{"id":1,"date":"2008-08-17T12:44:07","date_gmt":"2008-08-17T02:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/x37v.com\/x37v\/?p=1"},"modified":"2014-07-28T13:42:10","modified_gmt":"2014-07-28T03:42:10","slug":"mad-catz-gametrak-mod-for-maxmsp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/x37v.com\/x37v\/writing\/mad-catz-gametrak-mod-for-maxmsp\/","title":{"rendered":"Mad Catz Gametrak Mod for Max\/MSP"},"content":{"rendered":"

So it seems that the Gametrak controller that is designed for use with the PS2 doesn’t want to work with\u00a0Max<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A number of people have tried removing the board inside the unit, replacing it with a\u00a0Bitwacker<\/a>\u00a0or Arduino, but after looking at the board in the Gametrak, I found that there is an interesting ‘feature’ built into the existing boards.<\/p>\n

This easter egg is probably designed so that one unit can be manufactured to be used across a variety of hardware platforms, from PS2 to PC to Xbox.<\/p>\n

Here’s what I did to get it working:<\/p>\n

\"Open<\/a>Open the case by removing the screws marked (I pierced the ‘feet’ with the screwdriver so that I didn’t have to re-stick them later).<\/p>\n

\"Remove<\/a>Remove the board by unscrewing the screws marked.<\/p>\n

\"Flip<\/a>Flip it over to reveal the underside.<\/p>\n

\"Rotate<\/a>Rotate the entire Gametrak, so that the board is oriented like this.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>This is the cool bit. \u00a0Notice the PC label above?
\n(There’s also an Xbox label to the right).<\/p>\n

I shorted this connection with a knife while it was plugged in to Max, and a burst of numbers came out of the ‘hi’ object. \u00a0To make this connection permanent*,\u00a0I put a bit of solder to make a bridge between the two contact points, and now it outputs 12-bit integers on six discrete axes (left hand x, y & z; and right hand x, y, z). \u00a0The foot switch works too.<\/p>\n

\"Simple<\/a>Simple Max 5 interface for the Gametrak (Download<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Note: the first gen Gametrak from In2Games doesn’t seem to have this ‘feature’.<\/p>\n

* There’s a tiny layer of lacquer on these contact points that I scratched with a knife so the solder would take to the metal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So it seems that the Gametrak controller that is designed for use with the PS2 doesn’t want to work with\u00a0Max.\u00a0 A number of people have tried removing the board inside the unit, replacing it with a\u00a0Bitwacker\u00a0or Arduino, but after looking at the board in the Gametrak, I found that there is an interesting ‘feature’ built […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,9,3,10],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-hardware","tag-interfaces","tag-maxmsp","tag-sensors"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4SgL0-1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/x37v.com\/x37v\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/x37v.com\/x37v\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/x37v.com\/x37v\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/x37v.com\/x37v\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/x37v.com\/x37v\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/x37v.com\/x37v\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":438,"href":"https:\/\/x37v.com\/x37v\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/x37v.com\/x37v\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/x37v.com\/x37v\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/x37v.com\/x37v\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}