Control Panel Proposal

[justinjstark]

I have attached what I am calling version 2 of my control panel mockup.  There is obviously a red and blue joystick and a trackball in the middle.  Here is the legend:

white buttons: buttons
gray button: p1/2 start
black button: coin
yellow button: pause
red button: exit

The cp is 30" wide and everything is to scale.  The black boxes around things are the exact dimensions required to mount based on the hardware I plan on using.

I currently have two mouse buttons and I will probably keep them as the arcade machine is also going to be a computer and will be able to play computer games.

I'm not sure I like the button layout.  Currently I have it set up as the sega layout from slagcoin.com.  I'm thinking about just doing two straight rows of 3 instead.  And I am going to do some testing to figure out if I should have 6/7/8 buttons and where best to place them.

My girlfriend is going to be doing the artwork and it looks like there will be plenty of space for some art and places to place wrists while gaming.

But overall, what do you think?  Did I forget anything important?  Ideas?

[DashRendar]

Question- are you (and your friends that will be playing this) left handed?

[darcyp]

and are you going to be playing any games like golden tee, shuffleshot or any trackball bowling games?

[justinjstark]

Whoops, no, I'm not left handed.  I made this in inkscape upside down (in order to do measurements from the straight side) and I flipped it vertically instead of rotating 180 degrees.  I've attached the rotated image.

[justinjstark]

and are you going to be playing any games like golden tee, shuffleshot or any trackball bowling games?

Yes, I plan on playing some games like this.  Hence I made the rounded bottom so the trackball could be a little farther south.

[DashRendar]

Whoops, no, I'm not left handed.  I made this in inkscape upside down (in order to do measurements from the straight side) and I flipped it vertically instead of rotating 180 degrees.  I've attached the rotated image.

Ah, that's better.   

If you want that many buttons, that layout seems to be a popular way to do it.  It's not what I would choose for mine (having that many), but people need to do what works best for them.   

[darcyp]

i would consider moving the buttons that you have above and below the trackball, as it is pretty easy to hit them in a game of golden tee. i would just move them up beside the start and coin buttons.
another thing that you could do is wire the mouse buttons up to 2 of player 1's buttons. this gets rid of two buttons on your panel and works fine in mame. the only problem with this is if you also want to emulate something like the snes, since some non-mame emulators dont allow a mouse button to function as a game button.

[justinjstark]

i would consider moving the buttons that you have above and below the trackball, as it is pretty easy to hit them in a game of golden tee. i would just move them up beside the start and coin buttons.
another thing that you could do is wire the mouse buttons up to 2 of player 1's buttons. this gets rid of two buttons on your panel and works fine in mame. the only problem with this is if you also want to emulate something like the snes, since some non-mame emulators dont allow a mouse button to function as a game button.

Yes, I plan on running other emulators (especially SNES) so it will be easiest for me to have mouse buttons.

And thank you for proposing I move the buttons so they don't get in the way for golden tee, etc.  I will surely do so.