My planned setup will be 2 joysticks, trackball and spinner, along with at least 6 buttons per joystick for gameplay, coin button, 1&2 player buttons and side buttons for pinball flippers (at least 17 buttons).
Is there a single controller board that can house all of these or will I need a second board for the spinner and trackball?
Adding up the number of inputs required (optional):
8 - 2 joysticks
12 - 6 player buttons x 2 players
1 (2) - P1 (+ P2?) Coin -- IIRC some games assign credits to player based on coin slot.
2 - P1 and P2 Start
2 (10) - Pinball flippers -- You may also want to consider upper flipper/MagnaSave (no table has both so you can wire both to one button), Right/Left/Up nudge, and a ball launch button. (Five of these can piggy-back on an input used for a 2P MAME setup. i.e. Wire the Left Lower Flipper to the same input as P1 Button 4.)
0 (1) - Exit? -- May be needed for Visual Pinball/Future Pinball tables.
0 (1) - Pause?
That adds up to 25 button inputs (maximum 36 if no piggy-backing), plus the 3 optical axes for trackball and spinner.
Ultimarc's
IPac2 has 32 button inputs and 3 optical axes.
* Cue obligatory reminder to disable shifted function for Menu (TAB) so kids and drunk friends don't accidently mess up your settings.
Scott