Patch to allow for accelerometer input as directional control

Mark_A_Smith · June 21, 2006, 8:25pm

Hi,

I have posted to my website a patch to SDL which allows the accelerometer
in ThinkPads to be used as directional input.
It’s pretty fun for games which rely almost exclusively on directional
input as their interface, such as Neverball or Tux Racer.

The web page describing the modification can be found at:

http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/people/marksmith/sdl.html

-Mark A. Smith

slouken · June 21, 2006, 8:33pm

Hi,

I have posted to my website a patch to SDL which allows the accelerometer
in ThinkPads to be used as directional input.
It’s pretty fun for games which rely almost exclusively on directional
input as their interface, such as Neverball or Tux Racer.

Neat! I’ll have to try it out.

-Sam Lantinga, Senior Software Engineer, Blizzard Entertainment

Jeremy_L_Moles · June 21, 2006, 8:31pm

Hi,

I have posted to my website a patch to SDL which allows the accelerometer
in ThinkPads to be used as directional input.
It’s pretty fun for games which rely almost exclusively on directional
input as their interface, such as Neverball or Tux Racer.

The web page describing the modification can be found at:

http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/people/marksmith/sdl.html

-Mark A. Smith

Haha, that is so awesome. We have some T60’s and X60’s here in the
office, so I might take a look at that… my boss would love to see it,
at any rate. :)On Wed, 2006-06-21 at 13:25 -0700, Mark A Smith wrote:

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

Mikael_Eriksson · June 21, 2006, 11:34pm

Hi,

I have posted to my website a patch to SDL which allows the accelerometer
in ThinkPads to be used as directional input.
It’s pretty fun for games which rely almost exclusively on directional
input as their interface, such as Neverball or Tux Racer.

When i load the hdaps module on my Thinkpad X41 in Ubuntu Dapper. It
registers itself as a joystick and i can use it in Neverball. Haven’t
tried Tux racer. Is this any different than your patch?

The web page describing the modification can be found at:

http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/people/marksmith/sdl.html

-Mark A. Smith
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Mark_A_Smith · June 21, 2006, 11:54pm

I heard that there was a joystick driver written for the accelerometer in
Linux. I’m glad to know it’s working so well.
My patch is not a joystick driver. It is a direct modification to SDL which
talks directly to the accelerometer (in Linux),
and to sensor.dll (in Windows). If the joystick driver works for you in
Linux, that’s probably best. Of course, that won’t
work for Windows users. I wonder if there are games that don’t accept
joystick input, but do accept directional input
from a keyboard? If so, this patch will allow the accelerometer input to be
used for that input. The patch is simply
provided as a toy to play with. If you’re a Windows user, it’s all you’ve
got.

-Mark

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Hi,

I have posted to my website a patch to SDL which allows the accelerometer
in ThinkPads to be used as directional input.
It’s pretty fun for games which rely almost exclusively on directional
input as their interface, such as Neverball or Tux Racer.

When i load the hdaps module on my Thinkpad X41 in Ubuntu Dapper. It
registers itself as a joystick and i can use it in Neverball. Haven’t
tried Tux racer. Is this any different than your patch?On Wed, Jun 21, 2006 at 01:25:54PM -0700, Mark A Smith wrote:

The web page describing the modification can be found at:

http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/people/marksmith/sdl.html

-Mark A. Smith

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl

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A Smith
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Bill_Kendrick · June 22, 2006, 7:44am

I obviously don’t know much about Windows, but what’s stopping someone
from writing an accelerometer-driven joystick driver for Windows, like
there is for Linux…?

-bill!On Wed, Jun 21, 2006 at 07:54:53PM -0400, Mark A Smith wrote:

The patch is simply provided as a toy to play with. If you’re a
Windows user, it’s all you’ve got.

Mark_A_Smith · June 22, 2006, 8:20pm

Hi Bill,

Nothing is preventing someone from writing a joystick driver for Windows,
or OS X, or any other operating system since the accelerometer protocol is
known. This was just a faster way to make this toy available for people to
play with. Also, the linux part of the patch should work with very minor or
no modification for most other operating systems since it talks directly to
the accelerometer.

-Mark

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| To: “A list for developers using the SDL library. (includes SDL-announce)” |
| cc: |
| Subject: Re: [SDL] patch to allow for accelerometer input as directional control |
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The patch is simply provided as a toy to play with. If you’re a
Windows user, it’s all you’ve got.

I obviously don’t know much about Windows, but what’s stopping someone
from writing an accelerometer-driven joystick driver for Windows, like
there is for Linux…?

-bill!On Wed, Jun 21, 2006 at 07:54:53PM -0400, Mark A Smith wrote:

SDL mailing list
SDL at libsdl.org
http://www.libsdl.org/mailman/listinfo/sdl