Re: gecko for notebook

If your notebook is a P100 it probably suffers from the following:

No Gameport
No USB ports

It MAY have a keyboard jack that you could use to steal the +5. If
it has a place to plug in an external keyboard the plug will be
standard (ps-2 keyboard) and you can get the plugs at any electronics
store or on the web. Just make up a special cable that has the - and
+ wires for the Gecko opto's.

You probably use the external mouse port and the external VGA does
not have a +5 pin. Starting to run out of options. This might be a
case where a small external regulated +5 supply with the ground tied
back to one of the parallel port ground pins and the + 5 output tied
to the Gecko input +5 would be a good solution. It only takes a few
mils of current for each Gecko but they have to have the +5. The
parallel port is much better at sinking (taking to ground)a load than
sourcing current.

I know that a lot of us don't have extra cash to spend on this
hobby. I hobbled by on slow computers until I started to notice
complete systems REALLY cheap. My frugal buddy just bought a
barebones computer with 1.5G processor, 128MRAM, 40G Harddrive, case
& Powersupply (no operating system) for 299.00. He got a CD burner
drive for 45.00 more.

I upgraded to Master5 for Windows and have been testing Art's MACH1
software as well. I can't say enough good things about both of the
products. Maybe Santa can bring you a faster computer and you can
dabble in the Windows controller world ;-)