!Hamster is an application to control a USB Hamster Wheel. There are two versions; the one with a suffix C will ONLY run with a Castle USB system, either an Iyonix or a RISC OS machine with a Castle USB expansion card. The one with a suffix S will ONLY run with a Unipod or a Simtec USB expansion card. I regret that, for reasons that I don't understand, it will not currently work on an A9Home.
If you use this programme and you already have my !Missile app installed, there is a strong chance that the wrong app will start up when a hamster wheel is plugged in. This is because the idiots who designed the missile launcher and hamster wheel, gave them identical class, subclass, protocol, vendor ID, product ID and string descriptor. Yes, really. In other words, they are indistinguishable via USB. You may wish to uninstall one or the other app. I hope the instructions are clear on this.
If you install this programme in your Apps folder, you should find that it will start automatically whenever a hamster wheel is plugged in. You will also find that it quits automatically whenever you type a key but the wheel is unplugged, so don't be surprised if you try to run it when there isn't a wheel and find it doesn't run!
If you run the Castle version, you will need FilerHRun, which can currently be found at http://www.zen22994.zen.co.uk/musus/miscfw.htm Make sure to install FilerHRun where the author suggests.
The rest of it should speak for itself!
!Hamster is freeware, and is released under the GPL. This means that you are free, not only to use it, but to alter it if you wish. Please consult the file "gpl" inside the archive, which details the terms of the license.
You can download !Hamster for the Castle stack here and for the Simtec stack here.
0.01 2007 July 21 First issue
Page last updated 2007 August 3