Looking for an "all others" arcade stick

[samelak]

Does anyone produce a ready-made arcade stick that would include a double-stick (ie Robotron 2084) trackball (i.e. Missle Command), rotary stick (i.e. Forgotten Worlds) and spinner (i.e. Arkanoid)? I already have an X-arcade for 90% of arcade games, but there are so many other good games that don't use the standard set-up. I don't mind making the stick myself either, but I could use some suggetions on the PC-interface that could accomadate what I want to do.

[Generic Eric]

Search the forum with the keyword frankenpanel.

Lets start from the beginning.  Which controls are on your panel now?  Do you play on an arcade cabinet now? Maybe just post a pic of your set up.

Are you intending to replace the xarcade?

To directly answer your question regarding interfaces, check out this page on Encoders on the wiki

About control panels, if you are in the US, check out Harmuan or Rick in Canada.  Or get your hands dirty and do it yourself; it is quite fulfilling!

Depending on the research you want to do, you can set up in mame how to configure player 2 for robotron.  Knowing what you have now will help answer that.

[PL1]

Start by making a list of games that you most want to play and focus on them. (Step #2 in the design process here)

If your list is "all of them", you will almost certainly not be happy with the resulting Frankenpanel.

Try to limit the list to less than 200 titles.

Sort the list into groups of games that use the same types of controls.

For example, if Ikari Warrors and Star Wars are on your list, you can make one panel/standalone controller with mechanical rotary joysticks and another with a SW yoke/analog joystick.

The rotary joystick panel would need a rotary encoder and should have 3 buttons if you want to play Ikari Warriors 3 in addition to all the other rotary joystick games.

The SW yoke/analog joystick needs an analog encoder for the potentiometers used in these analog joystick games.

This wiki page as links to the five major types of encoders:
    Keyboard Encoders
    Gamepad Encoders
    Rotary Encoders
    Optical (Mouse) Encoders
    Analog Encoders


Scott