First off, this wasn't supposed to be an I-PAC vs. Keyhack thread and that's been covered many times before on the board. I also don't want this to turn into a flame war.
What you using for the keyscan? How did you test that?
He specifically said the keyscan or keyjammin or ghostkey programs mentioned on this site. Any of them would do.
Plus your math is off. 8 buttons plus 4 joystick switchs is 12. 12 x 2 is 24, not 16.
He said 4 buttons per player or 8 total, not 8 buttons per player. His math was dead on.
You can still get ghosting depending on how you setup the keys. You know why ghosting occurs?
I've had ghosting happen with just pressing 4 buttons at once before.
Now, I said when 2 players are playing at the same time. You can get ghosting in that situation depending on the layout fairly easily.
More likely you'll get blocking than ghosting, but keyscan will show this. If sixteen keys are showing in keyscan, than you're golden for those keys.
On to quote your guide.
"First, I have not completed this myself, but I have done all everything the soldering so it should work. "
Where's the merit then? Especially since the next quote says you could fry the keyboard, why then trust someone who hasn't done it.
"Second, more than one person has fried their motherboard from a bad soldering job on a keyboard hack. If you are not comfortable, soldering on a printed circuit board, find someone who is. Use this procedure at your own risk and preferably test the controller on an older computer before plugging it into your brand new 1.1 GHz Thunderbird PC."
The very reason to not use a keyboard hack.
Maybe trust someone who hasn't tried it themself b/c I have not heard from anyone that said they tried what I said and it failed miserably, and I'm sure I would have by now.
OTOH, I mention two posts above, that I personally am going with an I-PAC, but it's for programmability and b/c I hate soldering, not b/c the keyboard hack won't work.
You also don't say an alternative is a gamepad hack.
Fair enough. Gamepad hacks were less common two years ago when I wrote that.
"$15.00 for a keyboard, $10.00 for a multimeter, and $10.00 for a soldering iron, the total cost of $35.00 is still less than any other option. "
Well, keyboards are cheaper than that now, BUT with your quoted cost, for only $6 more you get the quality and security of an IPAC and a snap-on or craftsman screwdriver. No need for a multimeter to test or soldering iron.
I also didn't mention that if you get a discarded keyboard, and already have a multimeter and soldering iron (lots of people building cabs would) the cost is about $10.00 max in wire and solder.
"Number of total inputs - As previously stated, a keyboard hack will allow a total of 101 separate inputs, however only probably 16 of these can be pressed simultaneously. This is more than any other option except for one of the Hagstrom controllers in matrix mode (and more than you would ever need). "
Where do you get that number? You don't explain and you don't explain the limitations of the other products compared to this hack. I know the IPAC can do at least that if not more.
The standard keyboard has 101 keys which are recognized by MAME. Later keyboard went to 104 keys with the windows and menu keys and 107 keys with the power, wake and sleep keys, but MAME can't use these. You don't have 101 keys without ghosting, however, as I mention. The I-PAC can't do 101 inputs, if not more. 28 inputs with no ghosting. (Which is more than any keyhack will do!!!). I tried to point out the pros and cons of each option.
IPAC quote "Fast running interrupt-driven software gives much better response than a standard keyboard controller. Key debounce uses a state method for each key, no delays. "
Better response, another good reason for an encoder.
I'm sure other encoders that use scannig are simular. I haven't done much research outside of the IPAC so I couldn't tell you.
The I-PAC doesn't scan a matrix, each key is an individual input. Matrix based encoders like the KE-72 or the keyboard encoder have to read a matrix to know which key was pressed. This takes additional time. I'm not sure it matters though. Even using the keyboard directly, I've never heard anyone say "Man, I know I pressed the fire button and the enemy tank shot me before my shot went off", we're talking milliseconds and nanoseconds of response time.
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Topic: Hacking my first Keyboard (Read 6727 times)
