Ergodex created the device in 2005 and released it to the world where it received much praise, especially from left-handed gamers who until now have had to suffer with remapping the keys on every single game they play to the opposite side of the keyboard. Some games, including many popular games, don't even allow keyboard remapping thus forcing their users to struggle to play the games how their narrow minded right-handed developers designed them. The Ergodex is a godsend to left-handed people as it allows you to place up to 50 keys where ever you like on the pad and assign any keys (and macros) to each key and have the pad automatically reconfigure itself depending on the current application in use. It's also great for many other users, for right-handed users it allows you easier (and faster) access to more keys. Many disabled users are also finding it very useful. In fact the device is so good it recevied an award from popular science in 2005 Best of what's new 2005.

Unfortunately Ergodex have not created any drivers for MacOS X or Linux, nor even Windows XP64 bit, now Windows Vista is out and there's still no drivers for these 4 important operating systems! Ergodex will not give ANY information regarding support for these 4 operating systems for which drivers do not exist. Nor will they give ANY information regarding driver updates and new features - not that the existing drivers on Windows XP 32bit don't work, they do, and very well, it's just that we want more from our DX1's than Ergodex seem to be willing to provide.

This site aims to bring together as many developers as possible in order to first document the USB protocol the device uses and second to write new drivers, primarily for Windows XP (32 and 64bit) and Windows Vista (32 and 64bit) while attempting to keep as much of the code as reusable as possible so that it may be used to create MacOS X and Linux drivers too.

This project was started in February 2007, just after the retail release of Windows Vista.

If you want to help with the project please drop me, hydra, an email at this address: hydra at hydras hyphen world dot com

Or, you can join the #ergodex IRC channel on freenode irc://irc.freenode.net/#ergodex.

If you've not used IRC before then grab a copy of HydraIRC (which I, hydra, also wrote :D ), install it, start it, create a profile then click the irc: link above to join the channel or use file/connect and paste in the irc: link and click “ok”. Shortly after you should see a connection to irc.freenode.net being made and then a new window will appear for the channel. If the channel is empty just wait and someone will appear. If you want to page me then just say my name (hydra) in the channel.

• 2007/02/07 - Hydra

Completed reverse engineering the parts of USB protocol that are required in order to write drivers.

• 2007/02/08 - Hydra

A test driver has been written and works on Windows XP 32bit. Recompiling for XP64, Vista 32 and Vista 64 should not present any problem and will be tested and made available for download soon.

USB Protocol information

Further Developer Information

Test Data

Wish List

HHD USB Monitor

Website: HHD USB Monitor

Instructions on how to capture USB data from the Ergodex DX1

Jungo Windriver

Website: Jungo Windriver

Instructions on how to send and receive test data with the Ergdodex DX1

Here's a list of other open-source projects, the source to which may be very useful when creating the drivers

AutoHotKeys - Macro playback, joystick & mouse button events.

Synergy - Cross-platform code for recording and playing back mouse movement and keyboard events over a network.

QLiner hotkeys - More keyboard/mouse related code.

Donations can be sent to paypal at hydrairc dot com. Any amount gladly received and will go towards paying for the hosting of this site.

No information from this site is to be in any commercial projects.

All code written will most-likely be licensed under the GPL license.

Images used on this page are copyright their respective owners, if any images are used on this site and shouldn't be please remove them and fill in the edit summary accordingly, provide alternates where possible.