P5 Glove:Windows

Any Windows version which supports USB (Windows 95b or greater) should support the Essential Reality P5 Glove. You don't need the amount of hard drive space specified on the box or on the website, a couple of megabytes is enough for the driver if you download it.

=Installation=

Remove the protective plastic on the front of the receptor tower. The instructions say not to plug the glove into the receptor yet, but it probably doesn't matter. Plug the receptor into any USB port on your computer. It doesn't matter what USB port it is, or whether it is USB 1 or USB 2. If for some reason it doesn't work, you can sometimes fix it by plugging it into a different port. Once it is plugged in, you can try plugging the glove into it.

Wait for Windows to finish detecting the P5 Glove. It should do so automatically. If it asks for help with drivers, just choose all the default options. All the drivers that it needs come with Windows and should be on your Windows CD, if not on your hard disk.

Once Windows finishes detecting it, and it says that your hardware is ready to use, your mouse cursor should start moving around the screen and randomly clicking on things. If not, make sure the glove is switched on by pressing the big D button on the back of the glove. It is the power button, and has the power symbol carved into it. The red LED on the glove will be on, or flashing when the glove is switched on. If the LED is flashing very fast it means the receptor can't see the glove. Make sure the glove is in range and plugged in to the receptor correctly. If the LED still flashes fast when the glove is plugged in and in range, then you need to unplug the receptor from the computer and plug it back in. If the glove still won't move the mouse it is because it thinks you are bending your ring finger and your little finger at the same time, which is the glove's built-in don't-move-the-mouse gesture, also known as the pause gesture. The bend sensors need to be calibrated before they will work properly. Try gently bending the sensors on your ring finger and little finger back (preferably while you are not wearing the glove) and see if that lets the cursor move around.

Before the glove will work properly you need to calibrate the bend sensors. The factory defaults are not very good. To calibrate the P5 Glove's bend sensors, you will need either one of Essential Reality's drivers, or one of the community's Dual Mode Drivers. See the next sections for details...

=Drivers=

You don't need any Windows drivers to use the P5 Glove. It should automatically be detected as a USB mouse as soon as you plug it in. You may need to have your Windows CD for Windows to find its default USB drivers if they are not already installed.

But you will need a program to calibrate the glove and change its settings, and most P5 Enabled programs will also need a DLL file, called P5DLL.DLL, in order to talk to the glove. Most P5 enabled programs already come with a copy of the DLL file in their directory.

If you want to use the glove to control other games that aren't P5 Enabled, then you will also need a program like the Programmable Input Emulator, known as PIE for short.

The DLL file is usually referred to as the driver, although technically it is not a driver in the Windows sense. The DLL file ONLY affects P5 Enabled software that uses the glove as a Virtual Reality glove. It has no effect on the Glove's built in mouse-mode.

Software will use the P5DLL.DLL file which is in their directory, if it exists. Otherwise they will look in the windows System directory.

You should use the Dual Mode Driver instead of the one that comes with the Glove. The Dual Mode Driver is created by Carl Kenner, and it has lots of extra features, and better tracking. It also comes with a better calibration program, called VBControlPanel.

=Calibrating=

Before the glove will work, you need to calibrate the bend sensors.

If you installed Essential Reality's driver you will have a P5 Glove icon in Control Panel that you can use to calibrate the glove. It may also appear in the task bar.

If you installed the Dual Mode Driver, then you need to run the program called VBControlPanel that comes with it.

If you have multiple gloves, then you need to calibrate them one at a time. With Essential Reality's control panel you need to unplug all the gloves except the one you want to calibrate. With VBControlPanel you just choose which glove you want to work with from the drop down box.

First you should turn mouse mode off to make it easier. Go to the mouse tab, and set Desktop Mouse to MOUSE OFF.

Then go to the calibration tab. From this tab only you can calibrate the glove by pressing the A button on the back of the glove. The A button won't normally calibrate the glove in any other programs. Calibration works by pressing the button to start calibration, moving the fingers through the full range you want the glove to use, then pressing the button again to stop calibration. I recommend calibrating to the range from fingers completely straight (but not bent backwards) to a tight fist (without the thumb inside). The thumb should be calibrated to the range from out to the side at right angles, to completely bent in your palm. It may help to move the fingers through their range first, then the thumb by itself before you stop calibration. Just make sure you don't accidentally bend your fingers backwards or touch the bend sensors while you are calibrating or you might need to do it again.

After calibrating, the blue bars should match your finger bends.

The calibration is stored in the glove, even if you unplug it.

=Software=

=Programming=