What button functions do I need?

[kelemvor]

Well, I have an IPAC2 and am making a 2-player cab.  It will only have 1 joystick and 6 buttons for each player.  I know I need a coin/start for each player as well.

The IPAC2 gets 28 inputs total (not counting shift combos).

So, 1 Joy (4) + 6 buttons + 1 start + 1 coin = 12 each or 24 total for 2 players.

This leaves 4 inputs left.  What are the "utility" buttons that I'll need?

I obviously need a way to exit out and navigate the menu so I'd need an Escape key.  It'd be  nice to have  Pause key.

I'm sure I'm missing things that I'm just not thinking of so feel free to chime in with what I'm forgetting.

[quarterback]

This question gets asked a lot, so you might be able to find more comments via searching.  That being said, my cocktail cab has only 3 non-arcade buttons:  Esc (escape), P (pause) and a button to power up my PC.

My upright has pause, escape and "5" (coin up for P1).  These are on a temporary piece of wood that's screwed into my CP.  When I ever finish my cab, I'll probably drop the coin button, or make it hidden somewhere.... In fact, I'll probably hide a pause, escape, power and coin button somewhere on the upright.

Both cabs have keyboards attached to them (or close by) so I can make other adjustments as necessary, but I really wanted to keep the admin buttons to a minimum.

[_) (V) (-)]

What you have planned for is pretty much standard.

The only way to know what is right for you, is to put the cabnet into use and see what your missing. But I think you have all the bases covered.

[javeryh]

I think you are covered.  For the current cab I'm building (mini vertical) I'm going to have 4 small "admin" buttons - Player 1 Start (1), Player 1 Coin (5), Pause (p) and Exit to Frontend (esc).  I'm probably going to add Player 2 Start and Player 2 Coin though - even though it's a standup cab and will be mostly single player (one set of controls so no fighters or anything) I'd like to have the option for 2 player alternating games...

[Oddfeld]

Why not just leave off all the admin buttons and use the shift feature of the IPAC to hit escape, tab etc?

Admin buttons will just clutter the thing up and make it look less authentic.

[kelemvor]

Why not just leave off all the admin buttons and use the shift feature of the IPAC to hit escape, tab etc?

Admin buttons will just clutter the thing up and make it look less authentic.

I thought of that too.  I know I'll have the player 1 & 2 coin/start displayed as is since those you need at a seconds notice sometimes.

As for quit, pause, etc, those I may just have a Shift button somewhere and combine it with the P1/P2 buttons to accomplish the functions.  I guess we'll see when we get to that point.

But I guess that means at minimum I need:
6 P1 buttons
6 P2 buttons
2 Coin buttons
2 Start buttons
1 Shift button

[javeryh]

If you are going to add shift functions think about who is going to be using your cab.  I have the admin buttons on my cab (no shifting except to exit to windows) and every time people come over to play they ask a million questions anyway about how everything works even though I think it's all pretty obvious.  From now on I've decided to make everything as user-friendly as possible.  Of course you might be able to do that with a clearly written instruction card.  Just a thought.

[mvolke1]

The shift key (which is the Player 1 button) also enables the joystick to have some functions. I believe shift and down is pause, etc.

I think you have all you need.

[londonbabe]

Shifted pause and escape is a right pain in the backside.

I put a pause button and an escape button (which I labelled "Menu")

I was considering tab and enter, but left them out in the end, as the functions are not used often and shifted joystick left+right do the job fine.

To avoid accidentally shutting down the cab, on my frontend (Mamewah) I changed the exit and shut down key assignment so that you need to press both escape and pause.

[Thenasty]

on the CP, I only have ESC and HELP buttons.

F2, Reset, TAB are all inside the Coin door.

[kelemvor]

With the IPAC, I can change the Shift button right?  I'd want it to be it's own button to avoid the possibility or accidental game quiting and things like that.