MAMEWorld Forums - Programming - Re: Accessibility Issues for Disabled Gamers

> > So, in a big plea-styley, is there any chance that MAME devs could offer an
> > accessibility option that gives a way back in for these devices that use "scan
> codes"
> > or "virtual keycodes" for modern computers? It would be an amazing add, and would
> > re-open up games that a number of people used to play, but no longer can due to
> > disability. It will also mean that if current MAME users were to become disabled in
> > future life, they'll still be very likely to keep playing with a little support.
>
> We'd certainly accept patches that added explicit support for various accessibility
> devices. (Not having any, we can't add the support ourselves). And I wish people with
> genuine use cases like yours would have spoken up sooner. 99% of people asking about
> this stuff want it for novelty or illegal purposes, which tends to harden MAMEdev's
> response to such questions.
>
> That said, the MUCH lower resistance method is to simply build SDLMAME for Windows,
> which AFAIK is fully vulnerable to all the classic key-injection hacks. We include
> everything you need to do that in the base source and the base compile tools; you
> simply 'make OSD=sdl' instead of plain 'make' when building.

Thanks for replying. I wish I'd got this plea in earlier. You can test MAME for accessibility with these kind of utilties if you have a PC to hand with XP, Vista or Win 7. With Win 7, type "on screen keyboard" in the Start Search bar, then click on that utility. If you can get that to work with MAME, many other utilities will follow. If you have a USB joystick, you can also test out with JoyToKey here: http://www.oneswitch.org.uk/2/I/JoyToKey/JoyToKey.htm and 4Noah: http://www.oneswitch.org.uk/2/I/4Noah/gaming-switch.htm

Sadly, I just don't have the skills, nor time to develop the skills, to build a fix for new versions of MAME... So if there's anyone out there who might be able to help... Please do get in touch. Would be great to open up MAME again for greater access.