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News: Celebrating 30 years of Star Control 2 - The Ur-Quan Masters

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| | |-+  Better than banter: OUR single favorite ship
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Author Topic: Better than banter: OUR single favorite ship  (Read 68346 times)
Zeep-Eeep
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Re: Better than banter: OUR single favorite ship
« Reply #210 on: July 10, 2006, 08:40:28 pm »

I agree with the comment that it's difficult to tell which
way an Eluder is pointed. Especially when the screen zooms
out.
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Novus
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Re: Better than banter: OUR single favorite ship
« Reply #211 on: July 11, 2006, 12:19:43 am »

It seemed to be pretty random, almost as if it were unique to each keyboard (which was, if I recall, how it was described back in the old key configuration utility included with the DOS version).
PC keyboards have their own microcontroller to handle key scanning and reporting key events to the computer, so you can hook up the keys pretty much any way you like. Most keyboards use a matrix-like structure in which, essentially, voltage is applied to each row of keys in turn and each column is checked. The keys themselves are on the intersections between rows and columns.

The advantage of this is that you don't need a 104-input (or whatever amount of keys you have) microcontroller to check key states, just one with enough outputs to the rows and inputs for the columns (e.g. 6 and 20, respectively). You also don't need anywhere near as much wiring between the keys and the controller. However, by wiring each key individually, one could build a PC-compatible keyboard with no jamming problems whatsoever; it would probably be something like twice as expensive, though, at least (even worse if it isn't mass produced like normal keyboards).
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Holocat
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Re: Better than banter: OUR single favorite ship
« Reply #212 on: July 11, 2006, 12:23:08 am »

If there were more applications that suffered from keyjams, or if keyjams themselves resulted in more horrible consequences (aircraft control systems don't keyjam, for instance) we'd probably have our perfectly wired keyboards.  As it is, keyjamming remains a plausable but very, VERY cheap star control 'tactic.'

It IS kinda funny though...
« Last Edit: July 11, 2006, 12:30:05 am by Holocat » Logged
evktalo
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Re: Better than banter: OUR single favorite ship
« Reply #213 on: July 11, 2006, 04:49:16 pm »

Additional USB keyboard helps against keyjam. Spread the word. Wink
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Culture20
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Re: Better than banter: OUR single favorite ship
« Reply #214 on: July 13, 2006, 02:42:36 am »

Additional USB keyboard helps against keyjam.
But opens the possibility of further cheating...   Roll Eyes
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