Split Second buzzer devices

[comicus]

Hey gang.  I'm trying to work Split Second into my weekly game night... I have material written and a way to display the answer choices (PC connected to TV), now I'm just looking for a decent mockup of the game's ring-in system.  We initially tried a USB keyboard connected to a laptop... I assigned each player a specific key and just opened Notepad, which worked when we didn't have two or all three players scrambling to ring in at the same time.  The response time was delayed, and I can't shake the feeling that something better might be available.  I figure if anyone would know, you folks would.  Suggestions?

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'comicus\' post=\'252897\' date=\'Dec 20 2010, 07:22 PM\']We initially tried a USB keyboard connected to a laptop... I assigned each player a specific key and just opened Notepad, which worked when we didn't have two or all three players scrambling to ring in at the same time.  The response time was delayed, and I can't shake the feeling that something better might be available.  I figure if anyone would know, you folks would.  Suggestions?[/quote]
Do you have a set of the Buzz! controllers? (Or any other USB game controllers that your PC would recognize.) If so, I think I'd try those with Joy2Key and see if you can't remove the lag from your keyboard solution. You'd still open NotePad, but you'd have game controllers generating the keypresses, which might be a little more exact.

[gameshowcrazy]

if you don't need them to be hooked to the laptop, check amazon.com for Eggspert

cheesy, but effective buzz in tool for up to 6 people.

[comicus]

I'll give that a shot. Thanks Chris.

[visualbasicwizard]

For my Press Your Luck game, I rigged some 3" buttons to an old joystick I was no longer using, and used DirectPlay to capture the joystick events in the game.  I created an easy-to-use library to handle the joystick code in .NET.  If you are interested it in, shhot me an email and I'll send it to you.