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Ask Slashdot: Physical Input Devices For Developers?

Posted by timothy on from the solenoids-in-shoes-are-a-start dept.

First time accepted submitter paysonwelch writes "I am a developer and entrepreneur and I am considering developing a very graphically rich and custom interface for my latest application which does charting and analysis of large data sets. The application would feature lots of gauges, knobs and levers. As I was thinking about this I said to myself, why not hook up physical knobs and levers to my computer to control my application instead of designing them in 2D bitmaps? This could potentially save screen space and provide tactile feedback, and a new way of interacting digitally with one's application and data. So my question is whether or not anyone out there has advice for building a custom solution, perhaps starting with a mixing board, or if there are any pre-fab kits / controllers for achieving this?"

3 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. USB MIDI controllers by LikwidCirkel · · Score: 5, Informative

    Electronic musicians have been demanding high-quality tactile interfaces for many years. There are various USB MIDI controllers on the marked with various arrangements of knobs, buttons, keys and other moving things. Check out M-Audio and Alesis and other big names, and you might get some good ideas.

  2. What you want... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Informative

    The electronic music/DAW/DJ crowd has been all over this sort of stuff for some years.

    Something like the Aurora is an open source hardware example; but there are a large number of devices at various price points and levels of openness that boil down to a whole bunch of knobs, buttons, and sliders, with some sort of computer-compatible interface(often MIDI or USB-MIDI device, sometimes with a driver or plugin for Ableton or Max specific to the device).

    The audio guys may not map 100% to your requirements; but they have the advantage of being a reasonably large, reasonably active, community with a fair amount of existing hardware available off the shelf.

    As an alternative, many contemporary microcontrollers are capable of serving as USB slaves. Something like a teensy is pretty cheap and makes it dead easy to turn inputs from buttons and sliders and rotary encoders and things into USB HID keycodes.

  3. Start with this by RedLeg · · Score: 5, Informative

    Griffin Powermate. Been around a while, affordable.

    http://store.griffintechnology.com/powermate-1

    Let the net do your shopping to save $bucks.

    Lots more out there, this has easy interface via USB.

    Red