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Designing a Handheld Game Controller (Gamepad)

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Kyre:

I'm afraid using DOS is the one iron rule I cannot forgo.
I've tried to go with the emulation approach, but after some testing (where some games would accept emulated keystrokes and others would not), I've decided that the surest way for generated keystrokes to work is for them to be fed externally via a physical PS/2 or USB port.

That's why I decided to go with the I-PAC, but now I need to acquire a controller whose buttons would trigger input events for it.
I really don't mind building it myself (in fact, I think it would be an enjoyable experience), and I think I can manage to get it to work well enough on my own, but the whole process of industrial design (for the controller itself) is alien to me.

Hacking an existing controller sounds like a good idea.
Do you think it would be possible to use a controller's existing buttons and connect them to the I-PAC instead?

Le Chuck:

Sounds like you've got it under control then.  I'd be interested to know what program you were using that wasn't accepting the keystrokes mapped to a controller and what program was doing the mapping.  If you want to run wires for each button I'm sure you can set it directly to an IPAC.  Best of luck.

wweumina:

It sounds like you may be doing this the hard way, but good luck to you.  Maybe it's just that I'm more of a software guy but to me using an existing controller and modifying the environment seems easier. Is this for emulation? As stated earlier, the whole thing would have ready made solutions in Windows or probably even Linux.

Kyre:


--- Quote from: Le Chuck on March 21, 2012, 09:26:41 am ---I'd be interested to know what program you were using that wasn't accepting the keystrokes mapped to a controller and what program was doing the mapping.

--- End quote ---

I was actually testing my own code on some DOS games.
I tried several methods of simulating keystrokes, all of which worked in the DOS shell, and some worked for some of the games as well.
Specifically, I managed to make the I, K, J and L keys simulate the arrow keys, and I could play One Must Fall 2097 this way perfectly.
But Commander Keen, for example, wouldn't respond to the same mapping, nor to any other method I tried.


--- Quote from: wweumina on March 21, 2012, 05:44:54 pm ---It sounds like you may be doing this the hard way, but good luck to you.  Maybe it's just that I'm more of a software guy but to me using an existing controller and modifying the environment seems easier. Is this for emulation? As stated earlier, the whole thing would have ready made solutions in Windows or probably even Linux.

--- End quote ---

I'm more of a software guy myself as well (I work as an embedded developer for a living at the moment), but I'm open to trying new things. =)
Emulation would be easier, but as I've stated before, I am not willing to relinquish my demand that the system should run DOS.
I'll give anything a shot, as long as it does not violate this one requisite.
Running Windows or Linux and emulating DOS using DOSBox or anything of the ilk is out of the question.


--- Quote from: Le Chuck on March 21, 2012, 09:26:41 am ---Best of luck.

--- End quote ---

Thank you.  :D

SavannahLion:

That would explain your email. That's strictly a programmers nomenclature.

Have you taken a look at those 15DB controller mods. They're pretty simple if you have experience with a soldering iron. I don't care for them otherwise I'd have a link to share. There's a post around here about it.

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