Combining keyboard and joystick hacks


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Posted by Mario D'Alessio on 3, 2000 at 1:18 PM:

I've read numerous times that people are concerned that
hacking a keyboard for use with arcade controls is
not the best way to go due to the limited number of
individual keys available after taking into account
the problems of matrices, ghosting, etc. I've read
that most keyboards only allow for about 16 keys
without worrying about these problems.

Other people hack joysticks to avoid this problem, or
just go and buy the keyboard encoders produced by
Hagstrom, Andy (IPAC), etc.

To me, a simple and cheap solution is to hack
a standard PC gamepad, such as the Gravis gamepad, to
get two joysticks and 4 buttons working from the
PC's joystick port, and then use a keyboard hack
to get the 16 individual keys. In total, this should
provide for almost all the MAME controls desired
(excluding trackballs and spinners, of course).

In other words, combine the concepts of joystick
and keyboard hacking so that one overcomes the
limitations of the other.

I have yet to read about anyone who's done this.
It seems to me that people either go the keyboard
route or the joystick route, or ignore both and go
the purchased encoder route.

Am I the only one who thought of this? Or am I just
missing the discussions/webpages of those who already
did this?

Since I'm currently not a MAME user, would MAME have
any problems if I implement this?



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