Use MS Strategic Commander (Free after MIR) as Office Keyboard-Record Macros etc.

[rav]

Get this from Programmer's Paradise free after MIR-3/31 is last date to order.

The buttons all can be programmed to use it with MS office (or any othe program) to copy, paste etc.

Create maros and record with Record button on side.

It has three profiles meaning you can record numerous macros.

This is great freebie with tons of uses.

You can even navigate map with its buttons.

A gaming Device as Office Keyboard-costing Zero!!!!!!!!!

 

[kermalou]

linky...B&m....please elaborate

 

[technician]

Is this it? I don't know exactly what he's refering too.

 

[rav]

Sorry-Details: This is a Microsoft Sidewinder Strategic Commander. Programmersparadise's site is down.

But this is a gaming accessory to be used with games.

However, its just another ergonomic device thats why you can use it any way you want.

The profiles are accessible with button so tons of macros can be recorded.

Most of dealers had this for $30 with shipping or less.

MIR is $30 so go figure.

Seach for this item and you will get links to rebate etc.

Good Luck.

 

[takhyon]

Here's the rebate. You can also get it from CompUSA for $30.

 

[mriches]

I tried it, and the Strategic Commander does work this way. I can't vouch for the usefullness of this device in productivity situations, however.

Does anyone know if we can use it as a plain HID or DirectInput device for games? I would like to use the shift keys, etc. as normal buttons. The Strategic Commander would be more useful this way, for me.

 

[lebowsky]

It has default profiles for a lot of games (mostly RTS games) that you can load and you can edit these profiles or create your own. You can map pretty much any key to any of the buttons on the SM. There are 3 shift states so you can have up to 24 keys mapped to six buttons. It also slides up, down, left, right, and diagonal so you can use it for movement if you want.

I set it up for Unreal Tournament and it works pretty well although it's not really designed for FPS games. I picked one up when I saw this deal and I'm not using it a whole lot but it is free after rebate so why not?

 

[mriches]

The problem with FPS games is that you can't seem to use more than one of the top buttons at once, e.g. crouch with button 1, and alt-fire with button 2. This prevents a person from using a silencer in CounterStrike or pushing a button while crouching in Half-Life. If you mapped jump to one of the buttons instead of your mouse (where it should be) then you'll find you can no longer perform the much-needed jump-crouch combo.

I suspect that if someone created a real DirectInput driver for this, you would get analog axis control, and this would be fixed.

Someone made a driver for BeOS that seems to work like this. Anyone use BeOS and can confirm?