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5 joys, 2 spinners, 1 trackball. What encoder(s)?
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unclet:
You pretty much described my 4-player control panel exactly .....   

http://unclet.arcadecontrols.com/DadsArcade/DadsArcadeMain.html

I use the Hagstrom KE72 encoder ..... it lets you do tons of key mappings so you can very easily configure many other emulators as well.  The KE-72T model allows you to connect a trackball.    To connect my two spinners, I used simply hacked a couple of USB mice and connected them to a USB Hub.

If you are making a 4-player control you intend to keep around for a while, you might decide to also add pinball left/right flipper buttons and plunger button perhaps .....   maybe even some left/right/front nudge buttons as well .....
Tiger-Heli:

--- Quote from: unclet on April 24, 2007, 09:30:37 am ---I use the Hagstrom KE72 encoder ..... it lets you do tons of key mappings so you can very easily configure many other emulators as well.  The KE-72T model allows you to connect a trackball. 

--- End quote ---
That will work fine as well.
mimic:

--- Quote from: Fozzy The Bear on April 24, 2007, 07:07:25 am ---
Not sure why you need 5 sticks though....You are clearly building a 4 player panel. 
--- End quote ---

Actually main purpose is to be 2 player 2 joystick setup. For games like smash tv or tank type of games (that's why 2 of them will have top fire.) I figured if I'm gonna have 4 joysticks total, why not be able to use them as 4 players as well. There might be some shoulder rubbing involved, but that remains to be seen.
5th joy will be dedicated to only 4 way.


--- Quote from: Tiger-Heli on April 24, 2007, 08:37:23 am ---No 4-player arcade games use more than 4-buttons. 

--- End quote ---

Actually I went through pictures of all panels in mame and I noticed at least 1 4-player, 5 button game.

--- Quote from: leapinlew on April 24, 2007, 12:32:40 am ---
--- Quote from: mimic on April 23, 2007, 11:02:19 pm ---oh and about 37-40 pushbuttons, (about 6 or more will not be used at the same time)

--- End quote ---

What?

--- End quote ---

Here is my setup that I plan
1joy + 7 pbs, 2nd joy with topfire + 4 pbs + player 2 same as player one = 24 pbs!
4-way joy + 5 separate pbs in the same line as trackball to allow for games like Defender, asteroids & missle command to be played on the same line (and any similar & 4-way games) = 5 pbs
2 pbs for 2 spinners each = 4 pbs
2 pbs for pinball
2 pbs for pl1 & pl2 (I figured since 4 player will be occassional I'll start that off the keyboard)
3 more or less designated for admin function (pause, esc etc) (or not)
--- Quote from: Tiger-Heli on April 24, 2007, 08:37:23 am ---
Use can use shift functions for the admin buttons and not have buttons on your CP and not need as many inputs.



--- End quote ---

TOTAL 37 (40 or so with dedicated admin, but most likely I'll use Tiger-Heli advice)

Of course I would love to shove couple of rotary sticks for ultimate in franken panels  ;) But I just can't figure out where to stick it! (although I'm thinking of at least one on the other side of the trackball, but not yet)

Thanks everybody for the input!
I guess I'll go with ps/2 encoders, just in case.

Btw any input regarding light guns?
Tiger-Heli:

--- Quote from: mimic on April 24, 2007, 11:54:31 am ---Actually I went through pictures of all panels in mame and I noticed at least 1 4-player, 5 button game.
--- End quote ---
I would like to know which one.  The only ones I know of are the D&D games which are 4 buttons each.

--- Quote ---Here is my setup that I plan
1joy + 7 pbs, 2nd joy with topfire + 4 pbs + player 2 same as player one = 24 pbs!
4-way joy + 5 separate pbs in the same line as trackball to allow for games like Defender, asteroids & missle command to be played on the same line (and any similar & 4-way games) = 5 pbs
2 pbs for 2 spinners each = 4 pbs
2 pbs for pinball
2 pbs for pl1 & pl2 (I figured since 4 player will be occassional I'll start that off the keyboard)
3 more or less designated for admin function (pause, esc etc) (or not)
TOTAL 37 (40 or so with dedicated admin, but most likely I'll use Tiger-Heli advice)
--- End quote ---

Your math is way off somewhere, but I figure at the most conservative, you are looking at a 40-input panel.

The joysticks are 16 inputs, the left buttons are 14, the right are 8, the topfires are 2, so that is 44 inputs right there - not counting coin, start, esc, pause, etc.

You could combine buttons to only use 6 buttons for the left stick (with a repeated input for the 7th button), the top-fire could be shared with one of the right stick buttons.  The tb and spinner buttons can be shared.

If you can settle for only playing 3-button games with 4-players, you could make this work with a KeyWiz Eco, but it would take a LOT of compromise: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=21870.msg177854#msg177854

--- Quote ---Btw any input regarding light guns?

--- End quote ---
MAME is supposed to allow you to map a mouse to button inputs, since you can map lightguns to mouse inputs, I suppose it would work, but I haven't gotten the mouse to button inputs part to work myself.
mimic:
I was just counting push buttons in that post because it looked like leapinlew was shocked as to the amount of pushbuttons
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