My proposed project with a question for you guy's

[Hornet]

Hi I am thinking of building a Williams 1981 ms pac-man cabinet for some of the old school games from that period. I think gameex is undoubtedly the FE I will use with Mame, but as we all know the Control Panel is small on this cabinet. My question is can I use a multi-function joystick to control the on screen pointer to navigate Gameex or would I need a trackball?

I don't really want to use a trackball so if I can't use the multi-function joystick, then to save space I was thinking of placing a touch pad, (see photo below) to the side of the cabinet as I don't need a trackball for the games I play. Any suggestions or help with this would be appreciated.

Darron   



My designed proposal of the cabinet I will build is this below

[GAtekwriter]

I can't answer your tech question, but I like your cabinet design. 

Jim

[Kaytrim]

Yes you can.  I have a 49-way stick and GPWiz49  encoder in my cab with GameEx.  I can move around the FE with the stick and player one buttons.  There is an option in GameEx that will take input from a gamepad/joystick.  The GPWiz49 encoder is from Groovy Game Gear and is recognized as a gamepad in Windows.

TTFN
Kaytrim

[Hornet]

Thanks Jim for your kind words.

Kaytrim

I was planning on using this joystick http://www.arcadeshop.de/Joysticks-2/4/8-way-Joystick-black_422.html and the I-PAC 2 encoder. Would I still be able to navigate with this do you think? Thanks for your help so far.

Darron 

[Kaytrim]

I believe so.  You can program GameEx to recognize any input from a keyboard for navigation as well.  Seeing that the iPac is a keyboard encoder you should be good to go.  Though personally I would recommend going with GGG (link) for your encoder.  The KeyWiz or the GPWiz will do you just fine as well.  The GPWiz is seen as a USB gamepad and the KeyWiz is a PS/2 keyboard.

Good luck with your build and keep us posted with pics as you go along.
Kaytrim

[Hornet]

Thank you for your help Kaytrim, I will keep you all posted with photo's. I hope to start building this cabinet before the end of Summer as I'm twitching from excitement. Unfortunately my work load at present may hinder that. 

At least, for the time being I can do some further research and sound planing. 

[clanggedin]

Design looks good, but Midway made Ms. Pac-Man not Williams.

[ChadTower]

Design looks good, but Midway made Ms. Pac-Man not Williams.

Wow.  It took a LOT longer for someone to correct that than I thought when he first posted it.   

[shardian]

Go to the control panel in windows, click on accesibility options, click on the mouse tab, check the box to enable "mousekeys". Adjust settings as necessary.

You can always use the IPAC to set up a dedicated button to toggle on and off "mousekeys".

[Hornet]

shardian thanks for the tip on how to activate mousekeys. I will give it a go.

Hey guy's your right and thanks for the correction, Midway did indeed make Ms. Pac-Man and not Williams.