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| VanillaGorilla:
You sound like a guy of my era (early 40's) who can appreciate the classics. I know where you are coming from. Go right with the trackball, if you are going to have 4-way and 8-ways, the 4-way is obviously important to you. Get a real leaf stick, and put it smack in the middle. My first control panel 12 years ago was arranged very much like your image, and I HATED the four way up top in the left corner like that. It just always felt odd to play pac man or Donkey Kong that way. I have arrived at a very simply layout these days, and I have foregone the frankenpanel. I have 2 panels so far in play testing and I couldn't be happier: First for the deceptively simple 'catch-all' classics panel (damn, no Tron though ;) ) : I also have a separate dual-8 way 'fighter' layout. These 2 seem to cover 90% of my needs. I wouldn't think of not having a trackball, or a spinner for that matter; No Tempest? Surely you must be joking. 1 U-360 really works great for the classic games. The dynamic joystick mapping feature in mame is awesome, and I'm not missing a dedicated 4-way at all. It also lets me play Q-bert without a physically rotated 4-way. Man, I was missing that game. Having a mouse via the TB is a god-send at times. Pa-rouse my build thread in-progress in the bottom of my post if you want to see the approach that I took. I am glad to have left the franken panel behind. Man, this picture reminds me, I gotta get moving on the vinyl graphics for my control panels. I have been waiting until I was set on my control panel layout before ordering, and now I realize I have been having so much fun with this layout, that I dont stop playing games long enough (when I have 'spare' time) to get back to finishing the darned things!! |
| Donkbaca:
Vanillas thread is awesome. He speaks wisdom. Still don't think you need a mouse though |
| VanillaGorilla:
Thanks, Donkbaka.. Yman, I forgot to mention, I also laid out my six buttons like you did, specifically so i could play asteroids/space duel/gravitar, with the compromise of using a joystick instead of the left/right rotate buttons (which, if i'm gonna be completely honest, I sometimes miss just a little :P ). The two right-most buttons in my bottom row are left & right mouse buttons, and the top row are all leaf buttons. |
| yman:
--- Quote from: VanillaGorilla on April 06, 2011, 03:36:08 pm ---You sound like a guy of my era (early 40's) who can appreciate the classics. I know where you are coming from. Go right with the trackball, if you are going to have 4-way and 8-ways, the 4-way is obviously important to you. Get a real leaf stick, and put it smack in the middle. My first control panel 12 years ago was arranged very much like your image, and I HATED the four way up top in the left corner like that. It just always felt odd to play pac man or Donkey Kong that way. --- End quote --- Will definitely have to give it some thought. I had seen your thread previously when I was researching CPs, and I really liked the simplicity of your layout. I'm 44, so early 80's games are the ones I remember from my misspent youth, and your panel looks like it would work for the vast majority of them. This probably also influence my choice of buttons and sticks (all leaf) ... don't have much interest in the fighting games, so I probably don't even need 6 buttons. A simpler control panel would also be easier for guests to navigate ... hmmmmmm.... Your thread also prompted me to look for some Atari cone buttons for the nostalgia factor. I picked up a pair of the NOS cherry switches on Ebay ($30/pair - probably should have gotten the used ones for half that price) and found a pair of the cones on another site that escapes me at the moment. In fact, I was in Radio Shack today looking for resistors for when it's time to install them. Do you remember the type (wattage, ohms) of resistor you got? Still have to figure out what wires go where, but I will also probably use your Mudhawk mounting trick to mount them. Thanks for the input ... stop playing with your cab and let's see some artwork on that thing! ;D |
| VanillaGorilla:
--- Quote from: yman on April 06, 2011, 04:09:01 pm --- Do you remember the type (wattage, ohms) of resistor you got? --- End quote --- The Atari arcade games powered the LED's with +5V and a 330 ohm 1/8 watt resistor. The color of the stripes on the resistor is the key. You want: Orange,Orange,Brown,Gold = 3 , 3 , x10 , 5% tolerance. Glad my thread could be helpful to someone else. So many others have helped me on my journey, glad to see it paying forward... The only reason I have 6 buttons on the classic panel, is to have 4 buttons for gaming, and 2 dedicated mouse buttons. I use a few other emulators (C-64, Atari 800, Amiga) where they really come in handy. And I will get ---my bottom--- in gear on the control panel graphics. Its a permanent decision, so its gotta be right, thats why I'm trigger shy I guess!! I'll have to post up my work in progress and get some feedback. Love this hobby. |
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