of missed presses. Of course, the short pause would be much shorter than the time it would take to delete the wrongly typed letter, move the cursor back into the right position, and type out the right letter again.

I think by adding an extra conditional in the cursor movement section of the program, that checks the absolute value of the move-counter, and places maybe a 50 millisecond pause in a long sequence of button presses, that could help.

I'll try it out when I get the chance to work on Kupid again.

... And yet somehow I think i actually understood all of that. *anime-style teardrop above head*

Well, good luck, Thutmose. I was just reflecting on how it took me nearly three hours just to type out a few notebook pages' worth of dialogue on RPGMaker 1 the old-fashioned way last night, so you'll definitely win my admiration should you ultimately figure all of this out. ^_^

Thanks.


I'm working on Kupid again right now. Streaming live. Link in sig to watch.

I'm done working on Kupid for tonight.

I made a lot of good progress today. I managed to fix most of the missed button-press issues. Now typing is faster than ever.

There is a new vid recorded on my ustream account - just click on the link in my sig to see the latest vid.

From our conversation, it doesn't look like getting that missed key every now and then will ever be completely fixed. But that's something I'm more than willing to sacrifice for overall speed and not having to ever touch a D-pad to type. As long as you are paying attention, you'll notice when it types out a D instead of a C or whatever... and just backspace and fix it.

I worked on Kupid a bit more today. I'm satisfied with the speed & accuracy right now, so today I focused on doing the research needed for me to build the final prototype unit.

With the PICAXE, I will be able to use the Capslock key on the keyboard to control capital letters. I'll also be able to use the function keys (F1, F2, F3, etc.) to perform special functions (like setting F1 to be a special override function that lets you correct a missed button press). And I may be able to differentiate the num-pad number keys from the other number keys, so I can assign those keys to symbols (like heart * smiley face) and also assign functions to other num-pad keys.

In order to type the shifted-characters that appear above the number strip, I'll have to set a special toggle button since holding down shift and pressing the number key won't work (i.e. you can't just hold down shift and press the "1/!" key to type in a "!"). The special toggle key will still be either shift key, you just won't hold it down to type in these characters, but will instead use it like a toggle button (with the state of the toggle indicated by one of the three lights on the keyboard).

I'm still working out all the details, so the above isn't final yet.

Once I get everything soldered together, I'll start working on the program for the PICAXE. Since the PICAXE uses a different language & syntax than the BS2, I'll have to re-write the ~300 line program from scratch (that's 13 pages of text, single spaced, with a 12 pt. font). I'll be adding other features to the program, so it will probably turn out to be a bit longer than just 300 lines.

REQUEST: Since it looks like I will have a number of special function keys that I can use, I want to know what kind of special functions you might like to see assigned to these keys.

For example: Assign one key that triggers an input allowing you to enter a word into Kupid's memory, and another that types in that previously entered word for you automatically when you press it.

Also - any ideas or suggestions for features you would like to see, let me know ASAP.

Once I start writing that code, I'm going to be less able to easily add stuff later on. So let me know now.

While a great oppertunity, I really can't bring myself to be picky about bonus features. I just want to type. Also, I don't really have anything come to mind at the moment.

You know, just typing is mind-blowing enough as it is. Why don't you wait to make Kupid Turbo?

Copy and paste would be nice, since doing so with the rpgm1 command is a bit of a hassle since you have to count how many spaces the word or phrase will use.

lol, it's pretty much faster just re-typing in whatever it is you wanted than to use RM1's copy/paste funtion.

I dunno, I can recount a few times where I wanted to copy and paste a huge chunk of text, and had difficulty doing it.

Well, the Kupid copy/paste function wouldn't be able to handle a whole bunch of text in big blocks.

Depending on memory constraints, I was thinking of making it such that you could store up to 10 words/character-strings independently of one another.

i.e. Pressing F1 then 0 would let you enter a string of characters into Kupid's memory in Block #0, then pressing F2 then 0 would paste in that string. To store data in block #5 you'd just type F1->5, and to paste it you'd type F2->5. You could store up to 10 strings (in ten different blocks), and paste them in at any time.

I'll have to see how much RAM would be available to the program, and test it out, before I can be sure what the specifics of this feature would be.

I just want to know now if there is anything anybody wants. it would be a lot easier to include it in my design now than to add it in later.

Pressing F1 then 0? Would the phrase be between the two, or after? And what happens if 0 is actually part of what you want to copy?

F1 would tell Kupid that you want to copy something into a memory block, the number (0 through 9) that you press after that tells Kupid which block to copy the word into (maybe press F3 or some other key to tell it that you're done entering text). The same thing with paste - pressing F2 tells Kupid that you want to paste something, and the number you press after that tells it which block to paste from.

I spent several hours today designing & making the final circuit for Kupid. I haven't connected the PS1 Controller, yet. But I tested everything out as best I could. I hit a major stumbling block, though - I don't have a PS\2 keyboard. >_< Well, I'll find one ASAP.

Below is a picture of the circuit, in which I have labeled all the parts so you can see what it takes to make Kupid possible. I basically need to cram all that into a PS1 controller. It's going to be a challenge; but that's something to worry about after I finish the circuit (I need to test everything together, it's possible that I've made a mistake or two), then programming the PICAXE MCU, and then finally testing the software & hardware.

[This is a big picture with labels]
http://rpgmakerxp.us/assets/Proto_bread_diagram.jpg

Here is a smaller one without the labels:

Out of all that, I think the only bit of it I understood was... the awesome tweezers.