Extra Buttons (Esc., Pause, etc.) for MAME Cab

[DaveJ-UK]

What extra buttons will I need to install in my MAME cab?

I know the obvious answer is "Whatever you want", but maybe there's something I haven't thought of or used yet.

Buttons I know I will need are:

Escape
Pause
Coin 1
Coin 2
PC Power

Any others I could/should install or could consider?

Also, I want to have the PC power/hdd LEDs visible outside the cab, but I think a couple of dinkey little LEDs would like a bit puny on a 7ft cabinet. Anything else I could use that would look good?

Thanks.

[Zathras]

On my cab I've got a power button on the top of the cab and then just Pause and Escape as actual buttons.  You can really use shifted functions for anything and everything but I wanted it to be easy for guests for those two functions.


Never thought about putting the HD/Power LEDs externally but one thing you could do is work them into your marquee  - maybe have a cave theme and split them somehow so they are glowing/blinking eyes (or blinking lights on a space station, etc etc etc)

[spauldingd]

What extra buttons will I need to install in my MAME cab?

I know the obvious answer is "Whatever you want", but maybe there's something I haven't thought of or used yet.

Buttons I know I will need are:

Escape
Pause
Coin 1
Coin 2
PC Power

I have buttons for all of those as well as TAB and ENTER.  I know that I can use the shift function of the IPAC to get to these, but I like the dedicated PAUSE and ESCAPE for my kids to use the machine.  I figured while I was at it, adding a couple more buttons for TAB and ENTER would just make life easier.

I wired my PC's power LED up to my panel so it lights up when I push the power button, and it also flashes on and off when on StandBy which looks pretty cool.

I would say that if you have the room without making it look cluttered, go ahead and add the buttons, they are cheap.

Dave

[Tiger-Heli]

I have buttons for all of those as well as TAB and ENTER.

Also possibly F2 (Setup in a lot of games) and Tilde (mame volume and other controls).

Personally, I would stick with what you have (plus Start 1 and Start 2), and use a keyboard for occasional setup issues, but if you want the extra buttons . . .

[DaveJ-UK]

Thanks for the replies.

I have already ordered my marquee (classic mame) and I don't want to have the pc lights behind that. The PCs LED's are just standard 12V LEDs right? So I could just use any 12V lamp? I just think the little LED's will look a bit odd on a cab since they're so small.

I would like to only have one coin insert button but some games have seperate credit "banks" for each player. Is there a way round this?

And what use do the tab, shift and enter keys have within MAME?

[maraxle]

On mine, all I've got is an exit button.  The coin returns are setup to register a credit, eliminating the need for coin buttons.  As for the LEDs, you could just get some bigger ones at Radio Shack (or similar) and mount them wherever you want.

[Tiger-Heli]

The PCs LED's are just standard 12V LEDs right? So I could just use any 12V lamp? I just think the little LED's will look a bit odd on a cab since they're so small.

"Standard" LED's are 2.3 V, but I don't know what the PC is using.  Also, even if they are 12V, the circuit to the LED's might not supply enough current for a 12V lamp.  You could use a relay, I suppose.

I would like to only have one coin insert button but some games have seperate credit "banks" for each player. Is there a way round this?

I'm not planning to use a workaround, but there are 3 things you could try (4 but one won't work) -

1)  You could use the Shift function of the encoder, but I don't like this because you have to remember a key combination for each function.

2)  Doesn't work - I thought you could set MAME so both Coin and Start 2 are mapped to "2" for these games.  Then pressing Start 2 initially will add a coin, pressing it again start the game, oops, just tested it, it doesn't work - MAME just keeps adding credits and doesn't ever start the game.

3) For some of these games, TMNT for one, the game uses Button1 as the start button.  I planned to map this so P1B1 was "1 or L Ctrl" for this game so it appeared to work like all the other games, but you could do the opposite (I tested it) - Map Coin 2 to "2" in MAME, then press P2 Start to add P2 Coins, and P2B1 to start the game.  I don't know if Gauntlet, Desert Wars, Quartet and the other "Coin 2" games will work with this method or not.

4)  Almost all of the games that needed dedicated Coin 2 buttons were 2 or 3 button games, so you could map Coin 2 in MAME to P2B6 (K ?) for this games and press P2B6 when you wanted to add a Player 2 coin.  Confusing for a new person using your cab, though.

And what use do the tab, shift and enter keys have within MAME?

Tab - set inputs and or adjust dipswitches
Enter - When you start a game and it says "Press select key to start" - that's the Enter key.  Also, if you have a menu up with the Tab key, you need the Enter key to get to sub-menus, or exit it.
Tilde - MAME OSD as I said
Shift - Nothing other than default P1B4.  The previous post about shifted keys was referring to how you can press one button and then a second button on the encoder and have it send a different code.

[DaveJ-UK]

Thanks Tiger that's very helpful.

Unfortunately I only have a 3 button cab so I can't use option 4. I don't like shift functions either. I think the best solution will be to just wire in a second coin button.

I had another though regarding the PC power button- I've seen push buttons that light up somewhere, which would be great for a PC power button (assuming the lamp is compatible).

[Tiger-Heli]

Thanks Tiger that's very helpful.
Unfortunately I only have a 3 button cab so I can't use option 4. I don't like shift functions either. I think the best solution will be to just wire in a second coin button.

That's what I decided also.  The only other thing I could suggest at this point is to see which dedicated coin games you want to play and see if one of the other workarounds would work for these games.

I had another though regarding the PC power button- I've seen push buttons that light up somewhere, which would be great for a PC power button (assuming the lamp is compatible).

Sounds like a good idea, but I don't know what the lamp would need to use for it to work, maybe someone else will.  (might want to start a new thread on Lamps for PC LED's).

[MameMe]

PC Power

Does anyone have an image and/or step-by-step on how to attach an external button to the power button on the pc?

More specifically if possible, a standard ultimarc switch button similar to"Player 1 Start" button attached to the computers power button.

[Tiger-Heli]

PC Power

Does anyone have an image and/or step-by-step on how to attach an external button to the power button on the pc?

More specifically if possible, a standard ultimarc switch button similar to"Player 1 Start" button attached to the computers power button.

If you're not worrying about lighting the button, then you would just extend the wires that went to the old button (or run new wires from the PWR pins on the mobo) to the NO and GND (or COMMON) terminals on the microswitch.

[DaveJ-UK]

Yea connecting the micro-switch to the pc power should be a piece of cake.

I can't remember where I saw the buttons with internal lights but it would be a great feature to add to a cab.

[Brad Lee]

Esc, F2, F3, Pause
f2 is advance, needed at least once for most of the Williams games, and many other games need it
f3 is reset, handy if youre making any changes to control configs and just want to do a quick reboot of the rom

These are mounted on top of my cab, I cut a hole about 1"x3", and then used a blank piece of metal(probably a old floppy drive bezel) With the buttons mounted this way, they sit recessed into the top of the cab, very discreet.

On my CP itself, aside from sticks and game buttons, Ive got 4 atari led cone buttons, for either p1 start+coin/p2 start+coin, or p1-4 start

On my coin door, I replaced one of the blanks(for a bill accepter) with a piece of plastic, and that's where Ive mounted my main cabinet power switch(lighted rocker), volume(hacked up creative 2.1 remote volume) and a spare mini-momentary pushbutton for future use(currently its acting as mouse button1, pause would be good there)


My reasoning was to keep all the "maintenance" buttons on the cab itself, and only have game controls on the CP, since it's swappable.

[Rawker]

you only really need one credit button, just map both credit keys to one button.

[Tiger-Heli]

you only really need one credit button, just map both credit keys to one button.

Then you're adding quarters for each player with each coin press.

[Rawker]

yeah, that's sweet eh  

[patrickl]

Doesn't anyone use the F10 button? Maybe silly, but I like to press F10 to speed up the start sequence.

[Brad Lee]

Doesn't anyone use the F10 button? Maybe silly, but I like to press F10 to speed up the start sequence.

Usually not unless Im having problems, then I use f9,f10,f11 to see whats goin on. This is infrequent enough that for my use I pull out the keyboard.
Ditto with config changes(no tab), but once Im in the mame tab menu, Ive got the UI controls set that I can use p1b1 as enter

[patrickl]

I was talking about when you start a game. Sometimes a game can take quite a while to "test the machine". I press F10 so mame runs at full speed. Is there a clever way to do that from a CP?

[ashardin]

The one button I wish I had that I do not is a pause button.  Other than that I have coin 1 and 2, start one and two, and the SF2 6 button layout for p1 and p2.

You might want to add an exit button as well.  I have had times (especially when kids play) that both players dies and try to continue by pressing start.  If they hit it at the same time, the game exits (using the IPAC).

[SirPoonga]

I originally had a power button on my cabinet but I just put the monitor and computer into sleep mode.  so I never use it now.  I do have a quit and pause button.  The pause button is also my shift button.

[Mugzilla]

If I had to do it over agian, I would use a SHIFT button for everything extraneous. Too many buttons really clutters the panel up. (And makes you drill more holes than you want to!)

[GamingGreg]

I have four: Enter (Game Start), Esc (Game End), P (Pause), and Tab (Configure).   Enter and Esc are useful for PC games also.   The Tab button hardly gets used so I'm thinking of removing that one.  Maybe I'll change that one to F7 (and a shift of shiftF7) for saving games.