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| mperemsky:
I am making a 2 person control panel that I want to be friendly to my 8 and 7 year old sons. Meaning I would prefer to have pause, quit buttons that did not require shift keys. Admin Buttons: Enter, Pause, Menu, Escape 1-player coin, 1-player start 2-player coin, 2-player start Joysticks and button layout: I was thinking of using 2 Mag-Stik Plus joysticks from Ultimarc as those allow you to switch from 4 to 8 way without having to take anything apart. As far as button layouts for the joysticks I was thinking of 8 buttons for each joystick. For some reason I thought that there were some fighting games that had 8 buttons. I looked through MOST of the CPs that people have put together and did not really see any that had more than 7 buttons with a joystick. Am I mistaken in there being games with 8 buttons? Trackball and button layout: I was going to go with the 3" usb trackball (from Happ)? Instead of having dedicated buttons for the trackball I was thinking of using the player 1 buttons. I do not remember any games other than Missile command that used a trackball and up to 3 buttons, so using either the 8 button setup I originally planned or the 7 button setup I see other using (if that is recommended) should work equally well for this. Spinner and button layout: As suggested to me by dm, I am thinking of going with the umtimarc spintrak usb. I am not 100% certain as to the best use of buttons with the spinner. I am thinking that I should use dedicated buttons, but am not sure how many buttons I would need for this. I am thinking of 2. I can only think of Tempest which uses 2 buttons, the fire button and the zap button. Are there other games which use a spinner and more than 2 buttons? Active buttons: From what I have been reading, I (think) the most active buttons I would have during any 1 game with this setup is (8 for the 8-way joystick + 8 for the 8 buttons associated with the joystick (7 if this gets reduced) + 2 for coin and start) * 2 + 4 admin buttons. For a grand total of (8 + 8 + 2) * 2 = 36 + 4 = 40. Is my calculation correct? If so, what kind of controller IPac-2(?) would I need for this type of setup? I want to be able to use a USB connection to connect this to my computer. Last question. I was kind of confused; if I plug in the CP to a USB port can I leave the keyboard plugged in too or will the computer get "confused". It seems to me as long as only one input device (CP or keyboard) was being used (even though both are plugged in) it should be fine. A start at the CP looks like the following (reduced to 7 buttons on joysticks) I look forward to your feedback, tax refund is coming soon and I need to spend at least some of it on something fun instead of just dumping it ALL on the credit card bill. :-) |
| Jdurg:
The pass-thru features of the I-Pac have you plug the keyboard into the I-Pac and the I-Pac connects like a normal keyboard would. So when you build your CP, I would suggest figuring out a way to have a keyboard plug connector at the back of the CP. (If you are going by the PS/2 connection method). Your calculations for the buttons are a bit off. 8-way joysticks only have 4 inputs. Up, Down, Left, and Right. The other four directions are determined by combinations of the four basic inputs. Up-Right is actually two inputs being pressed at the same time by the bottom of the joystick. (Up and Right). The difference between the four way and eight way sticks is that a four way stick won't recognize two inputs being pressed at the same time. A true four-way stick has a restrictor which prevents two inputs from being pressed at the same time. 8-ways that act as a four-way joystick are just ignoring the diagonals, but you can still physically move the joystick in that direction. So for your panel you would need 32 unique inputs which means you would have to get the I-Pac4 since the I-Pac2 only has room for 28 inputs. |
| javeryh:
A couple of comments: IMO, the only joysticks that are friendly to use for people other than the builder (and especially kids) are the ones you can program like the U360. No 7 year old is going to be able to switch from Pac-Man to Street Fighter and also switch the joystick from 4-way to 8-way. That's my experience anyway - I have switchable joys on one of my cabs and every time people are playing it whether it is kids or friends every single game gets played in 8-way mode because they don't know or care. I need to overhaul it. I'm not sure why you need "menu" or "enter" buttons. The top row could be laid out a little better I think - something more symmetrical and pleasing to the eye. Also, your spinner buttons seem to be very far apart (and I think the other action buttons are too but that's a personal preference). Some people put 8 buttons on a CP for console emulation. If you are going to use MAME only then 6 is plenty - the 7th is for the "proper" neo-geo layout but it isn't necessary. Also, an 8 way joystick doesn't have 8 switches - when you move into the diagonals two switches get pressed simultaneously. 2 buttons for the spinner is enough (I think - I wouldn't add any more. Check maws for the list of spinner games that use more than 2). Good luck and post a lot of pictures when you get started! :cheers: |
| Fozzy The Bear:
--- Quote from: Jdurg on February 29, 2008, 10:29:48 am ---So for your panel you would need 32 unique inputs which means you would have to get the I-Pac4 since the I-Pac2 only has room for 28 inputs. --- End quote --- If he needs 32 inputs then the Keywiz provides that without the extra expense and additional unnessesary inputs of the Ipac4. Check out www.groovygamegear.com Keywiz MAX 1.5 offers exactly what he needs including a keyboard socket. Another thing to avoid is a key encoder that uses USB as this limits the number of simultanious keystrokes that are allowed. Best Regards, Julian (Fozzy The Bear) |
| CrazyKongFan:
Maybe it's me, but I don't consider player start buttons to be admin...they're they're on original machines and it's kinda hard to play without them ;) That being said, I only recently got my cabinet going, and I included 3 separate admin buttons on the panel, ESC, TAB and P. It's so much easier going thru and tweaking things having ESC and TAB readily available, and of course, P (pause) is really nice to have. I also have a reset and service button, but I located them in the proper location, on the little bracket inside the coin door. I've also got the coin mechs wired up (although only one works by dropping coins in, I need the plastic mech on the other one), but did utilize a couple of old security bolt holes by the coin door to press in a couple of Radio Shack push buttons to do coin 1 and 2. They certainly weren't required though. |
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