Connecting switches

[Steve Lee]

It seems that for Windows in the UK at least there is convergence on switches connecting as joystick fire buttons via USB.
This usually provides 2 switches but 8 is also common ( http://www.sensorysoftware.com/hardware/switchinput/joybox.html).

Joysticks don't have first-class system OS controller support in Windows (like mouse or keyboard) but do appear as Games controllers in control panel.
Thus programs need to to provide specific but fairly standard support logic (e.g through SDL or pyGame).
I also assume mouse drivers could be used to allow control of the system pointer from either switched or continuous joysticks but I don't if this is done.

Does any of this apply in X / Linux too?
If not how are switches usually connected and supported?

What about the Mac?

There are advantages to making support as similar as possible on all platforms.
As Windows is were most users are at present it seems to make sense to follow the conventions.

--
Steve Lee
www.oatsoft.org
www.fullmeasure.co.uk

[David Bolter]

Hi Steve,

My experience has been that switches here normally masquerade as mouse
buttons, especially the usb variety. Sorry I don't have the cycles to
provide details... here are some sites to explore:
http://www.tashinc.com/
http://www.madentec.com/
http://www.ymouse.com/

The last site has a product called XKeys which is pretty nifty. I now
someone who wrote a linux gui front end for programming the device
(which emulates keyboard and mouse) but I don't know if it ever got
uploaded anywhere. I have devices from all three companies in my
office if you ever need me to try anything.

cheers,
David

> www.oatsoft.org <http://www.oatsoft.org>
> www.fullmeasure.co.uk <http://www.fullmeasure.co.uk>