CONTROLLERMATE HOW TO
CONTROLLERMATE PS3
CONTROLLERMATE PLUS

CM also supports all of the standard keys and buttons from USB keyboards and mice, plus a ton of esoteric ones. CM plugs into OS X and allows it to see inputs from various USB gadgets like joysticks and game controllers. So, that was enough of an excuse for me to start hacking away at the problem.ДЄfter many false starts and dead ends, I stumbled across a wonderful product called ControllerMate. As with many eBay bargains, the price of the keyboard wasnвЂ™t much more than the shipping cost, so if I paid for the shipping to return it, IвЂ™d only net a few bucks after getting my refund.

CONTROLLERMATE HOW TO

Well, once I figured this out, I was faced with a choice: return the keyboard for a refund, or try to figure out how to get the Mac to support the Scroll Lock key. So, when the Frisby keyboard is hooked up to a Mac, pressing the Scroll Lock key is ignored by OS X, and thus OS X never tells the keyboard to turn the backlight on. Worse, some operating systems (Mac OS X mainly) donвЂ™t really know about or care about the Scroll Lock key and donвЂ™t support it OS X doesnвЂ™t keep track of the Scroll LockвЂ™s on/off toggle state, and doesnвЂ™t tell the keyboard to turn the Scroll Lock LED on and off. At first glance, this seems like a clever idea, except for a couple of problems: Some applications (Excel for one) and gadgets (many low-price KVM switches) also make use of the Scroll Lock key, and expect it to be available. HereвЂ™s apparently whatвЂ™s going on: The Frisby keyboard (along with many other budget illuminated keyboards) uses the Scroll Lock key as a switch for the backlight because it essentially replaces the Scroll Lock indicator light with the entire keyboard backlight.

What was going on?ДЄ lot of googling led me to believe that this problem is fairly common on Macs, Linux PCs, and even under Windows, although not many people have found a solution. But, when I first plugged the keyboard into the USB port (or into a powered USB hub), it did light up for about 1/2 second or so. Pushing it didnвЂ™t do anything, even when pressed in combo with Shift, Ctrl, Alt, Windows/Command, or any gaggle of the above. The instructions that came with the keyboard (all 1/8 page of them) indicated that the Scroll Lock key was the On/Off switch for the keyboardвЂ™s backlight. In fact, the scroll wheel, volume knob, and mute button all вЂњjust workedвЂќ. When I first plugged it into my Mac, it didnвЂ™t work. The only thing it lacks is indicator lights for the Caps Lock, Num Lock, and Scroll Lock keys. Not only is it illuminated, but it has a scrollwheel, volume knob, and like 20 extra buttons (in addition to the usual 16 or so function keys). I just bought a cheap Frisby illuminated keyboard on eBay.

CONTROLLERMATE PS3

According to people on the CM forum, this is likely because the controller is both USB and BlueTooth, and it is still paired with the PS3 overall the Mac needs to send some sort of handshake signal to the controller to get it talking over USB. But CM doesnвЂ™t see any of the button presses from the controller. Yes, CM does, and it sees all the buttons and even the tilt sensors. I plugged my PS3вЂ™s SIXAXIS controller into the Mac to see if ControllerMate could see it. But it works well, I like it, and it was really cheap on eBay. The scrollwheel still works, for instance. (The standard function keys are tied to the keyboard device.) The strange thing is that some of the mouse buttons still work after the Mac sleeps, but most donвЂ™t. What is a little surprising is that all of the 20-odd buttons around the edges of the keyboard are tied to the mouse device. I suppose that this isnвЂ™t terribly surprising considering that the keyboard includes a scroll wheel. ControllerMate showed me something interesting about the Frisby keyboard: The keyboard actually reports itself as two separate USB devices, a keyboard and a mouse.

Controllermate