I like listening to music with winamp and I also like playing games like counter strike and quake 3. It is annoying to have to minimize the game I am playing in order to change / pause the music I am listening to. In order to overcome this problem I built a winamp controller that fits into a drive bay and allows me to control winamp by pressing buttons on the front of my computer. This device works regardless of whether or not winamp is in focus on the desktop.
I know the buttons are a bit wonky; my drilling skills are not particularly good. The important thing is that it works.
The winamp controller is basically a rewired game pad. I bought a cheap game pad for £7 and hacked it apart. I kept the circuit board and the lead and plug to the game port on my sound card. I bought the red buttons from maplins and soldered them to the contacts on the circuit board of the game pad. It just so happens that winamp can take input from a game pad (if you download the right plug-in). Each button of the game pad can be configured to do something like play / pause stop, next track etc. There is the added bonus that I can play computer games with the winamp controller as windows thinks it is a normal game pad.
