Posted by Lilwolf on January 09, 2002 at 11:26:18:
In Reply to: Newbie..theoretical question..thanks posted by Dave on January 09, 2002 at 00:36:44:
keyboards use a matrix so they can get more keystrokes easier. But the downside is muliple keys and ghosting (press 3 buttons and a 4th acts like it's pressed)
the solution
1) (best) get a keyboard encoder. Ipacs are the best cheapest solution if you have 28 buttons or less (only 4 per joystick..). I have a mk64 (64buttons) since i have a 4 player cabinet. Hagstroms are considered the best by many, but expensive. Goto the links to find each. And you will be happy with any of them since they are all great. The all allow you to press all the keys at once individually and they are all fast. The all also allow for hotswapping of control panels (very nice feature)
2) (cheaper) hack a joystick or gamepad. These are designed to have all the buttons pressed at onces so you wont have any trouble there. But you loose some of the nice look of the encoders and you probably wont get as many buttons/keys
3) (cheapest) hack a keyboard. Matrix and ghosting are major problems. And you can get two keyboards from the same year same manufacturer and they will act different.