external keypad idea

[DeathCrush]

Greetings all. All right I'll admit that this post is partially a question about hardware, however I have no idea where to put it (admins feel free to move this if you know of a better place for this)

Anyways, my idea/question is, are there any external keypads out there that aren't numeric keypads such as: http://www.unicornelex.com/detail.php?itemno=58-0100&?

The idea I had was to have an external keypad that would plug in to the USB or PS/2 with some extra keys on it to run whatever command I assign to them. If there aren't any out there like this aside from the numeric keypads, I'm curious as to how to go about and make one. It shouldn't be too hard as all one would have to do is just change the keycodes that the individual keys put out on one of these keypads to avoid conflict with the numeric keys that are already there on your main keyboard, however I have no clue on how to do this, I don't know if it's a software thing to hack up or an actual chip inside the keyboard that controlls the keycodes.

Has anyone ever tried something like this? Thanks a ton, again admins feel free to move this if you see fit.

[dgrmkrp]

well, i have seen something similar to what you'r saying.. kinda similar.. i'll search for a link.. it was a kb with detachable buttons, layed on a transparet-ish board/layer and u could buy more keys and could assign any action/macro to them...

edit: found them, hope they help: link (http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=296&products_id=4235&zenid=45fb27bc0efa6139aee33eac73289d08)
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/images/products/KeySet2_01.jpg

[DeathCrush]

Hmm, that does sound familiar. Might work, I'll have to check it out. Thanks :D

[nil8]

If you're looking for a small keyboard instead, try one attached to older tablets.

[Cevinzol]

after following dgrmkr's link I'm kind of impressed with what else I saw there especialy the Saitek pro gamer command unit (http://www.saitekusa.com/USA/prod/cupro.htm). with 144 programable combinations it should do a lot

[chedabob]

what im doing is using small surface mount buttons, under a layer of plastic. all the buttons are wired up to the com port, and they control winamp.