input_devices Input devices

The Input devices page contains settings related to the emulated machine’s mouse, joysticks and other input devices.

Keyboard

Select the keyboard type to emulate. This box only lists keyboards supported by the machine.

The Configure button opens a new window with settings specific to the selected keyboard type, such as the number of keys.

Mouse

Emulate a pointing device. The following types are supported:

  • Bus mouse: ISA expansion card with a mouse interface. The I/O port and IRQ used by the card are configurable.

  • Serial mouse: connected to the serial port of your choosing.

  • Serial tablet: also connected to a serial port, but providing absolute (seamless) input on supported operating systems and/or applications.

  • PS/2 mouse: connected to the PS/2 port. Only available on machines with a PS/2 mouse port.

The Configure button opens a new window with settings specific to the selected device type, such as the number of buttons, or the serial port for a serial mouse or tablet.

Note

  • Serial pointing devices require the configured serial port to be enabled on the Ports page.

  • The middle mouse button cannot be used to release mouse capture when emulating a pointing device with 3 or more buttons.

Joystick

Emulate one or more game port controller(s). The following types are supported:

  • Generic joysticks, gamepads, flight yokes and a steering wheel, all with a variable number of buttons and analog axes (two axes make one analog stick).

  • CH Flightstick Pro: flight controller with four buttons, three or four axes and a POV hat.

  • Microsoft SideWinder Pad: up to four gamepads, each with 10 buttons and a directional pad. Not compatible with standard game port joysticks; requires a driver in the emulated operating system.

  • Thrustmaster Flight Control System: flight controller with four buttons, two or three axes and a POV hat.

Note

A generic game port card is emulated if the machine has no game ports (either built-in or as part of a sound card) to accomodate the selected controller. This generic card uses the default I/O ports 200-207h, configurable through ISA Plug and Play on supported machines. On IBM PCjr and PS/1 machines, the card uses port 201h only.

Joystick 1-4…

Configure the mappings for each emulated game port controller. The Device box lists all game controllers connected to the host, while the other boxes allow you to map each axis or button of the emulated controller to the real controller.

If you’re not sure as to what axis or button numbers map to which sticks and buttons on the real controller, use the Test feature of Windows’ Game Controllers control panel (joy.cpl) or another controller testing utility for your platform.

Note

XInput controllers are accessed through their DInput emulation mode at the moment.

Key bindings

View and change keyboard shortcuts for common emulator actions. All listed actions are also available on the menu bar and some on the toolbar; see Menu bar for information on what they do.

The Clear binding button removes the shortcut associated with the selected action, and the Bind button allows for entering a new shortcut.

Note

The F8+F12 key combination used for releasing mouse capture in previous 86Box versions can no longer be configured as a shortcut.