New Forum Member about to begin build

[Kieutrang]

Good Day All,

I read quite a bit on the forum but have now decided to build a cabinet for myself.  I have been playing my favorite old Arcade games for years on a first generation Playstation that has now died.  I purchased all of those game compliation discs like "Atari Collection", "Midway Collection", etc.  I decided to try playing them now via MAME.  I also own an old Vectrex (no longer working) though I still have my carts.  I also have a Sega Genesis and may games.  I really don't play the Genesis games much any more.  I really more interested in the old Arcade games from about 1978-1986.

These are generally my favorite games (listed from Favorite down) that I hope to be able to play on the cabinet: 
Asteroids
Missile Command
Major Havoc
Battlezone
Mrs Pac-Man
Galaga
Star Castle
Tempest
Lunar Lander
Gravatar
Joust
DigDug
Qbert
Satan's Hollow
Space Invaders
Tron
Moon Patrol

Anyhow, I am a big fan of the Vector Graphics stuff and Missile Command.  Man do I love playing MC and Asteroids and cannot tell you which is my favorite I love them both.
I'm thinking about these games and a CP and wondering if it is possible to play that handful of games via one CP.

Also I really want to be able to play Major Havoc with a proper Roller Controller (remember the left right roller that game had?).


Also where can a guy find a Roller Controller for proper Major Havoc play?  I won't consider a spinner for Major Havoc.  Or will I be stuck building my own roller controller?

Thank you!

[meyer980]

You've got quite the list there with some pretty unique controls! Tron alone requires a spinner and joystick (with fire button attached). Add in your mandatory roller for Major Havoc and you've already got a pretty complicated control panel in my opinion.

John's Arcade covers a lot of info about the roller controllers in a real cabinet here:

Unfortunately, they aren't always for sale. And they are wired for original cabinets. You'd have to modify wiring to work with MAME (not impossible).

You can find a post here, for example, where new ones were for sale but they already ran out back in January. https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?3199281-NEW-Major-Havoc-roller-controller-for-classic-Atari-Vector-arcade-control-panel

Building your own wouldn't be impossible either. MAME just sees the input as an X-axis control. So, you could use a rotary encoder attached to a minipac or something similar to make your own. Building your own to a high degree or quality, that's another story!

Toss in a couple of your other games (Battlezone needs two joysticks, Missile Command needs a trackball) and I'd say you're basically going to end up with a frankenpanel with way too much on one CP. I'd suggest cutting back to something a little more dedicated. Or building swappable panels. But if you're OKAY with an aircraft carrier sized CP, then go for it!

[TacoTownCharlie]

Just thinking out loud here. If you are have a trackball for Missile Command you could use that for Major Havoc’s left/right movement. Just set the game to ignore up/down movement. Looking at that controller on YouTube reminds me of a skateboard wheel. You could use a skateboard truck to mount to your control panel, attach an optical wheel to the axel and wire an optical board to the same encoder inputs that the trackball is using for the horizontal axis.

You may want to create a few temporary panels while you mock up the controls, just to see what fits.

Good luck.
TTC

P.S. If you come to Zapcon you can see almost all of the games on your list in their restored glory.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[PL1]

Looking at that controller on YouTube reminds me of a skateboard wheel.

Interesting observation . . .

You could use a skateboard truck to mount to your control panel, attach an optical wheel to the axel

If you want to back-light the roller like the original was, consider using a clear axle -- maybe something like 8mm acrylic rod.

Add a way to connect the skateboard wheel to the axle (shaft collar or wheel hub?), two 8mm i.d. pillow bearings for smooth rotation, an 8mm to 6mm flex coupler, and a rotary encoder like this and you've got the core of the controller.   

wire an optical board to the same encoder inputs that the trackball is using for the horizontal axis.

If you do this, an axis can only have one pair of data lines connected at one time. i.e. trackball and roller can't both be connected to the encoder X-axis inputs at the same time.

If both controls are on the same panel, you can work around this problem with a DPDT switch.
- When the switch is in one position, the trackball data lines are connected to the encoder X-axis inputs.
- When the switch is in the other position, the roller data lines are connected to the encoder X-axis inputs.


Scott

[Drnick]

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,159306.msg1675313.html#msg1675313 

[PL1]

Nice catch, Drnick.   

OP was on my watch list, now he's on the ban list.   


Scott