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I'm looking to buy a Saitek X36 USB (the HOTAS combo stick and throttle), and can't figure out whether the one in ukgames.com is the USB version or the older gameport-only one. Hopefully someone here can enlighten me...
OK, this thread is closed. I phoned up the sales line, followed by one of the Club Shops, and found out they only had the old "gameport only" version of the X36. Guess I'll have to go elsewhere with my business...
On the plus side, this looks like a great community, and a pretty good line of computer shops. I'll keep it bookmarked. Particularly refreshing to see a relatively high signal-to-noise ratio on the boards.
See you all around...
On the plus side, this looks like a great community, and a pretty good line of computer shops. I'll keep it bookmarked. Particularly refreshing to see a relatively high signal-to-noise ratio on the boards.
See you all around...
Turbonutter wrote:
> Well, that was my original argument. Don't put it in a USB port
> unless it's absolutely necessary.
I was mostly thinking of high-bandwidth devices, particularly scanners. FireWire is a much better idea for that type of device, and has the additional benefit of easy daisy-chaining, eliminating the need for hubs. My own scanner is SCSI, but it's connected to an older Mac.
USB is a good system for low-bandwidth and commodity devices - if only the hubs weren't so bulky and expensive, and if only every corp and it's dog hadn't bastardised the spec and low-quality drivers, it's be a great system. Daisy-chaining would have been a great feature for it, though.
It's not suited to the scanners, hard drives, CD-writers, and suchlike that everyone's making for it. USB printers are the upper limit of it's capabilities, but only because the mechanisms (on inkjets) and processors (on PostScript engines) are slow enough that the old parallel-port connections were good enough.
In any case, my X36 will be on gameport on the PC and on USB on the Mac. I'd have settled for the older X36 and bought a simpler stick for the Mac, if the old X36 didn't have so many flaws.
I fully agree that special-purpose ports are still among the best ways to do things - and given that I'm studying CSE, my opinion will eventually count for something (whether or not it changes over time). What USB has helped do, however, is consolidate a standard method of accessing particular types of device through a central API - or at least it has done so on more disciplined platforms than Windows. Software discipline is regrettably difficult to achieve.
Also, I strongly suspect that the new-generation "digital" joysticks have come about largely due to the necessity of updating to USB compatibility. The protocol over the gameport on these sticks must bear some resemblance to the format used over USB, particularly as many manufacturers are/were providing simple adapters or even same-cable functionality between the two. Sometimes what the industry needs is simply a good kick up the backside...
> Well, that was my original argument. Don't put it in a USB port
> unless it's absolutely necessary.
I was mostly thinking of high-bandwidth devices, particularly scanners. FireWire is a much better idea for that type of device, and has the additional benefit of easy daisy-chaining, eliminating the need for hubs. My own scanner is SCSI, but it's connected to an older Mac.
USB is a good system for low-bandwidth and commodity devices - if only the hubs weren't so bulky and expensive, and if only every corp and it's dog hadn't bastardised the spec and low-quality drivers, it's be a great system. Daisy-chaining would have been a great feature for it, though.
It's not suited to the scanners, hard drives, CD-writers, and suchlike that everyone's making for it. USB printers are the upper limit of it's capabilities, but only because the mechanisms (on inkjets) and processors (on PostScript engines) are slow enough that the old parallel-port connections were good enough.
In any case, my X36 will be on gameport on the PC and on USB on the Mac. I'd have settled for the older X36 and bought a simpler stick for the Mac, if the old X36 didn't have so many flaws.
I fully agree that special-purpose ports are still among the best ways to do things - and given that I'm studying CSE, my opinion will eventually count for something (whether or not it changes over time). What USB has helped do, however, is consolidate a standard method of accessing particular types of device through a central API - or at least it has done so on more disciplined platforms than Windows. Software discipline is regrettably difficult to achieve.
Also, I strongly suspect that the new-generation "digital" joysticks have come about largely due to the necessity of updating to USB compatibility. The protocol over the gameport on these sticks must bear some resemblance to the format used over USB, particularly as many manufacturers are/were providing simple adapters or even same-cable functionality between the two. Sometimes what the industry needs is simply a good kick up the backside...
Well, that was my original argument. Don't put it in a USB port unless it's absolutely necessary.
Turbonutter wrote:
> Er, do you have any idea how much a USB hub costs!
More than they should... but given that a typical "for serious users/gamers" m/board comes with two built-in USB ports plus an extra pair on a backplane (mine did, anyway), and a serious user shouldn't put *every* peripheral they owned on USB, I still don't see where lack of USB ports comes in as a big problem.
Or maybe I'm just a SCSI bigot. Which reminds me, I need to finish re-installing Win95.
> Er, do you have any idea how much a USB hub costs!
More than they should... but given that a typical "for serious users/gamers" m/board comes with two built-in USB ports plus an extra pair on a backplane (mine did, anyway), and a serious user shouldn't put *every* peripheral they owned on USB, I still don't see where lack of USB ports comes in as a big problem.
Or maybe I'm just a SCSI bigot. Which reminds me, I need to finish re-installing Win95.
Er, do you have any idea how much a USB hub costs!
FWIW, here's some more info I've come up with:
The "original" X36, in front of me, has the traditional analogue adjusters on the front and right sides of the joystick base, and one fixing screw in each corner of each base. The "mouse" hat is black, barely visible against the casing. There is a serial port (for the mouse pass-through) visible on the right side of the hoystick base.
The X36 visible in the info page has no adjusters visible, extra fixing screws along the front and back edges of each base, and the mouse hat is red. Also, the external mouse serial port is missing.
This leads me to believe that the photo is of the X36-USB, not the original. I'd like something more concrete to back that up, though. :)
> USB ports are valuable.
Not so. Ever heard of a "USB hub"? Plus, I don't have many USB devices, and it'd be cumbersome if I did (the USB machine is a PowerBook). The PC doesn't have USB support, since it runs Win95B. The USB devices that are attached to it run best under Linux, but that's another story entirely.
The "original" X36, in front of me, has the traditional analogue adjusters on the front and right sides of the joystick base, and one fixing screw in each corner of each base. The "mouse" hat is black, barely visible against the casing. There is a serial port (for the mouse pass-through) visible on the right side of the hoystick base.
The X36 visible in the info page
This leads me to believe that the photo is of the X36-USB, not the original. I'd like something more concrete to back that up, though. :)
> USB ports are valuable.
Not so. Ever heard of a "USB hub"? Plus, I don't have many USB devices, and it'd be cumbersome if I did (the USB machine is a PowerBook). The PC doesn't have USB support, since it runs Win95B. The USB devices that are attached to it run best under Linux, but that's another story entirely.
Oh right.
Only one button at a time? They can't force you to pay extra money for that you know.
Anyway, I don't know which on it is on SR. You'll have to wait until someone sees this. A few months then.
Only one button at a time? They can't force you to pay extra money for that you know.
Anyway, I don't know which on it is on SR. You'll have to wait until someone sees this. A few months then.
Turbonutter wrote:
> Look on the Seitek website, but they are usual multi-port now. The
> only advantage a USB one offers is plug 'n' play. USB ports are
> valuable, and seeing as you only need one joystick I'd put it in the
> normal gameport.
Actually, there's more to it than that. I bought the original X36 the other day from GAME (I will return it for a refund very soon), and it really has quite a number of limitations. If I'm going to spend £££ on a decent stick, I want to use it to the fullest, on both my PC and Mac.
The lack of USB on the earlier stick means it won't go in my Mac. It also won't recognise two or more buttons pressed at once, and the software doesn't interface properly with modern DirectX games. I checked with Saitek and the X36-USB fixes all these issues.
The question is, where can I find the X36-USB at a sane price? UKgames.com looks like a positive bargain, but only if it has the right version of the stick. Hence my post. :)
> Look on the Seitek website, but they are usual multi-port now. The
> only advantage a USB one offers is plug 'n' play. USB ports are
> valuable, and seeing as you only need one joystick I'd put it in the
> normal gameport.
Actually, there's more to it than that. I bought the original X36 the other day from GAME (I will return it for a refund very soon), and it really has quite a number of limitations. If I'm going to spend £££ on a decent stick, I want to use it to the fullest, on both my PC and Mac.
The lack of USB on the earlier stick means it won't go in my Mac. It also won't recognise two or more buttons pressed at once, and the software doesn't interface properly with modern DirectX games. I checked with Saitek and the X36-USB fixes all these issues.
The question is, where can I find the X36-USB at a sane price? UKgames.com looks like a positive bargain, but only if it has the right version of the stick. Hence my post. :)
Look on the Seitek website, but they are usual multi-port now. The only advantage a USB one offers is plug 'n' play. USB ports are valuable, and seeing as you only need one joystick I'd put it in the normal gameport.