Best keyboard interface for 3 sided cocktail?

[vimfuego]

Hi All,

Hoping someone can give me some newbie advice. I purchased a three sided cocktail cabinet off Ebay about 4 years ago, the PC in it has since died so I am going to strip it out and refit with all new components and stick the latest MAME on.
On the control panels there is 24 buttons and 4 joysticks in total. I think I will go with the IPAC-4 as it has plenty of inputs for me, but I am just not sure how it all works as far as do I need separate inputs for all the buttons or would I hook up the fire button on the vertical control panel to the fire button on the horizontal panel too? In which case I could just use the IPAC-2.

Thanks.

[SavannahLion]

Honestly, it depends on your choice of games. If you're playing games like 4player Pac-Man or Sprint 8, then you'll want the IPAC-4. If you only ever to expect two players (at most) to ever play at any one time, then use the IPAC-2 and wire the appropriate horizontal controls to appropriate vertical controls.

In other words, if the cab consists of panels 1, 2, 3, & 4. Then wire the controls of #3 in parallel to #1. The only catch is if, playing around someone mischievous, they can screw up player 1's game by manipulating panel #3. There are several solutions but the easiest is to add a manual switch to toggle between panel #1 and #3. Under that scheme panel #4 would be wired in parallel to panel #2. (Note, I am assuming panels #1, #2 is the vertical or head to head controls and #3 & #4 is the horizontal or side-by-side controls).

[paigeoliver]

I would go ahead and get the 4-player interface. It doesn't cost that much more, prevents the aforementioned mischief and it allows you to set up for the very limited number of 4 player games that would play right from that kind of setup (like Gauntlet).

[SavannahLion]

I would go ahead and get the 4-player interface. It doesn't cost that much more, prevents the aforementioned mischief and it allows you to set up for the very limited number of 4 player games that would play right from that kind of setup (like Gauntlet).

Oh, Gauntlet, how could I forget?! If you can afford it, do the 4.

IMHO however, you'll do a bit more software acrobatics configuring for those games that use 3 & 4 as 1 & 2. It's not hard just requires a bit of patience.

[divemaster127]

I have the ipac4 in stock at arcadeemulator.net, if you need them
dm

[vimfuego]

Thanks folks, appreciate the responses.
I was planning on using MaLa as well, so if I got the IPAC-4 I would at least be totally covered off with regards to the 4 player thing. Not having used MaLa before I'm not sure how configurable it is, but if I was to be playing something like Wonderboy on the front two joysticks (I'll call them inputs 1 & 2), then switch to a vertical game like Galaga, can it automatically assign what might be joystick input 3 as Player1 controls?
I guess what I don't want to end up doing is going over every horizontal and vertical game to individually configure Joy 1 & 2 to horizontal games and Joy 3 & 4 to vertical games. If that is the case then I am probably better off just wiring the P1 and P2 controls for Horizontal and Vertical in parallel and tell people not to fiddle 

[ahofle]

I have a miniPAC (2 player) in my 3 sided cocktail.  Haven't had any issues with the mischief mentioned above -- works great.  If MAME had a 'vertical.cfg' and 'horizontal.cfg' to allow custom input mapping by game orientation, I think I would go for the 4 player interface, but I don't believe it does.  I can't imagine going through every game and remapping.

[Nephasth]

Lono².