Control Panel Layout: Opinions Please

[HeadRusch]

Boy...a month and a half ago I was buying a slikstik...NOW look at me

Player 1 and Player 2 identical, everything below = X2.
1 Happs Ultimate
1 Happs fire-button-topped stick
lots of buttons, including the one on top of the 2nd stick.
Oscar Spinner.

Now, this depends on when Andy releases his USB enabled OptiPac, should be he says in a week or two.....this will mean I can run 2 spinners.  Combine that with the button-top sticks and I've got Tron and Ikari warriors type controls without having to spring for the $50 a pop opticals from Happs, which wount' work well as spinners (but will work ok for rotating-stick games).  Strategic placement of buttons around the 2nd fire-top stick or spinner will allow for things like extra button presses that aren't TOO bad when one hand is on the spinner and the other is on the stick.

A trackball will be used but right now I'm just thinking about using a compUSA cheapie instead of a dedicated.  Cheap? Yeah....but my other options are all $100+...and I doubt I'd use a trackball that much.  Crystal castles maybe......Cabal perhaps......but then I'd really need TWO for cabal...ugh.  

anyhow, what do you think...reasonable and should get the job done for most games?  PS: Someone mentioned that Discs of Tron had a spinner that went up and down too...........I dont recall the spinner doing that.....did it POP up and down ie: into the panel, or did it tilt...??

[Sasquatch!]

My standard answer is "make your control panel centered around what's important to YOU".  Definitely make a mock-up to see how everything feels.  Questions like "Are those joysticks or buttons uncomfortable to reach?" can best be answered this way.

In keeping with the "personalization" of the control panel: You say that a trackball isn't that important to you, but I've found it to be VERY important to me.  I used a cheapie CompUSA trackball on my cab and a Happ 3" trackball on my second cab, and the difference was night-and-day.  But again, that's me.

And yes, Discs of Tron has a push/pull spinner.  1UParcade make a hack out of an OSCAR spinner that you might want to check out...

[cdbrown]

You can still run two spinners through the current optipac by using analog +.  Player 1 can use the x- axis and 2 can use the y-axis - no need to wait for the usb version.  That's how I will be having mine.  You can even have two trackballs hooked up through the optipac and get them to work independantly, but it just takes a bit of fiddling around and the right windoze versions (such as 98SE) and the right driver.  But I haven't actually tried it - only been told about it.  

Cheers
-cdbrown

[Tiger-Heli]

A trackball will be used but right now I'm just thinking about using a compUSA cheapie instead of a dedicated.  Cheap? Yeah....but my other options are all $100+...and I doubt I'd use a trackball that much.  Crystal castles maybe......Cabal perhaps......but then I'd really need TWO for cabal...ugh.  

anyhow, what do you think...reasonable and should get the job done for most games?  PS: Someone mentioned that Discs of Tron had a spinner that went up and down too...........I dont recall the spinner doing that.....did it POP up and down ie: into the panel, or did it tilt...??

$25 2-1/4-inch trackball suggestion - http://www.wicothesource.com/new2/pages/page89.htm

DOT spinner was pull up, push down and spring loaded to center.