On 7 Dec 2012, at 10:54, Albrecht Schlosser wrote: > On 06.12.2012 22:39, Ian MacArthur wrote: >> >> >> A friend of mine who is into building MAME cabinets > > MAME = "Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator" ? > http://mamedev.org/ ?
Yup - that's the thing... >> gets these USB controllers from (somewhere, I can't find the link) that have >> variable quantities of buttons, > > cool... > Are these only controllers that need to be built into a box > or something, or do they come as "ready-to-go" devices? Both, I think - though I'm not sure, and I still don't have the link that he uses... He certainly had some bare boards a bit like this: http://www.ultimarc.com/ipac1.html though that's not the actual part he uses. This is just a bare controller though in this case, you need to add your own switches and a box for this part. I think this one can handle up to 56 buttons, which is maybe enough (in the sense that it is probably more than a human operator can cope with anyway! At least if they are not allowed to look!) I suppose you could buy a few basic 3x4 or 4x4 keypads from RS and hook them up to this controller, and have two switch groups, e.g. like... http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/keypads/0146222/ or something... But what you really want is a dedicated keypad that already has all that in one unit. Which I know I have seen, but I can't find it now! > >> and come with a basic WinXX and Linux driver > > Win + Linux, that'd be more than I had hoped to find > (of course you need Windows, but there might also be Linux > users, and I'd like to support that too). Also, note that this driver is only needed to configure the keypad/controller the first time, to "teach" it the strings for each key... You don't distribute it with the hardware or anything. > >> that allows you to program the device, such that it converts each key press >> into a string - then in your code you catch the string and interpret it. > > That ought to work, although I'm a litte afraid of interference > (races) with real keyboard actions (what if one presses a normal > keyboard key while the "other keyboard" transmits its string?). Yes, good point, I don't know. I guess I imagine that the USB stack might deliver the strings atomically? Well, probably not, but if it did that ought to solve the problem! > >> The device itself, in normal operation, just appears to the system as a >> standard keyboard. > > That's what I hoped to find. Great. > >> I guess something like that would do. > > So do I. > >> IIRC they were not that expensive either. > > That's even better. > >> But I can't find a link to the people he was buying from. It was in China >> IIRC, but the devices only cost a few Euros, they were really cheap... > > May I ask you to investigate further to find a link? > This idea/device looks really promising to me... > > Thanks for your reply > > Albrecht > > _______________________________________________ > fltk mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.easysw.com/mailman/listinfo/fltk _______________________________________________ fltk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.easysw.com/mailman/listinfo/fltk
