Hello guys!
I hope all of you are doing great.
I'm exploring the posibility of starting a small project related with arcade machines. In order of getting my game working I need some way to read data from the outside world (levers and buttons to command the game character) and also to drive external elements (e.j. Cabinet lights) accordingly.
I found that the so called "usb IO modules" do exactly that. Some of them include c# and visual studio code examples, which is great news.
https://www.phidgets.com/products.php?category=0&product_id=1018_2
**broken link removed**
But I would like to consult you before buying / importing anything, as I don't have experience with this modules and funds are not particularly abundant
1. Why are they so expensive? $80 usd for a 8x8x8 (eight analog inputs, eight digital inputs, eight digital outputs) is a lot of money. I understand that lab applications do require higher specs, but for an arcade machine it seems over engineered.
2. I know that i could expand the digital outputs using a 3 to 8 decoder chip. But how can I expand the digital inputs? 4 is insufficient for my application.
3 . Do you have some experience with any of this devices, maybe you could point to a certain manufacturer?
As always thanks a lot by your advice.