Hacking/modding HotRod controller?

[quarterback]

I first started MAMEing on my home PC years and years ago, but never had the money and personal stability to put together a dedicated Cabinet.

So now that I've got a house, I've decided that a full sized- cabinet is in my near future.  I'm still torn on where I'll end up, however.  I really don't have the time/skill/tools/space to build a cab, but I can't see paying $1000 for one of these kits that places sell.

SO, until I can find a cabinet in my local area to purchase/pick up, I'm thinking about just buying the HotRod control panel.  It's "only" $100 and will at LEAST get me out of the completely inadequate world of keyboard-only-controls.

My question is this.  How much of the HotRod could I then re-use when I put together my full cab?  I'm ASSuming that I could pull/use all the buttons and joysticks, but what about the keyboard encoder?  Could I add anything to it?  More buttons?  A trackball?  Spinner?  Or would I have to replace it with something else?

Thanks

[Minwah]

You could use everything from the HotRod: buttons, joysticks and encoder.  You can add extra buttons to the encoder, check out my how-to: http://mamewah.mameworld.net/hotrodmod.html

You would need an optical interface for trackball/spinner, eg an Opti-pac or Oscars pre-hacked mouse.

[quarterback]

You can add extra buttons to the encoder, check out my how-to: http://mamewah.mameworld.net/hotrodmod.html

Beautiful! Thanks for the info.  That's what I wanted to know.

I've got a couple other questions re: the HotRod.
I realize the joysticks are 8-way so games like PacMan and Donkey Kong won't play as well as they would with a 4-way, but there's a comment on RetroBlast that says they "can be switched from 8-way to 4-way operation by flipping over the actuator in the joystick."

Does doing that really give you 4-way action or are the sticks still not really suited for 4-way games?    

And how tough would it be to swtich out one of the sticks with a 4-way?

[deadmoney5]

Flipping over the actuator to get 4-way doesn't do you any good within Mame..you can still PHYSICALLY move to the diagional, which is what matters in 4-way games...

you might as well just leave it in 8-way mode and get by until you get an actual 4-way dedicated joy or the T-stik plus which switches on the fly

[quarterback]

Flipping over the actuator to get 4-way doesn't do you any good within Mame..you can still PHYSICALLY move to the diagional, which is what matters in 4-way games...

you might as well just leave it in 8-way mode and get by until you get an actual 4-way dedicated joy or the T-stik plus which switches on the fly

Thanks.  I was looking at the T-stick plus and will probably just grab 2 of them so the dual-joystick-games will have a matched 'feel' on both sticks.

Thanks again.

[Tiger-Heli]

Does doing that really give you 4-way action or are the sticks still not really suited for 4-way games?    
And how tough would it be to swtich out one of the sticks with a 4-way?

What deadmoney said . . .

There is also the OmniStik prodigy from www.groovygamegear.com which is 4/8 way switchable from above the panel.

[StephenH]

The HotRod controller is good.  You can build a cab, and in fact even mount it into the cab if you wanted to.   Additionally, there is a way to switch the joysticks to 4-way if needed, although I did not find it hard to play pac-man in the 8-way mode!

As for trackballs, spinners, and the like, you need to buy those separately.  There is however, interfaces that can make a trackball act as a mouse input, and a spinner as a mouse axis, game port axis, or USB game control axis.