[HC] USB Devices

[Richmond]

No: "HC" means 'hoary chestnut' here; not that ancient piece of software 
a lot
of people seem to be still hung up on for no obvious good reason when 
Livecode
has more than replaced it.

My beloved Belkin Nostromo n52, when connected to a Mac, a PC running Linux,
a PC running Windows, and PC running MorphOS, and an iPad via a powered 
USB hub
(I enjoyed that one a lot) acts like the left quarter of a keyboard and 
delivers signals to the OS,
and to Livecode readily detectable with keyUp and rawKeyUp routines.

My slightly less beloved Belkin Nostromo n50 is useless in this respect 
[Mac and Windows
will work with it with the (Ancient) Belkin software installed]. My 
juvenile Steering wheel +
foot pedals combo and my gamepad just won't work without drivers.

Now I know very well that when I press one of the buttons on those 
devices it sends a signal to the
physical computer (after all, without that the drivers would produce 
nothing).

What I would really like to know is what differentiates a keyboard (and 
my Nostromo n52) from all
those other USB devices so profoundly that makes them effectively 
useless for cross-platform work
with Livecode.

This is a 'hoary chestnut' that keeps coming up (I've brought it up at 
least once before0, and never
receives what can be reasonably called a proper answer.

Richmond.