[Tfug] Spaceballs

[Rich]

On May 11, 2007, at 2:35 pm, Bexley Hall wrote:

> I have no idea what -- if *any* -- Open/Free software
> applications would support these.  In my experience,
> most "high end" tools are just not available there  :<
Found OSS drivers for these once a couple of years back. (Something  
like this: http://www.gelato.unsw.edu.au/lxr/source/drivers/input/ 
joystick/spaceball.c)  They're DB-9 connectors, right? Linuxes might  
have drivers included, but I had a Mac talking through a Philips  
chipset USB-to-DB9 thingy (at least I did after I hacked *that*  
driver to work properly). There was nothing free & OSS that used the  
spaceball then, but maybe Blender could be convinced to cooperate..?  
(The answer seems to be yes and no: http://google.com/search?q=blender 
+spaceball)

> They require a bit of practice to become proficient but are almost  
> invaluable thereafter!
Most people who try them discover their lack of left-hand  
coordination, and try to hide their embarrassment with "this is  
crap". It's like a musical instrument -- gotta practice or you'll be  
stuck on "Smoke on the Water" forever.

I was always disappointed those spaceball-influenced game controller  
things for RTS games never really took off, and nobody released  
plugins for XSI, Maya, Blender, MotionBuilder, and so on. That  
would've been great, rather than fumbling around a keyboard.  
Reconfiguring one of those to fit *all* your 3D apps would've been  
great. I suppose all the great plugin authors are busy writing yet  
another shader to make flesh look less like plastic without any  
effort or skill whatsoever from the artist... but I digrrrress.

> A steal at $10  :>
Yep...

R.