programmable keyboard behavior

[sdrob04]

My question centers around the behavior of a control panel with respect to unintended button clicks.  

When a game is configured to only utilize specific buttons and/or controls, is there any negative effect if other buttons happen to get pushed accidentally?  I ask because I'm designing my control panel (with a full-scale mock-up) and am wondering what the effect might be if the 'wrong' button(s) are mistakenly pressed by a carelessly placed arm or hand.  

Trying to include everything I'd like to have is making for some tight real estate, so this situation might occur every now and then and I wanted to know what to expect if it does.  

[brained]

hmmm. If a game doesn't need a button it would not use it. Use mame and press other keys that are not intended for that game and nothing happens!!.

is that your question??

[sdrob04]

Well...yeah.  I guess so!  I was just concerned that in the heat of gameplay, pressing an unrelated button or device would be a problem (like when you hit that damn 'windows' key on a traditional keyboard and everything goes to hell.)  

Nice to know that won't be a problem.  Now it's back to the designing phase...

[Bgnome]

if you are using a keyboard hack and have blocking issues, then you can have performance issues.  if you were wise enough to get a dedicated encoder, they have optimized buffers and such that you can press a whole messload of buttons at the same time several times a second so hitting one or two during gameplay doesnt hurt anything.
now dreaded key combos like when both players hit the start button at the same time on an ipac setup is a different issue.  just beware of shift combos and try not to map windows key combos (or at least disable them if you do) and you will be fine.

[Tahnok]

if you are using a keyboard hack and have blocking issues, then you can have performance issues.

Yes, beware of blocking and ghosting. If you don't know what we're talking about, this website is the best I've seen for explaining what it is: http://www.dribin.org/dave/keyboard/one_html/