Looking for part recommendations.

[Alpha17X]

Hi all,  I'm getting set to join forces with my brothers and we're going to make a pacman bartop for our dad for christmas. (He loves him some pacman)  we're basing it on those little mini coleco namco arcade things. Just bigger.  We've got everything planned out, but we want it to have that original and authentic look and feel. The big challenge we're running to is the controls,  we can look at pictures and get the look down just fine, but various joysticks and buttons feel different from one to another.  And there are no pacman machines in our area that we were able to locate and test out in order to figure out the feel for it.

I usually use Happ, but I have no qualms with going els-where if necessary, the feel on this is everything.  Anyone out there have recommendations for the stick and buttons they think 'feels' most like it might have been in a pacman cabinet? There's no huge rush on this, the thing is pretty much done as far as structure goes, it works, but right now we're just using the built in controls.

(we took one of those TV-Pacman things and wired it directly into a WG analog monitor, and through some amp thingy one of my brothers rigged up and some car speakers.  I think they're car speakers. I handled the design, and the aesthetic, they did most of the building and wiring.

I guess I'm getting long winded here.  Hope to hear some advice soon.

[severdhed]

sounds like a cool project.  I have no idea what type of joystick was on an original pacman cabinet, all of the cabinets i have actually played had bat-top happ sticks that weren't even physically restricted 4ways. 

i can tell you that the Ultimarc J-Stik (Sanwa JLW) makes a very nice 4way stick.  i dont know how it compares to the original, but it seems to just feel right.

[thomascirca]

You can always pick up a replacement Pac Man joystick from Happ if that helps:

http://happ.com/joysticks/506084112.htm
http://happ.com/joysticks/5060841125r.htm

They are a bit pricey, but that might be as authentic as you're going to get. I recommend using an old Nintendo joystick- I have one that I use for old games that use 4 way joysticks and if feels great. Just my 2 cents.

[Alpha17X]

I hadn't thought of the nintendo joystick, I'm going to look into that.  I have a room full of spare happ parts, I'll dig through and see if I have any of the ones linked.   Thanks guys.