I'm running RetroPie and my cabinet has pinball buttons on the sides, in addition to the usual joystick and 6-button layout. I want to use the pinball buttons for pinball games, obviously, but those games usually operate the flippers using Left-D and A. Is there any way I can also map the side pinball buttons to perform those same functions?
1. Make a list of the pinball games/tables/emulators you want to play.
2. Check what inputs they are looking for and whether they can all be mapped to the same controls.
Depending on what type of encoder, wiring, and microswitches you are using, there are several possible approaches.
Hardware approach:Wire the two pinball buttons in parallel with the two desired MAME inputs
or if "MAME Button" has a 3-tab microswitch you can use the "backwards wiring" trick used on "MAME Button" and "Pinball Button" in this Visual Pinball diagram.
Advantage: Works with any encoder.
Disadvantage: The pinball buttons are tied to those two inputs. Any pinball game/table/emulator you want to run must be configured to use those inputs.
Software approach:Wire the pinball buttons to two unused encoder inputs.
Advantage: Allows you to set those inputs to work with pinball games/tables/emulators that can't be reconfigured, if you run into that problem.
Disadvantage: Only works right with encoders that can be programmed to work with the pinball games/tables/emulators that can't be reconfigured.
Scott