MiSTer FPGA Forum

Hi, I have a MiSTer without an I/O board. Is there any difference using the keyboard shortcuts for OSD, USER and RESET instead of I/O board buttons? Are they considered the same for all cores?

As far as I can determine there isn't, other than the a0486 core remapping them a little bit.

I presume a lot of people just don't want a keyboard plugged in and would rather have on device buttons.

I have mapped the Menu to the Star-Button of my 8-Bit-Do Pad. Every option can be reached from the menu, so even if my keyboard isn't in reach I can control the MiSTer with the controller and don't need the buttons.

By the way 2 Buttons are also available on the DE10 Nano directly without the I/O Board (if I recall correct it was Menu and Reset). But they are small and hard to press.

I don't understand why anybody does use the I/O board buttons. Why walk across the room when you have a controller in your hand or a keyboard in front of you?

The one button that would be useful for most users is a power switch, and none of the standard I/O boards provide one.

There is no difference and there is no right or wrong way to use them.
Personally I have them built into the front panel of my case and barely use them however everyone uses their MiSter in a slightly different way so it's nice to have options

Hackshed_Carl wrote: ↑Fri Jan 28, 2022 11:09 am There is no difference and there is no right or wrong way to use them.

Kind of - there is the price difference. And I bet many people think these buttons make I/O board a necessity.

jlancaster86 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 28, 2022 9:19 am I don't understand why anybody does use the I/O board buttons. Why walk across the room when you have a controller in your hand or a keyboard in front of you?

The one button that would be useful for most users is a power switch, and none of the standard I/O boards provide one.

I used to have the OSD mapped to the controllers, but I quickly found that my fried attention span led me to constantly opening the OSD and looking through options, loading new games or cores, and otherwise not settling down and simply focusing on a game. Essentially not having the OSD on-hand allows me to treat it more like a console; if I want to change games, I have to make the effort to get up and do so.

That said I do use the keyboard for the OSD more than the IO buttons, but the keyboard is across the room next to the MiSTer itself.

Eh I use the reset button when I get no video output from a core, or it won't sync with a display for some reason. I didn't even know there was a keyboard shortcut for that without navigating the OSD.

The entire I/O board seemed like it was always intended as a dev thing anyway. At least according to Sergio, analog out was only intended as a debug tool! So for that use its probably good to have some buttons before you get your core menu stable (although maybe that's not an issue anymore.)

FoxbatStargazer wrote: ↑Fri Jan 28, 2022 1:45 pm The entire I/O board seemed like it was always intended as a dev thing anyway. At least according to Sergio, analog out was only intended as a debug tool! So for that use its probably good to have some buttons before you get your core menu stable (although maybe that's not an issue anymore.)

I've had my MiSTer for over two years, and I still don't have an I/O board. I feel like a lot of new users are mislead into thinking they need one.

I may have to get a digital I/O board at some stage for the USER port so I can connect an mt32-pi, but even then I can probably go straight to the GPIO pins with a bit more work.

Biggest benefit to having buttons (in my opinion) is long pressing user/OSD to pull up the BT pairing menu or the controller mapping menu. Being able to pair and map a new controller without having to fist plug in another controller or keyboard to navigate menus is awesome. But once a controller is set up, I don't use the IO buttons for much.

Thank you all for your input. I'm making a keyboard case for my MiSTer and wasn't planning on using an io board, it's good to know I'm not missing out on button features.

jlancaster86 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 28, 2022 1:54 pm I may have to get a digital I/O board at some stage for the USER port so I can connect an mt32-pi, but even then I can probably go straight to the GPIO pins with a bit more work.

I severely bodged mine with a zero 2 and some straight soldered wiring to be cheapshake..

You have to use pull-ups on the GPIO pins.

Yeah, I know in theory i2c should require external pullups, but bodging with short wires seems to work nevertheless.

OK, I was confused by your use of bodging, I thought you "killed" your GPIO pins. Nevertheless the pull-ups are not required especially for I2C, they are there to protect the GPIO pins related to User I/O. I would install them for peace of mind and also to make a super bodged setup.