Tankstick - CTRL, ALT, SHIFT key problems

[swindmiller]

I have a Tankstick and the first 4 buttons are mapped to CTRL, ALT, SHIFT and Space. This works fine in Mame but in some of the Windows emulators using these keys causes problems like the top menu opening on an ALT key press.
I fixed this issue by just using mode 2 and remapping those 4 buttons. The issue with this is everytime we boot up the arcade we have to remember to press the program button twice. My wife and kid sometimes forget. Is there another way around this?

I thought of switching it back to mode1 and using an AHK script in the startup to remap those 4 keys to something else as in: Alt::j

Would this work?

Thanks,
Scott

[ABACABB]

I had this problem with some console emulators.  I just don't use the top 3 buttons.  Configure the second and third rows as your main buttons and there will be no problems, still l leaving you with 5 buttons.

[BadMouth]

I remapped the buttons, but as you say, it's a PITA to have to press the program button twice every time you turn it on.
Autohotkey won't work with all emulators because some of them get their input directly and software has no effect on them (MAME works this way also)

I've considered replacing each player's 8th button with a plug and running those wires to the buttons currently mapped to ALT and CTRL.
I don't think shift and space would cause any problems.

[Maarek Stele]

Anyone find a way around this?  It is a PITA???  Only workaround I've found that is bulletproof is leaving PC on all of the time so it retains the programming.