After many years...

[sold]

I pre-ordered a Pandora back before they were even close to being manufactured and after many delays I unfortunately had to cancel my preorder. I bought an ICP1 and was never really as pleased with it as I thought I would be (but I had a lot of fun with it regardless). From the GP32x days till now, the technology sector has drastically changed and fragmented because of the evolution of mobile devices, smart phones and the Android operating system which have allowed hardware manufacturers and software developers to reach a much broader market.

My question to ED (who I  thought was always a cool guy since the old boards) is have you considered producing a HID compliant game controller that would have a similar layout to say, an xbox 360 controller, good quality buttons/sticks/d-pad/shoulder buttons and could properly accommodate smart phones from smaller to large and perhaps even small tablets? Something that would work across different OS's and deliver on a promise that many have made and none have fulfilled. I have a rough design for a device that would have a telescopic cradle mechanism using components similar to the telescopic antennaes used in remote controlled model cars/planes/etc. adapted to be able to clamp a device of any length by securing it from the top of the controller and across the top of the width of the device in landscape mode. It could potentially mount some devices in portrait mode also. The phone mount would be fully retractable which would make it comfortable to  use as a normal bluetooth gamepad for PC's when closed as well (in theory )

Would you ever consider making such a device or being involved in a project of this nature in some capacity?

I thought I would ask because imho such a device would complement the Pyra in the sense that it would reach a different section of the market that you are aiming for. Thanks for any reply and good luck with the Pyra

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, I've got enough to do with the Pyra (and will also need all of the money for it), so I never planned to do something like this.

I'm also not really interested in it, as I never use a smartphone for gaming, and both the Pandora and Pyra have gaming buttons built-in.

However, if you need help with the build process or just someone organizing the electronics production, I would be willing to help as good as possible.

 

[Wally]

I think ED has enough nightmares about another HID controller project

 

[klapse]

So. "Your" idea is to redo the ICP1?

Maybe I am missing something. What makes this idea unique?

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

Maybe this is a little off topic but the Ouya Controller is a HID controller.  I use it for the pandora a lot as well as with my Tegra Note 7.

 

[benoitb]

The iCP 1 in HID mode does not comply with standard: the DPAD directions are mapped as buttons. So if you are using software like emulators where you can remap as you please, it is fine. But for games supporting a HID gamepad usually it's not really useful. And on my unit the nubs behave really badly.

It's an ok device (if you don't use the nubs and only use emulators which is my use-case) but there is plenty of room for improvement.

 

[sold]

Thanks for the reply ED. At the moment, it's still on the drawing board. I've noticed a lack of good smartphone gamepads so it's an idea I've been contemplating for a while. I realise you are gonna have your hands full and I appreciate that you may be willing to assist us at all  

It isn't meant to be a ripoff iControlpad (I still have mine btw). It is meant to be a good bluetooth controller for PC gaming, in a similar form factor as say an xbox 360 controller, that can also be used with a variety of smartphones. The mechanism I am picturing would be telescopic and open quite far. But as I've mentioned, it is still just a concept at the moment.

Forgive the lateness of my reply

 

[klapse]

I didn't know the ICP1 didnt follow the standards for HID devices (strange).  This does seem like a good idea. Now we just need to clone ED to build it

 

[benoitb]

I didn't know the ICP1 didnt follow the standards for HID devices (strange).  This does seem like a good idea. Now we just need to clone ED to build it

I think the explanation from MWeston was that we had a choice of either keeping all the emulation modes currently available: iCade, SPP, keyboard, mouse, HID and whatever and so the HID would be the way it is now (sub-par). Or if we wanted real a real HID profile we would have had to remove some over modes.

To me that would have been the best as I care only about HID now that Android and all support this. But he didn't share that view and I don't have the knowledge to change things myself.

 

[Granitehead]

I didn't know the ICP1 didnt follow the standards for HID devices (strange).  This does seem like a good idea. Now we just need to clone ED to build it

I think the explanation from MWeston was that we had a choice of either keeping all the emulation modes currently available: iCade, SPP, keyboard, mouse, HID and whatever and so the HID would be the way it is now (sub-par). Or if we wanted real a real HID profile we would have had to remove some over modes.
To me that would have been the best as I care only about HID now that Android and all support this. But he didn't share that view and I don't have the knowledge to change things myself.

But it's just software, isn't it? Software which is free? I wonder why noone published a newer version of that software for people to flash on their iCPs.