[iPAQ] Multiple Button Press Detection?

I have been talking with some developers about porting xmame to the iPaq
and one of them said there is a problem with the buttons on the iPaq.
Supposedly, only one button press can be detected at one time. So the
direction indicated by the game pad and a button mapped "fire" could not be
detected at the same time. Many games will be hard, or impossible to play
with this limitation.

I searched the mailing list archives and found a mention (possibly) of this
problem, but no solution. The way I understand it, each button is
connected to a resistor matrix and each button press is indicated to the
CPU by 3v minus whatever voltage is dropped across the resistor that button
is connected to. Each button is represented by a voltage.

If this is the case, would it be possible to create "new" events (i.e.
"Left-Fire", which would be the voltage drop of "left" minus the drop for
"fire"). This may not be possible, the voltage range tolerance's may be
too close.

BTW, I am also working on getting Doom and Gameboy emulation for the Linux
iPaq. Gmate has Doom and some type of Gameboy emulator running on the Yopy
and there is a version of Doom
(http://www.jimmysoftware.com/Software/Doom4CE/index.html) for the HP
Jornada 820. It runs under CE, but is based on the Linux version of Doom,
so should be portable to the iPaq.

Cpt_Kirks
Received on Mon Aug 14 06:42:17 2000