running a basic stamp off of a joystick and a computer

[core2extremist2]

i have a sg6 crustcrawler robotic arm with a basic stamp and a bord of educaton.

i am trying to get comand streems from the joystick into the comp and into degrese of a servo and out to the basic stamp.

im using a logitech wingman strikeforce 3d joystick

this is a usb joystick and the comand stream that comes from the joystick into the computer is unknone
so i would like to be able to decode that using a java program.
i have heard of direct x librarys for eclipse

[bear24rw]

I made a program a few years ago in visual basic that allowed you to use a joystick as a mouse..

I used
http://allapi.mentalis.org/apilist/joyGetPos.shtml

and then you can just send the position or whatever out the serial port to be read by the basic stamp

[core2extremist2]

this doesnt help much because a mouse doesnt have as many butons as i need and this is a usb joystick

[core2extremist2]

what i need to know about the joystick is these 2 things:

1. What data does the controller send back to the computer?
2. What format is that data in?

[bear24rw]

Originally Posted by core2extremist2

this doesnt help much because a mouse doesnt have as many butons as i need and this is a usb joystick

Um.. you can use any of the joystick buttons i just mapped a couple to mouse buttons.. and i was using a usb joystick

[core2extremist2]

ok i have the files what am i suposed to do with them??

i dont have visual basic

i have elcipse

[bear24rw]

Well they just provide examples of using the dll's. I dont know how easy it would be to port to c++ or java or whatever you are using but I just posted it as an example. btw, the code can be viewed by viewing the .vb file in notepad

[Greg Marra]

GlovePIE is an application that maps input from (unusual) devices onto whatever else you want it to be mapped to. You can use Wiimotes to map to mice commands, joysticks to map to typing things, whatever. If it causes input, GlovePIE can intercept it and fake output as something else.

Combine this with a program called PPJoy, which allows you to create "ghost" or "software" joysticks that Windows think are real, and you can map whatever you want to a "plain old analog" joystick.

So, intrepid reader, you can now read a Wiimote into a computer and trick the computer into thinking it is whatever you want. Couple this with a bit of software, maybe a custom circuit or maybe just your serial port, and an FRC Controller, and what could you cook up?

A hundred thirty pound robot driven by a Wiimote.

This is on my to-do list for winter break.

----

PS, that whole wiimote thing is a tangent. Use GlovePIE and you can map the input joystick however you want.

[core2extremist2]

oh wow this is just what i need thanks