Multiple Keyboards

[Hawg One]

Pete, can I use two keyboards, if one is PS2 and the other is USB? I want to do aircraft-specific keypress programming, and I'm under the impression that FSUIPC will recognize the 2nd keyboard as a separate device. Any info is appreciated!

Hawg

[Pete Dowson]

Pete, can I use two keyboards, if one is PS2 and the other is USB? I want to do aircraft-specific keypress programming, and I'm under the impression that FSUIPC will recognize the 2nd keyboard as a separate device. Any info is appreciated

Keyboards are handled through Windows. FSUIPC cannot see them as devices -- it doesn't even know they are keyboards. All it sees are WM_KEYDOWN and WM_KEYUP messages from Windows. I don't even know if it is possible to get device control over them without writing special low level drivers. Same with mice.

I think multiple keyboards on a PC are merely treated identically. i.e. they do the same things.

Regards

Pete

[Hawg One]

This site bills the ability to use multiple keyboards:

http://www.rogerdodger.net/diyflightsims.html

I was pondering buying the product, since it's cheap and looks useful. Just curious if you'd ever used two keyboards.

I'd appreciate your impressions on that.

[Pete Dowson]

This site bills the ability to use multiple keyboards:

http://www.rogerdodger.net/diyflightsims.html

I was pondering buying the product, since it's cheap and looks useful. Just curious if you'd ever used two keyboards.

As far as I understand it, two keyboards is like having two mice -- they both do the same thing. In other words the "E" key produces the "E" keypress on either. If there's a way of making the 2nd keyboard produce totally different codes to the first I've nt heard of it, and in fact there are no decodings defined in Windows for those to mean anything.

Really it is all irrelevant to FSUIPC. If the keyboard gives different codes and Windows passes different codes on via its messaging, then they wil be seen differently in FSUIPC and you can program them as such. Not sure how they'd be represented though -- there are only defined representations for the known keys. QWERTYUIOP and all that.

Regards

Pete

[Frank.O]

Hawg,

yes you can use two keyboards without problems.

I had such a setup once. You need a Y-cable (like THIS) witch takes the plugs of the keyboards and is itself plugged into the ps2 port of the computer.

Later: It just occurred to me that there are also USB keyboards. They weren't availlable when I tried this so I can't say for sure but it may be possible to plug two of them in without the need of a Y-cable.

Regards,

Frank