JUMP Software Installation Quick-Guide

October 1, 2001

© Daniel Benton / DreamCliff Technologies

Contents

Purpose

The Drivers

Notice

Purpose

This document is meant to make things a little easier for anyone who wants to build a JUMP interface and use it with Windows or DOS. It is not an exhaustive list of features or troubleshooting for the drivers. The best source for this info is the drivers themselves. This guide is aimed at JUMP-related issues.

The Drivers

There are several drivers currently available from the JUMP site. With the exception of JUMPSwap, these drivers were written and distributed by other people. Each driver is independent of the others. You can install DirectPad Pro, SNESKey, or SNESKey9x independantly of any of the other driver sets.

JUMPSwap(requires DirectPad Pro drivers to be installed)

DirectPad Pro drivers

SNESKey

SNESKey9x

DirectPad Pro drivers

The DirectPad Pro drivers are what JUMP was designed to use.They run with most Windows OS's which have DirectX capabilities(95/98/ME).

If you are going to be using the controllers with Windows, these will probably be the only drivers you need to install to use JUMP. To set it up, start by unzipping the drivers to a local directory on your hard drive. Then open the control panel in Windows, and go to the Gaming Options icon. Under the "Controllers" tab, click "Add...", then for type, tell it "Add Other...", then "Have Disk", and point it to the directory where you copied the DirectPad drivers onto your hard drive.

To configure the drivers, add a controller by picking clicking "Add" in the "Gaming Options" applet and select "DirectPad Pro Controller" as the type. On the "Configure" tab under the "Properties" page for that controller, select type "SNES" or "NES"(depending on which you're using) and ID "1" for the first controller. If your parallel port isn't set to the default address(0x378) then you'll need to specify that on the controller. Otherwise, leave that box and the "Leave Powered between Reads" boxes as set. Move the first gamepad around and make sure it's responding on the readouts. If it's working, great. To add the other controllers go back to the main "Gaming Options" Page and click "Add" again Select "DirectPad Pro Controller" again. And set up the properties in the same way but set the ID number to 2, 3, 4, or 5 depending on which controller you're setting up. It's not nearly as complicated as I make it sound.

And if I just confused you, the original instructions by the original author of the drivers should be included with the drivers.

JUMPSwap

This is a simple windows utility I wrote to make it simpler for people to use the DirectPad drivers with JUMP. Normally, if you are going to change from a SNES to a NES controller on your JUMP system, you have to go into the Control Panel and change the configuration for the DirectPad controllers there. This can be awkward if you want to use JUMP in a cabinet where a keyboard isn't readily accessible and a trackball makes going into all the submenus rather tedious.

JUMPSwap is based on "configurations". A configuration consists of joystick settings for up to 5 controllers as well as an optional executable to run once the drivers have been changed.

To set the configurations, just run JUMPSwap.exe. Make the necessary changes and save the configuration.

To automatically load a configuration, run "JumpSwap ConfigX" where ConfigX is the name of a configuration you would like to load. The drivers will load and if an executable is set, it will be run. There is no visible display from running it in this mode so the driver changes will be instant and transparent to the user. On the desktop you can create a shortcut to JUMPSwap that runs the ConfigX parameter when the icon is double-clicked.

SNESKey (DOS)

Please note first of all that I have not been able to get the DOS version of SNESKey to work with modified NES controllers even though the documentation for SNESKey claims it can support them. If you have better luck, great. If you have my luck, don't spend a lot of time trying to get a NES controller to work with it.

Detailed instructions on setting up the program are found in the zip file with the drivers.

The most useful thing you can do with SNESKey is test the connections of your SNES controllers. To do this, make sure SNESKey is set up with the controller type, number, and port address in the "SNESKey.ini" file located in the top directory of SNESKey. The Port is set near the top of the file. To add controller types and ID's, at the bottom of the file, add a section for each controller using it's type ("NES", or "SNES") and controller number within brackets. For example, if you wished to set up 4 SNES controllers, your SNESKey.ini file would look like this.

...

...

// what is the default repeat rate?

RepeatRate = 20

[snes1]

[snes2]

[snes3]

[snes4]

Remember, this is just a skeleton entry but it is enough to get the testing program to operate.Once you have done this, run

sneskey.exe /x

froma command line. You should either receive an error message or a display with a table for each controller you listed in the SNESKey.ini file. If you see the table, then the software is operating properly. If your controllers work, then you're totally successful. If not, then there is either something wrong with your hardware, your controller, or your configuration for SNESKey.

For details on setting up the ini file to be used with DOS programs, please read the documentation which was included with SNESKey.

SNESKey9x

This program functions in a similar way to the DOS version of SNESKey(except I can actually get this one to work with NES pads). It takes a controller input and then converts it into a character(or characters) as though it were coming from the keyboard. This allows you to use your gamepads even on games that only take keyboard input. In general, I recommend the Directpad drivers if you're just using your controllers with Windows, but this program has its uses too.

To set a controller configuration, you must make a 'ski' file which contains information about which controllers you are using and what port they are on. Default files come for most controllers(NES and SNES included). Open(or create) the .ski file that has your configuration data in it. Then click on the Execute button when you are ready to start using the drivers.

For more details about setting up a .ski file for your configuration, please refer to the SNESKey9x documentation.

Notice

This document is for educational purposes only. It is meant to offer information on how to easily configure your computer to run with the aforementioned drivers. It is not comprehensive and anyone who uses information or suggestions from this document do so at their own risk. It is the responsibility of the user to know how to properly configure your computer and drivers. Daniel Benton and DreamCliff technologies will not be held accountable for any damages which may be incurred by anyone using data from this document.

DirectPad Pro is copyrighted property of Earle F. Philhower III.

SNESKey is copyrighted property of Benji York.

These programs are subject to their own usage agreements and terms. Any other copyrights for materials which do not belong to Daniel Benton or DreamCliff Technologies belong to their distributors and owners...naturally.