[DirectPython] directinput and MAME?

[Alec B. <wry...@gm...>]

I'm trying to send keystrokes from Python to MAME. In case anyone's
interested and doesn't know, MAME is an emulator to play classic arcade
games (mamedev.org). I'm sending keystrokes from Python on Win32 like this:

import win32api
import win32com.client

shell=win32com.client.Dispatch("WScript.Shell")
shell.SendKeys("1")

This works in everything but MAME which, as I've just learned, uses
DirectInput.

Can anyone think of a way to send keystrokes under this environment? I know
it's possible, since there's a program called joykeys (
http://members.aol.com/bretjohn/) that translates joystick motion to
keystrokes and works in Mame.

Thanks for any help.