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Author Topic: Help planning my 4 player control panel?  (Read 1164 times)

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jerschwab

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Help planning my 4 player control panel?
« on: August 16, 2004, 04:29:00 am »
Hello all!

I am trying to plan my control panel and get some parts sourced.

So far, I have the following:

Oscar Vortex Spinner
3" Trackball with mouse buttons from http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=13718&item=6113054382

and I ordered:
36 black Happ's concave buttons with microswitches
4 "player" buttons
1 top fire 8-way joystick
4 ultimate 8-way joysticks

I will also be getting:
1 Wico Leaf ball top 4-way joystick
1 ultimarc i-pac 56 input encoder

What I'm wondering is what else do I need the buttons for other than the player buttons?

For Players 1 and 2, I have 7 buttons in a fighter/neogeo layout
For Players 3 and 4, I will have 4 buttons each

Then I'll have 2 buttons on each side for pinball and such.

I'll have the player coin and start buttons.

And last but certainly not least... the PAUSE, ESC, TAB, ENTER buttons.

So that basically totals 38 buttons.  If I could put 2 more buttons on the CP, what would they be? Could I use them for the 4-way Wico joystick?  I'm not even sure how that would wire up to the CP or even if I'd have enough inputs!

Any suggestions on this?  This part is quite confusing to me!
« Last Edit: August 16, 2004, 04:30:49 am by jerschwab »

TalkingOctopus

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Re:Help planning my 4 player control panel?
« Reply #1 on: August 16, 2004, 11:38:34 am »
You should have enough inputs with an ipac4.  Many of your controls can share inputs.  The 7th button for p1 and p2 usually shares inputs with one of the 6 other buttons.  The top fire joy and 4 way joy can share inputs with p1.  

Just b/c you have 2 extra buttons, does not mean they have to be used.  However, you could put them next to the 4way and they would share inputs with p1 button 1 and 2.

Good luck!

Bgnome

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Re:Help planning my 4 player control panel?
« Reply #2 on: August 16, 2004, 01:28:43 pm »
a lot of people prefer the minimalist approach and say that too many buttons visually "clutter" the panel.
i would say that you really need to think hard about what you plan on doing with your control panel and make it work for you, not just some generic layout that everyone has seen a million times.  keep it simple..  i think that 6 joysticks on 1 cp is a bit overkill but it really depends on you.  for whatever you choose to do, you have plenty of buttons and more than enough inputs, especially since you are doubling up some.

GGKoul

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Re:Help planning my 4 player control panel?
« Reply #3 on: August 16, 2004, 01:49:03 pm »
THERE IS NO NEED FOR A 4 WAY ONLY JOYSTICK!!

GET A 8/4 T-SLIK PLUS when your ordering your IPAC4.


enchntr

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Re:Help planning my 4 player control panel?
« Reply #4 on: August 16, 2004, 04:03:21 pm »
THERE IS NO NEED FOR A 4 WAY ONLY JOYSTICK!!

GET A 8/4 T-SLIK PLUS when your ordering your IPAC4.

I disagree...while there are many out there that will go this route, I wanted to have dedicated 8 ways and a dedicated 4 way.  The 8 ways are Happ Perfect 360s, which are a PITA to change from 4-way to 8-way (and I love the feel of the 360s).  I will also be getting a WICO 4-way leaf for my CP soon.

Yes, it probably clutters up my CP a bit more than I would like, but barring any component based switchable CP, it will work for me...

Ed

See my WIP at:
http://www.poweroftheforce.com/cabinet

jerschwab

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Re:Help planning my 4 player control panel?
« Reply #5 on: August 18, 2004, 03:59:05 am »
That's something I haven't really thought about much... the clutter.  But I wanted to have a ball top joystick on there anyway for Pacman.  

My control panel is 42" wide, hopefully that would be wide enough?  I used and slightly modified the plans for the Ultimate Arcade control panel.  After looking at the layout in the plans, I figured (well, hoped really) that I could get everything I would ever want on there.

I really still don't knwo what I need the Admin buttons for other than PAUSE, ESC, TAB, ENTER, etc.  What about putting these buttons on the front of the control panel, would people bump it when playing?

Thanks!!

Apollo

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Re:Help planning my 4 player control panel?
« Reply #6 on: August 18, 2004, 04:38:03 pm »
I agree, any cab I have built or will build in the future will have a dedicated 4 way probably a MsPac/Galag or a WICO leaf. I can't live without them performance wise.