Need Help Wiring the Escape, Enter, Pause Buttons

[jmike]

 ???Hey all,
      I'm working on my first custom arcade control panel and well I've ran into a little bit of confusion, I noticed some arcades have an ESCAPE, ENTER, PAUSE buttons. (which I would love to do) but I don't really understand how to wire my i-Pac4 and which inputs to use. I've read the description @ ultimarc but it mentions that two inputs are assigned as shift keys to access two code sets. How do I wire these 3 buttons? Any help would be appreciated.

I was smart enough not to drill the holes for these 3 button on my CP until I understand how to wire them.  Thank you.

[TheShanMan]

You could take a couple of different approaches. Wire them up as separate buttons, or use the shift keys to reuse other buttons. I have dedicated escape and pause buttons (wired to their own inputs), but I just reuse my P1 Button1 for enter. I use shifted buttons only for things that are administrative in nature. For instance, I have tab (mame menu) on a shifted button.

Actually now that I reread your post, I guess you have decided on dedicated buttons. In that case, just wire them into your ipac just like any other button - they would get their own input. Shifting is just for re-using existing buttons to send a different keystroke. To illustrate, I have my pause button set as a shift key, and I get into my mame menu (tab) by holding pause and pressing escape.

Does that make sense?

[jmike]

Yes that makes perfect sense. Since it's my first wiring CP I wasn't sure how it worked. I know that on the regular keyboard the "P" key is pause, which input would that be on the i-PAC or would it be programmed later on?


This is the link for my Portabel Control Panel project in case you want to see where I am...

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=83337.0

any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 

[javeryh]

Just wire it separately.  Then when you hit Tab to go to the settings in MAME, change "Pause" to whichever input you wired.  You can still keep it assigned to "P" on the keyboard as well because MAME allows for multiple buttons to be assigned to one action.

[jmike]

  Thanks. That clears things up. I'll go ahead and drill the holes for the extra buttons.

ESCAPE and ENTER can be reprogrammed to these additional button as well, yes?

[javeryh]

Thanks. That clears things up. I'll go ahead and drill the holes for the extra buttons.

ESCAPE and ENTER can be reprogrammed to these additional button as well, yes?

I'm reasonable sure you can program the buttons to do whatever you want (definitely sure about ESC because I did it).  I'm not sure why you would need an 'Enter' button on your CP...

[Martijn]

is it possible to press 3 admin buttons at once for a exit/quit game command?

[u_rebelscum]

is it possible to press 3 admin buttons at once for a exit/quit game command?

Yes.  Over simplified: tab, inputs, go to input you want to change, enter, press all buttons at same time, wait and see if mame likes it.


OP, remember both the ipac can be reprogrammed, and mame can be remapped.

I'm going to go abstract that might help (or might just confuse).

Physical button outputs open/closed signal.  Ipac sees open/closed signal, and when closed sends a (reprogrammable) key to the computer.  Computer sends key code to mame.  Now, each of mame's game inputs and UI inputs are mapped to a (remappable) "seq"; the "seq" is what needs to be pressed for mame to think that input is closed.

So physical buttons can be wired to different things.  The ipac/gpwiz/etc can be reprogrammed to output different things.  Mame can be remapped so different inputs can mean different things.

So that "tab" & "enter" in the oversimplified above don't have to be enter or tab; those are the default seqs for UI Configure and UI Select, respectively.

Example: player1 button 1 is wired to ipac, ipac reprogrammed to output "y" key instead of "left ctrl" because windows hot key issues with ctrl key, mame remapped so player 1 button 1's seq is "y", UI Select is also "y".  This is great for the users of cabs because you don't need and extra 'enter' button, and the p1b1 is used to select in both mame's UI and in (most) game's software set up pages.  (Both the hotrod and x-arcade ctrlr files are set so p1b1 is also mapped to UI Select.)

[jmike]

Thanks. That clears things up. I'll go ahead and drill the holes for the extra buttons.

ESCAPE and ENTER can be reprogrammed to these additional button as well, yes?

I'm reasonable sure you can program the buttons to do whatever you want (definitely sure about ESC because I did it).  I'm not sure why you would need an 'Enter' button on your CP...

  Never done this before, how did you program the ESC button?(I would prefer not to use the keyboard) I went into Mame and figured out how to reprogram the PAUSE but didn't see ESCAPE.
And you're right, I don't need the ENTER button.

Thanks.

[Martijn]

i have 3 dedicated admin buttons, i dont want 1 button to quit the game, because my son will press it likely during a game.

1 shift button
1 tab button and shifted something
1 back button and shifted quit

that possible?

using maximus arcade

[u_rebelscum]

Never done this before, how did you program the ESC button?(I would prefer not to use the keyboard) I went into Mame and figured out how to reprogram the PAUSE but didn't see ESCAPE.
And you're right, I don't need the ENTER button.

If you're remapping mame, I find it easier to look at it backwards:  What does mame call "exit mame"?  It's called "UI Cancel".  Remap "UI Cancel" to whatever you want (the default is the 'esc' key).

If you're reprogramming the encoder (ipac or keywiz), I find it easier to think: "I want the button wired to port abc to send the xyz key" and use the utility to reprogram the abc port to output the xyz key.  (In this case the xyz key is the 'esc' key.)

[jmike]

Thanks for the help guys.  I'll use 2 buttons for ESCAPE and PAUSE.