Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: Lilwolf on June 05, 2005, 02:57:37 pm
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Ok, just bought a jukebox... one with about 36 buttons (I think... haven't picked it up yet... but I think its A-Z + 0-1... anyway..)
I don't care at all about gaming... so I was considering buying a 20port cheap keyboard encoder and then try and create my own matrix for the key input. Can I?
Or after that... How hard is it to hack a keyboard if you don't care about ghosting or others? should I just hack a keyboard and be done? I haven't hacked a keyboard before (just a few old joysticks). I don't think it would be worth my time for 20 bucks and a keywizeco.... unless I had to buy two.
thanks
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Hacaking a KB could be just as easy; it depends on the keyboard and what kind of connection it uses. The last keyboard I hacked, I just de-soldered the connector it hald and was able to solder a pin header in its place for a ribbon cable. If you have a spare keyboard lying around, rip it apart and see how easy it's going to be to hook up wires to it...
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If you can solder, hacking a keyboard is dead easy. For a jukebox project, it'd work really well.
Someone recently posted a howto on keyboard hacking. They well all out and put it inside a project box. This tutorial was awesome, with one major thing that I would have changed:
They soldered wires to every lead on the keyboard PCB, then labeled the wires 1-36. What they *should* have done was label the first of the sets A-H, and the next ones 1-28 (or however many there were). Using the example I gave makes it much easier to cross-reference a particular keyset. Let's see how my table skills are holding up...
I'm not sure how to make the lines appear on the table, so just pretend they're there.
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If you decide to hack a keyboard, let me know which one you decide to use. I may have a map for it already...I have a bunch. ;)
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Here's another option for you:
Use a KeyWiz Eco and wire up 4 more (or however many you need) dual-diode "one-click Shazaaam" buttons.
If you need more info, contact me.
Otherwise, I'm with the "hack a keyboard" crowd. Jukeboxes are one of the few applications that won't have single problem with it.
RandyT
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Here's another option for you:
Use a KeyWiz Eco and wire up 4 more (or however many you need) dual-diode "one-click Shazaaam" buttons.
This will work except Lilwolf didn't even want to pay the initial $20 for the Eco.
I have a very detailed page on the theory and how-to (more than you need to know) at http://www.mameworld.net/emuadvice/keyhack2.html, and IMHO, Spystyle has the best "short and sweet" tutorial at http://spystyle.arcadecontrols.com/index79.htm
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This will work except Lilwolf didn't even want to pay the initial $20 for the Eco.
Actually he said:
I don't think it would be worth my time for 20 bucks and a keywizeco.... unless I had to buy two.
Which I took as, paraphrased, unless he needed to buy two, the effort of hacking the keyboard wouldn't be worth it. I was just saying that it could be accomplished without buying 2 units by just wiring a few buttons with some diodes. ;)
But hacking a keyboard is still a viable option for a jukebox, and those links will certainly help get the job done!
RandyT
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Re-read the original post and now agree with Randy.
It now sounds like Lilwolf is saying the time to hack the keyboard would be worth more than the $20 for the Eco, unless he had to buy two.
A third option would be to use an Eco and hack a gamepad for the additional 3-4 inputs, but if you're going to hack something regardless, IMHO, you might as well just do it once with the keyboard.
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Re-read the original post myself, and I definitely stand by my original advice: a keyboard hack would be the best way to get the input. It wouldn't take much time to map the matrix, AND there would be a vast amount of keys to use.
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Time seems to be harder to find then 20 bucks these days. I'm now steering towards the shazam + diodes method.
1/2 because I haven't bought anything from Randy yet. And figuring no matter how good I am.. it will take more then an hour and not look as good.
One other option might be to wire up one of the printer port adapters also. But I think I am going to put that one off for the same reasons.
But I will pull apart a few of my really old keyboards and see if it will be trivial (no soldering)... otherwise I'll probably get an Eco board.