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The iPac, a circuit designed for coin op machines is available through Suzo-Happ.It comes preset in a way that serves those systems well, but as such works right out of the box without programming. It'll talk to your PC through a USB cable. Other, similar and sometimes better products come and go, unfortunately.

Alternatively, Arduinos are available on many online electronic supply sites, and are now available at Radio Shucks, which has granted that merchant some bits of redemption, in addition to elevating the product to "off-the-shelf" status--very cool. It's also cheap, and has a big, happy user community. You can use one to send pushbutton clicks and other inputs as generic/non-keystroke serial signals to a computer. That way, your keyboard remains a keyboard; you can add all the pushbuttons and dials your heart desires and never have to sacrifice certain letters of the alphabet. The chip can be programmed in C++, and there is a never-ending supply of freely-available frameworks. If I stopped making sense, stick with the iPac.

The cutting edge is even cooler, though. We're experimenting with Raspberry Pi's, which are $35 computers (! ! !), with an interface for electronics built right onto the board. And HDMI video out! Incredibly, wildly cool. Any application in exhibitions requires some amount of programming, and is better with a good administration interface, so if things ever go wrong (which they never do, btw), staff can run the first few rounds of troubleshooting before a code geek needs to be called in. The fact that it's cheap and you can hide one in a burger bun--or a large slice of pie-- is going to offset that inconvenience!

(not for human consumption)
: j


Jason Jay Stevens
Flutter & Wow Museum Projects

P. O. Box 21576
Detroit, MI 48221

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210.364.6305



On Mar 22, 2013, at 3:26 PM, Bob Raiselis wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
> *****************************************************************************
> 
> For an exhibit prototype, we are looking for a solution to controlling a PC (specifically, navigating to one of several URLs with Internet Explorer) using pushbuttons. I expect that there are existing solutions to this in the adaptive technologies world - any leads on what has worked for you along these lines? I imagine this will be a combination of a hardware interface and some sort of macro software...
> 
> thanks
> 
> Bob Raiselis
> Montshire Museum
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For information about the Association of Science-Technology Centers and the Informal Science Education Network please visit www.astc.org.

Check out the latest case studies and reviews on ExhibitFiles at www.exhibitfiles.org.

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