So, what is this ButtonBox2?
Good question! I'll try to answer.
The ButtonBox2 is a little thing that me and a friend of mine have been working on for a while. The reason that we built it was that I was thinking of building an arcade cabinet to use together with M.A.M.E (see links page for more info on M.A.M.E). Then I would need some interface between the keyboard and a bunch of joysticks and buttons. Since I like to program small micro-controllers I thought that it would be nice to build the interface myself.
But, this interface is not limited to use together with M.A.M.E, so here comes a little explanation of what it is.
Have you ever wished that you could play all your PC games with real arcade style joysticks and buttons instead of the PC keyboard? This is what the ButtonBox2 can be used for!
The ButtonBox2 is a little box that you connect between the keyboard and the PC. Then you connect buttons and/or digital joysticks to the ButtonBox2. When you press these buttons and use the joystick(s), the ButtonBox2 does what the keyboard usually does, it sends information to the PC that a key on the keyboard was pressed.
So the PC thinks that you pressed some key on the keyboard, but instead you pressed a key connected to the ButtonBox2.
This means that every game that you can play and control using a keyboard can also be played and controlled via the ButtonBox2! And you can use the ButtonBox2 no matter what OS your computer is running.
Here is a list of the ButtonBox2 features:
|
|
Can be used in Direct or Matrix mode. |
|
|
Up to 27 buttons can be connected in Direct mode. |
|
|
Up to 128 buttons can be connected in Matrix mode (8x16 matrix). |
|
|
Switch between Direct and Matrix mode "on the fly" (without reboot). |
|
|
No "ghosting/masking key" problems in either Direct or Matrix mode. |
|
|
Which button that sends which keystroke is configurable from the PC using a configuration program. |
|
|
Any errors encountered in the ButtonBox is displayed on a LED. |
|
|
Support for Caps-Lock, Num-Lock and Scroll-Lock LED indicators both in Direct and Matrix mode. |
|
|
No external power needed, it uses power from the keyboard interface. |
|
|
The software in the ButtonBox2 can be upgraded via the PC's parallel port. |
That was the good news, unfortunately there are some bad news also: the only way that you can obtain a ButtonBox2 is to build it yourself. I have not started to manufacture these devices, and at the moment I have no plans to do so either. Hopefully the description of the ButtonBox2 on these pages contains enough information to build one of them (at least that's my intention).
But if you decide to build one, you can download all software I have written for the device for free from the software page. I cannot guarantee that it works flawlessly on your system, but if you get any problems with it I will try to help you to solve them.