Greetings All!
I just made a neat discovery. I've been looking for a hardware-programmable keyboard for use with Aces High and other flight simulators. Specifically, I wanted something where the keys were physically arranged in square or geometric "rows and columns" shapes so I could standardize groups into rectangular shapes, including the possibility of having several different "arrow key" areas with up, down, left, right, zoom in, zoom out, etc. areas for use with views, maps, radar, targeting, etc. I had been looking (for years) in all of the wrong places; the gaming and flight simulation industry really hasn't delivered anything like this.
To further complicate my search, I use a lot of different flight simulators, and I like to use LINUX whenever I can, falling back to Windows when I must.
In my search, I learned that there is a whole industry providing hardware-programmable keyboards, of various shapes, sizes, and price points, that is oriented toward retail stores and "Point of Sale" terminals. These devices tend to be rugged, built for the abuses inherent in checkout stands with 8-hour shifts and round-the-clock operation. They tend to require a Windows machine for programming, but they remember the way each key has been programmed so that they can then be unplugged from the programming machine and connected with some other computer, generating standard keycodes from then on. Most of them allow flexible programming of each keystroke, so each can generate anything from a simple, single alphanumeric character, to a string like "Burger, Fires, and Drink #1", including virtually any combination of shift, control, alt, etc. Just what I wanted!
Shopping around, I found prices all over the map. Most of these devices are around $200-400 each, and most include a mag-stripe reader. However, I found one that was much less money (about $120.00 online), was not burdened with a mag-stripe reader, and has more than 100 programmable buttons. Here's a photo showing how I have mine arranged for use in my Flight Simulation Laboratory:
I use it with Aces High and with other flight sims, and it allows me to standardize location of most common functions, so I use the same buttons for similar functions in all of my flight sims under Windows and Linux. I'm just so excited about this that I wanted to share it with others.
You can see a video clip showing more details here:
http://techvideoreview.com/FlightSimMovies/General/ControlsAndCockpits/JoysticksControlsAndFlightSimCockpitsFullPage.htm (Last link on the page).
Regards,
Peabody
