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Author Topic: How many buttons do I need for basic 8-bit emulator (Atari, Commodore, etc)?  (Read 1975 times)

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drabina

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I am really confused by the control panel layouts and buttons. I am planning on building a tabletop arcade with Recalbox or RetroPie and installing games from 8-bit systems like Atari, Commodore, ZX Spectrum. That's what I grew up with so I have no interest in Sega, Nintendo or other more advanced systems like Playstation. As far as I remember, joystick had only one button (fire) and three buttons for Select, Option and Start on the actual computer. The current CNC control panels have six buttons next to the joystick and offer from 2 to 4 additional buttons in the front of the console. My system is going to be 1 player only and will be based on Raspberry Pi. So how many actual buttons do I need?

wp34

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I'm not sure about Commodore but I found with Atari 800 the keyboard was needed for too many of the games I wanted to play.  I decided to leave it off my cabinet and scratch my Atari 800 itch in other ways.

drabina

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I'm not sure about Commodore but I found with Atari 800 the keyboard was needed for too many of the games I wanted to play.  I decided to leave it off my cabinet and scratch my Atari 800 itch in other ways.
I hope I can make the Atari emulator work. This is the main system I had back in the days.

I can always go with the standard 6 buttons plus 2 or 3 additional ones and just leave them disconnected or not assigned.

JudgeRob

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The problem I ran into with Commodore was that many, many games used all kinds of different keystrokes.  Like F3 to select difficulty, "m" to select mode, etc, etc.  Take M.U.L.E. for instance.  You're looking at 3 keyboard keys to start a 1P game and 7 keys for a 4P game.  Unfortunately, there's no universality of keys to the game functions...
I sort of got it to work with automaps in joy2key and Rocketlauncher, but I still need to iron it out.  It's hard to keep track of the button assignments, so, LEDblinky for that...

1500points

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I’ll throw in a voice that I too toyed with this and it was just too much of a unique pita with pi.

If you like commodore I believe you can get a full keyboard based shell for pi...but i never pursued it.

I dealt with “the itch” by setting up an atari 400 and bought the multicart from atariage site.

I also bought real 5200, colecovision and intellivision but the controls were offensive. So I sold em to a buddy who collects.


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TheElectricMonk

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  • I want to build my own arcade controls!
JudgeRob is right about the Commodore game keys being all over the place. Same goes for the Spectrum (and for that matter the Amstrad CPC).
I solved it in a slightly convoluted way, but it works:
I've got only a handful of games for each of the above systems on my machine. I launch them all via batch files, and each game has an autohotkey script that changes the game's keys to those my cabinet uses.
Also, my MaLa layouts all have a graphic element for each game that shows which key does what, or at least which keys are actively used in the game.





In short, to answer your question, pick your games with care, and be prepared for the disappointment that not all of your old favorites may be playable on your arcade.
« Last Edit: August 15, 2018, 02:39:48 pm by TheElectricMonk »

JudgeRob

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Yeah, that's nice.  My to do list includes making some instruction screens for Rocketlaunchers fade in screens.  LEDBlinky works pretty well, since it lights up the buttons used and will call out what each one does when pause is pressed.  That is, if you can understand the crappy Windows voice.  Wish I knew of a good voice for download that didn't cost an arm and a leg...

wp34

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I also bought real 5200, colecovision and intellivision but the controls were offensive. So I sold em to a buddy who collects


Blasphemer!


Mike A

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I love my Intellivision, but i want to find the guy who came up with that controller, and if he is alive, punch him in the junk...twice.

1500points

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Blasphemer!

Ah don’t complain it is Greg from up your way. You have seen him at auctions.
He has monthly home arcade parties too you should take your kids sometime.


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wp34

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Blasphemer!

Ah don’t complain it is Greg from up your way. You have seen him at auctions.
He has monthly home arcade parties too you should take your kids sometime.


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Good to know.

I wasn't a big 5200 guy (I agree the controller is a bit odd) since I had an Atari 800 and the games were almost identical.  I did have a Colecovision for a couple of years and loved it but I sold it to help pay for the Atari 800.  My buddies all had Intellivision and I was always a bit jealous.  One of my favorite systems ever.  Too bad the games are mostly 2 player.

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Atari computers seemed so cool back then with the awesome advertising they did for them.  Way out of my league I ended up with trs-80 color computer.

I kept an atari 400 picked up from ebay.  What intrigues is the 4 player games like asteroids.

Got 4 controllers yet to find 4 friends...


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