reading serial ports with acc on mac

Projects Interfacing w/ Software on the Computer
1

Hey Guys,

I have a Arduino Uno connected to a pressure pad and basicaly been trying to do this :

    1. Have an arduino sketch which, when the button is pressed, sends a character on the serial.
    1. A serial-to-keystrokes program, which takes the character from the serial connection and converts it to a real keystroke
    1. A program on mac that translates the keystroke to whatever we want to do.

I found this help on a blog here : Arkadian.eu | Tag | AAC keys

and further help here : http://www.instructables.com/id/A-Makers-Wedding-Photo-booth/step2/Software-and-Trigger-Button/

I have been testing out the Arduino sketch

const int buttonPin = 10; // the number of the pushbutton pin

int buttonState = 0; // variable for reading the pushbutton status

void setup() {

pinMode(buttonPin, INPUT);
Serial.begin(9600); // open the serial port at 9600 bps:
}

void loop(){

buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin);

if (buttonState == HIGH) {
Serial.println();
}
else {
// nothing
}

}

The code works in the serial monitor but i cant get it working in any other application or to trigger the photobooth app when it is on.

I feel what might be wrong is that the serial port that the arduino is on is dev/tty.usbmodemeffy141 but the only options in aac is bluetooth-pda-sync and SerialPort wich do show up under the arduino tools serial port section but i cant upload my sketch to the arduino with them selected.

Is ths typical? or am i missing something! How can i get them on the same port?

asking around i was previously suggested to do this :
http://code.google.com/p/vusb-for-arduino/
http://www.practicalarduino.com/projects/virtual-usb-keyboard

Which seems overkill for a button press

Any enlightenment is gratefully received

thankyou

P

2

Another choice is to have the Arduino control a CD4066 Quad Bilateral Switch chip connected to the matrix of a used USB keyboard. You can disassemble the keyboard and remove the circuit board. Each of the analog switches can act as one button, shorting a row line to a column line to generate a keystroke.

3

Here is another link that may help.