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Author Topic: Which side of your control panel did ya stick your spinner on and why?  (Read 2840 times)

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rackoon

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Built seven cabs, and with the exception of a cocktail cab, I followed Knievel's layout for my control panels. He put a lot of thought into his stuff and I never questioned it. If you have never seen his work then you should do a search, his stuff is lagit.  :applaud:

I don't ever have time to play my cabs by myself because I build them after school with students and it more about bonding with troubled youth than me exploring games, so I played from time to time games I remembered in the arcades back in the 80"s. When it comes to spinners, Tempest is the only spinner game I play and I think its a good enough reason to have a spinner :notworthy:

Building a new cab for home finally, and another one, with a metal control panel, at a new school. The metal control panel is the one that will be hard to fix once I drill a hole for a 4-way, trackball, and spinner. No looking back with a metal control panel (I bought it with holes drilled for street fighter already)

So I started looking around the internet for some fresh ideas and noticed that a lot of people are putting spinners on the left side of the control panel, Tempest of course is played with spinner in the right hand.  Way over on the left would be awkward. Am I missing something, or are there games out there that would warrant such blasphemous placement.  :hissy:
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Vocalitus

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Re: Which side of your control panel did ya stick your spinner on and why?
« Reply #1 on: September 25, 2021, 06:02:46 am »
My spinner is on the right side as I have a flight joystick.  It feels natural and very comfortable in either hand and is using one credit button position so I do not have to keep my arms up and have plenty of "rest areas" on the control panel.

You just have to experiment and find your comfort zone.

javeryh

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Re: Which side of your control panel did ya stick your spinner on and why?
« Reply #2 on: September 25, 2021, 07:01:37 am »
My spinner is dead center.

LTC

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Re: Which side of your control panel did ya stick your spinner on and why?
« Reply #3 on: September 26, 2021, 10:05:39 pm »
My vertical current build, I'm going with the spinner on the right, 4-way stick on the left and 2 buttons in between.

vertexguy

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Re: Which side of your control panel did ya stick your spinner on and why?
« Reply #4 on: September 27, 2021, 01:11:45 pm »
Interesting question and observation.  I think part of it depends on the size of your control panel (and total controls) along with the specific games you want to support.

Something like Arkanoid for instance doesn't matter that much if the spinner is favoring the left or right, although some may prefer it be centered with the screen like the original.  Some of it depends if you're goal is to support left handed vs right handed preferences.  However other games that use spinners in tandem with other controls, like Tron, seem to suggest the spinner should be on the left relative to where ever your flight stick is mounted.   I can't imagine playing Tron with opposite hands.  However it's funny because fighting games and many others force you to use your left hand for directional controls.  Why Tron went the opposite is interesting, but given it's a flight stick I would say I've always naturally flown with my dominant hand (right).  Maybe all the fighting games got it wrong and we should be controlling direction with our dominant hands? ;)

Similarly with a game like Pacman where you only have a joystick, I always found myself using my dominant hand there too.

From what I can think of Tron maybe a more unique scenario putting the spinner on the left.  If Tron isn't your thing, then it may just come down to what buttons you have available to the left or right side of it and your hand preference.  In looking at some older CPs, like tempest for instance, they forced you to use your right hand on the spinner and really spaced out your 2 buttons, which from a user input standpoint wasn't the most efficient layout.  I guess they wanted to make sure you were really deliberate about using your super zapper. :)

Out of curiosity I pulled up a quick list of common spinner games (not counting driving or rotary stick) from an older post I found on here to see which placement was more dominant.  There were more Tron layout clones than I thought.

Center - Arkanoid (World) arkanoid (spinner + buttons)
Center - Arkanoid - Revenge of DOH (World) arknoid2 (spinner + buttons)
Left - Blasteroids (version 4) blstroid (spinner + buttons)
Right - Tempest (rev 3) tempest (spinner + buttons)
Left - Tron (set 1) tron (spinner + flight stick)
Left - Mad Planets mplanets (spinner + flight stick)
Center - 720 Degrees (set 1) 720 (spinner + buttons)
Left - Aztarac aztarac (spinner + flight stick)
Right - Forgotten Worlds (US) forgottn (spinner + joystick) (defies Tron control layout!)
Left - Kozmik Kroozr kroozr (spihner + flight stick)
Left - Crater Raider crater (spinner + flight stick)
Center - Wheel Of Fortune wfortune (spinner + buttons)
Center to each player - Two Tigers twotiger (spinner + buttons)

Up/Down Spinner
Left - Discs of Tron (Upright) dotron (spinner + flight stick)
Left - Zwackery zwackery (spinner + flight stick)

==============================================================

Total Games In List: 15
Total Centered: 5 (33%)
Total Left: 8 (54%)
Total Right: 2 (13%)

« Last Edit: September 27, 2021, 02:01:03 pm by vertexguy »

RandyT

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Re: Which side of your control panel did ya stick your spinner on and why?
« Reply #5 on: September 27, 2021, 01:33:27 pm »
IMHO, there are really two controls which belong in the center of the panel.  Trackballs and spinners.  This presents a bit of difficulty when both of those are present on a panel.

While I understand that the spinner is often offset to one side on original cabinets, I have to assume that this was due to an assumed "right-handed majority" and the desire to even out the panel cosmetically when buttons were also used in the games.  In the case of TRON, I suspect it was done in a way which catered again to the "right-handed majority", as the spinner function was easier for the non-dominant hand than the flight stick.

Games which use spinners and trackballs usually require a fair amount of accuracy, so they should be positioned to be used by the players' dominant hand.   The only way to accommodate all players is to have those controls centered on the panel.  If you are making the panel only for yourself, put it where it feels good to you.

rackoon

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Re: Which side of your control panel did ya stick your spinner on and why?
« Reply #6 on: September 28, 2021, 11:55:52 pm »
Man I love this site. Yo vertexguy you really did your homework. :notworthy:

Thank you to the rest of you who chimed in as well

Looking at that list, I think that Tempest is the only one that I would play often so to the right the spinner goes and the four way will go to the left :cheers:

My control panel is 28" wide but it only 9" deep. I have a 10"x9" space in the center between the 8 ways and six button layout. So I think I will stick a trackball in the center and the spinner and 4 way above it. No room for more buttons so folks will have to use ether the right or left buttons on the street fighter layout.

You Randy, thanks for the parts When your stuff comes in its always like xmass. Going to get me some micro leaf switches next :o
They treated me like an animal and that's what I became.