Posting here as my goal was to build a Mac-compatible arcade controller to use in lieu of a keyboard for desktop play. The end result is nothing fancy but it's a definite improvement over my tiny Mac keyboard (the HP in the pic is a PS/2 used for programming - more below).
The heart of this project is the i-PAC 2 interface board; it's probably overkill for this application but it's programmable without any software and can certainly be used for a proper MAME arcade controller at another time.
The proof-of-concept was fairly crude: just a cardboard box with flipper buttons. I actually played this setup for quite a while - to the point when the sides of the box began to cave in from a little too-aggreesve play!
The guts. The i-PAC uses PS/2 interfaces, one for a nifty PS/2-to-USB cable and the other for a keyboard pass thru for programming when needed (purple connector in this pic).
The programming mode is entered by entering CTRL-ALT-P - I used TextEdit for this purpose.
Button assignments are a simple matter of pressing the button and then the corresponding keyboard key. Pressing "e" saves the codes.
The heart of this project is the i-PAC 2 interface board; it's probably overkill for this application but it's programmable without any software and can certainly be used for a proper MAME arcade controller at another time.
The proof-of-concept was fairly crude: just a cardboard box with flipper buttons. I actually played this setup for quite a while - to the point when the sides of the box began to cave in from a little too-aggreesve play!
The guts. The i-PAC uses PS/2 interfaces, one for a nifty PS/2-to-USB cable and the other for a keyboard pass thru for programming when needed (purple connector in this pic).
The programming mode is entered by entering CTRL-ALT-P - I used TextEdit for this purpose.
Button assignments are a simple matter of pressing the button and then the corresponding keyboard key. Pressing "e" saves the codes.
