Over the past few weeks I've been asking a ton of questions regarding how to interface a PC and an Xbox into the same control panel, and I've found so many of you to be extremely patient, helpful, and insightful. While I was doodling my layout on a piece of paper just now I realized that I was going to try making a cabinet with a rotating control panel and I because of that I didn't need to beat myself over the head trying to integrate everything into one type of panel. Instead I could make a "fighter panel" for MAME games; a panel with the trackball, spinner, and a 4-way controller; and I could devote the last panel to an XBox layout, in which case I wouldn't even need to wire things together through a db cable at all. I could just wire the Mini-Pacs to the MAME-devoted controls, and the XBox hacked controller PCBs to the XBox control panel, since it can only use the standard controls. Rather than needing a switch box and a video switch I could just go with a video switch and then rotate the panel to the appropriate system, again without needing to swap things out, really.
Then I got to wondering why those who have built rotating control panels in upright cabs have only built three-paneled controls and not more. I have forgotten all about geometry in the 12 years since taking it, so maybe I'm clueless by asking, but what's stopping people from doing a square or pentagon shaped panel, especially if you remove the "backsplash" which could hamper the rotation? Has anyone done the math on this to determine if a square or a pentagon is possible? I'd like to get one or two more panels so my current plan for a second panel wouldn't be as cluttered. I know it would require a larger panel circumference and a bigger rotational circle, but it wouldn't be too hard to do, would it?
Thanks for any help.
I'm probably overthinking things.