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Bartop Control Panel - Opinions needed.
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pointdablame:
Yup, it's another CP thread... sorry guys.  I am having a lot of trouble finalizing my CP for my bartop.  I keep bouncing between different layouts, and can really use some constructive criticism.

The CP is 18" wide by 12"  I think I made the CP a bit bigger than it should have been, but it's too late to worry about that :).  I just fear turing this into a bartop sized frankenpanel.  I originally was going to have an 8 way, button layout, and spinner.  That was it, with the addition of the P1 start, coin, pause, and exit buttons.  That left a lot of open space on the CP and it just doesnt look good IMO.  I also considered using shift functions for pause and exit, but again, the panel looked very bare.  

Below are the 2 designs I'm debating on with "all" the controls I'm considering.  I'm gonna try to get a pic of the bare panel, but basically it is (from left to right) Joystick, buttons, spinner.  You can probably get a good mental idea of how much space would be left.

I need to mock this up with controls and see what feels better, but before I even go that far, I want some opinions.  I also thought about panels that included dual joys and no trackball, but didn't feel that the dual joys were worth it.  I also considered a 6 button and 4 button layout, but considering I had the room and spare buttons, I thought I might as well use the 7 button layout.

Basically, let me know what you are thining once you see these layouts... am I an idiot for trying to put that many controls on a panel this size?  Everytime I look at it, I seem to bounce from "hey, that looks pretty good" to "what the hell am I thinking" so you guys get to be the tiebreakers :)

NOTE: the big square is a 2 1/4" trackball just incase someone wasn't 100% sure.
Gunstar Hero:
Option B looks pretty good.
pointdablame:
Here's a quick, TERRIBLE photoshop of the original panel idea since I won't actually be home to get a pic til Friday.
Xiaou2:

 If you made the monitor section spinable... (but with a limiter so that only 359  degrees possible as not to break cords)... you could then make 4 or more control panels for a single unit.
 
paigeoliver:
I'd go with the original idea myself. Trackball on a bartop might be hard to deal with.
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