I want my software to respond when someone inserts a coin, how can I do it ?

Question

I understand this can seem a bit weird. So I'll give more details.

Is it possible for my computer to interact with some kind of "coin collector" ( just like the kind that's used in a vending machine ) ?

Basically I'd like to be able to implement the following methods

public void onCoinInserted( Coin coin ){
    if( coin.value == 10 )
        unlockGame();...

Is there some USB hardware I could plug to my PC that can do this? Any help would be appreciated, it's very hard to find those devices.

Answer 1

There are a lot of very simple to use microcontroller boards.

The Arduino boards are all the rage right now and are well supported under different OS'es and development platforms