Odyssey 2 Control Panel Design Help

[moonchilddave]

Ok, I'm in the middle of building a mame cabinet, and apart from mame, I'm also going to be running O2EM on it as well - as it brings back a lot of memories as it was the first console I ever had as a kid.  Of course, in otder to emulate the console as closely as possible on the cabinet - I want to design a control panel just for this console.  What I plan on doing is picking up a spare O2 and carefully canablizing it.  I'm including an image of what I kind of have in mind for the control panel (just a rough draft image).  But basically it includes the full O2 keyboard, and a spot for both controllers (recessed and removable to the length of the cord - so they can be played in the control panel or removed and held in hand).

Now, forgive as I'm fairly new at this all - and I've been over to the wiki and looked at all the different keyboard encoders and such, and I'm still kind of at a loss as to which direction to proceed and what exactly else I will need to get both the keyboard and joysticks interfaced to the PC.  Anyone offer a little advice on how I might accomplish this?

[DaveMMR]

Depending on which joystick you choose, you can attach and encoder and a keyboard at the same time.  It's literally as simple as hooking it up and plugging it in.  Older encoders based on PS/2 connections had pass-through connections, while the newer ones are USB based.  Check out goovygamegear.com and ultimarc.com for different encoder choices for more in-depth descriptions of the different types of encoders.

[moonchilddave]

Ok, I think I got it now.  So say that the keyboard has a ribbon cable with 16 connections, and each joystick has 6 wires, plus an admin escape key.  I'd need an encoder that could handle 29 inputs?  Then it would just be a matter of programming the encoder?  I was looking at the different ones listed here: http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Keyboard_Encoders

I was originally thinking I'd need something with 60 inputs - the O2 keyboard is a 49 key keyboard (49 inputs), plus 2 four way joysticks each with a fire button (10 inputs), and an escape key to exit the emulator.  Am I wrong in this thinking?  If not, it looks like the Hagstom KE72 will do what I need.  If I was wrong, it looks like I have a lot more choices.

BTW, I know the O2 joysticks are 6 wires each (up, down, left right, fire, and common), but I'm unsure at the moment how many connections are on the membrane keyboard (looking at the schematic it looks like it's 16 connections).

I guess what I'm trying to figure out is do I go by how many connections I need (29) - or do I go by how many keys I'd need (60)?

[moonchilddave]

Actually, in going by the schematics - if I go by the number of connections needed, I'm thinking I only need 17.

10 for both joysticks
6 for the keyboard (since it appears as if only 6 out of the 16 connections go to a decoder, the rest go to an encoder).
1 for the escape key