Trackball and Spinner buttons

[LeedsFan]

I'm currently planning my control panel for my first MAME cab. It's a two player upright cab which is to incorporate a trackball and spinner. I want the trackball to act as a mouse when in Windows mode. So obviously I'm gonna need at least 2 buttons for this.

But my query relates to some of the games in MAME that use spinner or trackball. Are there any such games that need more than two buttons? And when I set this up (I'll be using Ultimarc Opti-Pac) will these two buttons work for BOTH trackball and spinner? Space is tight and I want to keep the number of buttons down to the minimum required, but at the same time be able to play as many games in MAME as possible. (Though I appreciate there are always going to be a few that I can't play)

[NoOne=NBA=]

You need 4 buttons for Star Trek, and 3 for many others.

[whammoed]

You can wire buttons hooked up to your keyboard encoder( you are probably using an ipac, right?) to the optipac too.  So player One buttons 1 and 2 can also be mouse buttons one and two ( or player one and two start can be mouse buttons as well, etc, etc).  Also remember you don't have to use mouse buttons for the action buttons just because it is a trackball game...you can use the buttons hooked up to the ipac at the same time.

[johnnysmitch]

Personally, I've got my trackball/spinner buttons wired up as mouse buttons (left, middle, right).  This way, I can use my trackball to navigate windows when I need to.  So far, I haven't run into many games that use more than 2 buttons along with the trackball... I think missle command does, and i'm pretty sure the golden tee uses more as well.  Using the buttons with both the trackball and spinner should be no problem at all.  And remeber, if your panel is laid out well, you shouldn't have any trouble sharing buttons with the joysticks on games that require more anyways.  Good luck!

[LeedsFan]

You can wire buttons hooked up to your keyboard encoder( you are probably using an ipac, right?) to the optipac too.  So player One buttons 1 and 2 can also be mouse buttons one and two ( or player one and two start can be mouse buttons as well, etc, etc).  Also remember you don't have to use mouse buttons for the action buttons just because it is a trackball game...you can use the buttons hooked up to the ipac at the same time.

Actually no.... I'm not using an I-Pac. I got in touch with Andy at Ultimarc and he advised me to use a J-Pac only for my two player cab. I'm converting an existing Jamma cab, not building one from scratch.  So he advised that the J-Pac alone would have enough inputs (3 or possibly 4 from the Jamma loom, plus 4 more on the J-Pac itself) plus it will run my arcade monitor with ArcadeVGA cable.

But I see your point.... I can still wire up the Player 1 action buttons to two (or three) other buttons for the trackball and spinner. That sounds fine.... but will those buttons still work in mouse mode for Windows? I'm using USB versions of J-Pac and Opti-Pac.

[whammoed]

but will those buttons still work in mouse mode for Windows? I'm using USB versions of J-Pac and Opti-Pac.

Yep