[LCtalk] Bump buttons

[Paul Carver]

I'm doing a show at a different theatre than usual and using a manual 
two scene board instead of a Lanbox and it brought a question to mind.

Has anyone found a way to simulate bump buttons? The board at this 
theatre has very sensitive bump buttons and I was just playing around 
with tapping out some lights in time to the music.

Since at my home theatre the Lanbox sits upstairs and we use a wireless 
LAN for everything a method that works through Windows would be 
preferred.

Presumably I could acquire a DMX lighting board with bump buttons and 
connect it to the Lanbox's DMX input, but there are two flaws with that 
plan. 1) I'd need to acquire a lighting board which would be a fairly 
steep investment, and 2) I'd need to run a very long DMX cable.

One thing to note about bump buttons is that the lights stay on as long 
as you hold the buttons down and you can press and release different 
buttons independently and simultaneously. I think a computer keyboard 
can't accomplish that. I think I would need some sort of hardware 
(presumbably USB) if it's possible at all.