GaryMcT's 2-player generic control panel layout

[GaryMcT]

I'm working on the layout for a 24 7/16" x 8" control panel.  What do you think?  The buttons above the joysticks are player 1 and 2 start.  I may add some small admin buttons. . not sure about that yet.  The line at the top is the limit of where I can physically place things.  The joystick space is for a JLW or U360:

[Ginsu Victim]

Terrible placement of the start buttons. Move them up and to the right, between stick and the buttons.

[javeryh]

Terrible placement of the start buttons. Move them up and to the right, between stick and the buttons.

+1.  I'd remove them from the CP completely.  There isn't enough room.  You could relocate them to the front of the CP or better yet on a strip of wood right below the monitor.  Knievel's cabs all have an admin panel and it looks and works great.  Also, Player 2's wrist will be resting on the 7th and 8th buttons of Player 1.  With that tight of a space I'd do 6 buttons per player MAX.   As always, mock it up with cardboard first to see how it will play.

[GaryMcT]

Terrible placement of the start buttons. Move them up and to the right, between stick and the buttons.

Cool, I'll give that a shot.

[Ginsu Victim]

Also, Player 2's wrist will be resting on the 7th and 8th buttons of Player 1

I disagree. Are you only looking at the mounting plate? The distance from the buttons to the stick itself seems okay.

Though I would rotate the plates 90° and move the stick closer to each player's buttons.

[GaryMcT]

Terrible placement of the start buttons. Move them up and to the right, between stick and the buttons.

+1.  I'd remove them from the CP completely.  There isn't enough room.  You could relocate them to the front of the CP or better yet on a strip of wood right below the monitor.  Knievel's cabs all have an admin panel and it looks and works great.  Also, Player 2's wrist will be resting on the 7th and 8th buttons of Player 1.  With that tight of a space I'd do 6 buttons per player MAX.   As always, mock it up with cardboard first to see how it will play.

I don't want to mod the cab that this is going in at all, so everything has to be on the control panel.

Good point with player two's hand hitting player one's buttons!  I can either move the buttons left a button position with the assumption that the leftmost column of buttons wouldn't get used too often, and possibly go down to 7 buttons.  I'd like to be able to support the Neo Geo layout on the bottom row and any old console games that require more than six buttons.

As for admin buttons, the most I'd ever want to have is pause and exit.  I really don't like seeing extra buttons that aren't on arcade games on control panels, but they are possibly okay if they are tiny buttons.

I'm planning on doing a cardboard mockup. . . trying to plan ahead before my controls show up.

Thanks!
Gary

[GaryMcT]

Also, Player 2's wrist will be resting on the 7th and 8th buttons of Player 1

I disagree. Are you only looking at the mounting plate? The distance from the buttons to the stick itself seems okay.

Though I would rotate the plates 90° and move the stick closer to each player's buttons.

On second thought, I think you are right Ginsu.  It looks like there is just enough space for the hands to not hit each other.  I can move the buttons a bit closer to the sticks though to be sure (until I can actually test it!)

Would rotating the plates buy me anything?  The sticks are going to be flush mounted and there is plenty of space between the mounting plate and the buttons I think.

[Ginsu Victim]

Would rotating the plates buy me anything?

Well, it would give more room to move the buttons closer to the stick. I have mine mounted that way and it's comfy. I only have a 23 5/8" wide control panel, so I needed to squeeze everything in.

[GaryMcT]

Would rotating the plates buy me anything?

Well, it would give more room to move the buttons closer to the stick. I have mine mounted that way and it's comfy. I only have a 23 5/8" wide control panel, so I needed to squeeze everything in.

Do you have drawings/shots of your control panel somewhere?

[GaryMcT]

Here's another iteration.  The buttons are 9/16" closer to the sticks.  The player start buttons are exactly between the center of the joystick and the leftmost button now on the X axis.  Without the joystick plate, they'll look more appropriately place I think.  Whadya think?

[Ginsu Victim]

Do you have drawings/shots of your control panel somewhere?

Well, the one that I did that way no longer exists. It was a swappable panel for my cab and I messed it up (drilled the button holes too close to each other).

This is my current CP. I need an updated pic, since the buttons are now multi-colored, and as you can see, these are not as close as I described (because this is the first CP I did, before the swappable one I trashed...)



In reply to your new mock-up, I like it.

[GaryMcT]

I'll print it out to scale and bring it into work since there are some hard code game-playing ergo freaks at work.

Thanks!

[Beretta]

just my 2 cents.

1. unless you really want to if thats all the space you have consider scaling it back to 6 buttons.

2. move the start button, perhaps as high up as possible but inline with the first row of buttons.

[Ginsu Victim]

2. move the start button, perhaps as high up as possible but inline with the first row of buttons.

Like my picture above.

[GaryMcT]

I ordered some of these for admin buttons.  Planning on having:

pause
exit
coin 1
coin 2

(Coin really isn't an admin button really, but you certainly don't see it on arcade machines. )

[GaryMcT]

just my 2 cents.

1. unless you really want to if thats all the space you have consider scaling it back to 6 buttons.

2. move the start button, perhaps as high up as possible but inline with the first row of buttons.

OK, I'll move the start button and do a pass on placing the admin buttons tonight and post another iteration.

I'm not sure about scaling the buttons back yet.  It does look a bit cluttered, but they aren't in the way if you aren't using them at least.  I may defer that decision until after actually playing it in cardboard.

Thanks!
Gary

[Beretta]

this is a personal preference but you only need 1 admin button.

make make controls admin_button+something else..

example instead of having a button just to drop coins why not do this:

admin+1p joy stick down = coin drop 1
admin+2p joy stick down = coin drop 2
admin+1p joy stick left or right = pause
admin+1p start+2p start = exit
i'd also add a way to get into mames menu for input/dip switch control..

perhaps admin+1p joy stick up = mame on screen menu.

again this is personal preference, but this way you save cp space, time making holes, and money buying buttons.

a word about the mame menu though others will be able to get into it and mess with your settings.. so you may instead want to put it as a dedicated button accessed though the coin door.

2. move the start button, perhaps as high up as possible but inline with the first row of buttons.

Like my picture above.

ya.

[bkenobi]

Sounds complicated to explain that to a guest.  I just put Pause and Exit buttons on.  You must either have a Start button or map it to P1B1/P2B1.  As for coin, I added them.  I could have used the coin door, but didn't.  I did it that way on my second cab because I didn't want to mod an original and good condition Championship Sprint CP.

Like you said, it's personal preference.   

[Ginsu Victim]

Sounds complicated to explain that to a guest.

Exactly what I was going to say, and the answer is not instruction cards because THEY DON'T READ THEM!

[Beretta]

not really pause imo really should'nt be used, i dont even plan on having it as a option on mine.

you're left with (possibly a mame neu)

2 coin drop combos, and exit..

simple tell guest hold this button, press 1st and 2nd player start to exit.

for coin hold this button (make sure you point since the guest must be brain dead), and press down on the joy stick.

is it really that complicated?


or if you're afriad your guest at to stupid even for that you can tell mame that the start button is also coin drop.

then all they gotta do is hit the start button (sometimes twice)

[Ginsu Victim]

One of my regular guests has Down's syndrome.

[GaryMcT]

I really hate extra buttons, but I'm okay with it if you can get tiny buttons that don't look like arcade buttons.  That's how I'm justifying it to myself.
 

[Ginsu Victim]

I've hidden most of my admin buttons. I have a few shifted, but they are mostly buttons hidden inside the coin door, beneath the CP, or on top of the cab.

The more shifted buttons you have, the more problems you'll run into. They always find a way to trigger at the wrong time.

[bkenobi]

I don't use pause that often, but I thought I would which is why it's there.  I do find it very convenient being able to hit pause to respond to my wife rather than getting smacked over the head 

[Ginsu Victim]

I like pause because on console emulators I use it for SELECT.

[mytymaus007]

DECENT LAYOUT OVERALL GREAT FIGHTER LAYOUT  i DONT SEE TRUE ASTEROIDS AND DEFENDER LAYOUT OR A ORIGINAL PACMAN MIDWAY LEAF SWITCH 4 WAY BUT ILL GIVE YOU 7 OUT OF 10

[GaryMcT]

DECENT LAYOUT OVERALL GREAT FIGHTER LAYOUT  i DONT SEE TRUE ASTEROIDS AND DEFENDER LAYOUT OR A ORIGINAL PACMAN MIDWAY LEAF SWITCH 4 WAY BUT ILL GIVE YOU 7 OUT OF 10

I have a dedicated Defender panel, and Pacman will be covered by a vertical machine (this is the horizontal one).

[GaryMcT]

Another revision.  I decided to move all of the playable controls up as high as possible to get plenty of palm space.  Everything else is in the middle as tiny buttons, including player 1 and 2 start.  I'm not sure how many buttons there will be in the middle yet, but this is the general idea of what I'm thinking right now:

[bkenobi]

If you are going to use those small buttons, perhaps you could center them between the P1 right buttons and the P2 stick more?  I suppose that might require rotating the base for at least the P2 stick (as someone else already suggested).  I'm just guessing, but your buttons are P1/P2 start and coin, Pause, quit?

Btw, if you do try moving the center row of buttons to the right, make sure they aren't too close to the stick so the get mashed during game play.  You'd probably have to mock it up to determine if that's a problem though.

[GaryMcT]

If you are going to use those small buttons, perhaps you could center them between the P1 right buttons and the P2 stick more?  I suppose that might require rotating the base for at least the P2 stick (as someone else already suggested).  I'm just guessing, but your buttons are P1/P2 start and coin, Pause, quit?

Btw, if you do try moving the center row of buttons to the right, make sure they aren't too close to the stick so the get mashed during game play.  You'd probably have to mock it up to determine if that's a problem though.

Good point.  I'll have to look at it with the boxes removed from around the joystick since it shouldn't be visible.

If I end up hitting the little buttons with the player 2 joystick hand, I can move the joystick closer to the buttons on both.

[Beretta]

One of my regular guests has Down's syndrome.

sorry i meant no disrespect, just seems like holding a button and moving the joystick in one direction is'nt to hard to master, saves time,money,space on the CP

[Ginsu Victim]

One of my regular guests has Down's syndrome.

sorry i meant no disrespect, just seems like holding a button and moving the joystick in one direction is'nt to hard to master, saves time,money,space on the CP

I didn't take offense. I was just pointing out my situation. I might build him his own cab in the near future and I have to make it as handicap-friendly as possible, meaning everything will need to be easy to understand and the frontend will need to be simple to navigate. Luckily, he understands how to move through Mamewah fairly well and is pretty good at video games (I know he beat Resident Evil 2 on the normal difficulty setting, and when he was over here, he beat X-Men on only a handful of credits).

Another revision.  I decided to move all of the playable controls up as high as possible to get plenty of palm space.  Everything else is in the middle as tiny buttons, including player 1 and 2 start.  I'm not sure how many buttons there will be in the middle yet, but this is the general idea of what I'm thinking right now:

I think you might've went too high. I know it's only an 8" distance you're working in, but maybe bring the player controls down an inch, bring back the full size buttons for the player starts, and line the admin buttons along the top. Here's a quick mockup:

[Bender]

Personally I'd go with 7 button layout, and use a shift function for the other admin functions (6 is way to many buttons even if they are small)
I think Ginsu is getting close, here is my slight tweak of his tweak

[Ginsu Victim]

Yeah, I'm not a fan of even that many admin buttons, but it seems to be what he wants, so I just tweaked them slightly.

[evitagen]

I put the admin buttons (besides start and insert coin) on the side of the CP on Player 1's side.  That way it you'll never have to worry about them getting in your way, and only Player 1 has access to them.

[GaryMcT]

Here's another iteration:



I went down to 7 buttons and moved the 7th button down a bit because seems more ergonomic, gives more space above, AND it looks better for it to be a curve.

I rotated the joystick mount to give some space for the player start buttons.  The guideline at the top is as high as I can physically go on this control panel.  I'm a bit worried about the player 1 joystick being too close to the edge of the cab, but playtesting will prove that out.

I'm going with Bender-ish "enter", "exit", and "pause" for the admin buttons in the middle.

I don't yet know where to put a coin button or two.  I suppose I could put a small button next to the player start button on each side.  Ideas?

[Ginsu Victim]

It looks like your buttons got further away from the stick. You're gonna need all the elbow room you can get with that small of a panel, so you might want to move the buttons closer.

As for coin buttons....

Maybe I missed this somewhere, but is this going on a cabinet, bartop, or stand-alone control panel? If it's a cabinet, is there a coin door?

Also, you mentioned getting too close to the left edge with the joystick, but if you look at my photo from above, you can see mine is fairly close and I can assure you it's quite comfy.

[Bender]

ginsu's got it

move the sticks a little to the right and wire the coin returns for the credit button (I don't think you want any more buttons on a 2 Player CP that small)

[GaryMcT]

OK, so move the joysticks to the right a bit, and move the player starts right accordingly so that they are centered between the joystick and the "button 7"?

I'll look into wiring the coin returns, but I'm trying really hard to not do any mods to this machine.  This is going in a Defender machine that I want to be able to go back to being a Defender machine at any point by just swapping some connectors.  I built an adapter to make the Defender control panel plug into an iPac so that I didn't have to mod anything.  I'm at the point now where I can play Defender and Stargate (player 2 start is inviso) on the machine using Mame and easily swap back to playing the PCB Defender.  The next step is to build this fairly generic control panel that I can swap in with Mame.

[Ginsu Victim]

Well, Bender and I have two different ideas here. I meant leave the sticks where they are and move the buttons left.

As for the coin door, there's no mods being done if you just change the wiring. It's just simple disconnects. Pull the Defender wires off and plug the new ones in.