Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: Lumpy on July 23, 2003, 04:07:24 pm
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First off I'd like to thank everyone who helped confused me when I was thinking about buying an I-Pac. If I can wrestle the credit card away from the wife I believe that's what I'll be buying and directly from Ultimarc.
Also, Tapper is one of my favorite games. I was wondering if anyone built a tapper into the control panel. Is there a way to do this??? Do I need to rig something up to hit the buttons when I move the tapper. Any ideas????
Thanks
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I think it was a 2-way joystick. Just replace the handle on a standard joystick like they've done when hacking flight sticks onto 8-ways.
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all they have is tapper manuals on ebay right now
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I would probably use one of the tappers I already own....not authentic, but would look cool. I wasn't sure how to "hack" it together. Can you buy two way joysticks somewhere?
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They come up ever 3 - 6 months on ebay. I considered it... but really couldn't justify the cost. They haven't been going for that much. If it's your favorite game, you should be able to get one if you just wait.
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I believe Happs carries 2-way supers.
I don't see a reason why you couldn't do a hack using your current tapper without a joystick. Get some microswitches with actuator levers from "The Real Bob Roberts". Just have to find a way to mount the tapper so it can be pulled down. Lots of ways to do it, but they may not all feel the same as the original control. i.e. someone on here made a gear shift by hacking a light switch. Not quite the same feel ;)
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Set the down position on your right joystick to deliver the beer so that it acts just like the tap control on the original. or vise- versa if you're a lefty. If you're a real authenticity guru then you could break off the bat or balltop from an extra stick and mold some kind of handle back onto the shaft that resembles the original but thats getting kind of involved as far as skill level goes plus it would be kind of a neucence to switch the whole joystick handle just for one game and then back again. There is some spanish company that does make screw-on ball tops which would be ideal for doing this. Can't remember the brand but somebody on this forum bought a couple new ones from a guy on Ebay. They had funky colored balltops like bright pink and green. Somebody else on this forum may recall these.Alright... probably much more info then you wanted to here so I'll end it here. ;D
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You see Tapper joys on ebay every once and awhile.
Oh yeah, and Tapper uses a 4-way joystick. How else do you go collect the money on the bar?????
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Cause it had two joysticks. A standard 4-way and a 2-way with a budweiser tap mounted on the top.
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Cause it had two joysticks. A standard 4-way and a 2-way with a budweiser tap mounted on the top.
You are right. The tapper is what in mame has mapped the buttons.
Just no one mentioned the 4way, don't want to confuse nebies :)
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I think it would be cool to take a real tapper and throw it on one of the Defender-type Wico 2-ways that come up on eBay all the time (leaf type).. but in the end I figured it was a bit much just for one game (I guess I *could* play Defender/StarGate with the tap :P).
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You could also put it on an 8-way and play fighting games. Playin' while you're drunk? May as well...
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I just use Player 2's joystick as a tapper.
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I think the least hassle would be to hack a 2-way joystick. That way you know it's strong enough to withstand play, and you don't have to mess with making a mounting bracket for the switch. You can get 3/8" pipe that fits into a Happ shaft, hack a beer tap to the top of it, and put that on to your joystick base. To keep the stick from rotating, look at this... (http://www.1uparcade.com/projects-trigstick.html)
I don't know much about the arcade controls. I only played Tapper on our old C64, using an Atari joystick with one button...
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the Tapper arcade game is really cool. has a bar for your feet and so on... nice design. Why not find one to purchase? If you love the game so much, just buy the actual game...if you have the extra $$ that is.
If i had the $$ i would buy one. it's a cool cab!
;D
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I do love the game.... I'd love to have an original.... I'm newly married.... So that means I don't have the extra cash. I didn't know about 2 way joysticks, but now that I do I might have to give that a shot.
For those of you who confused me on what to buy for controls I just put in my order at Ultimarc for the I-Pac/4. Hopefully the wife doesn't make me wait till my birthday to use it.
I hear a lot about the real bob roberts. Is that a safe/good place to buy things from. I bought my first stuff from Happs, but they're kind of expensive. I see Bob has some two way sticks for 8.50.
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Bob Roberts is an EXTREMELY good egg! Don't forget to browse through the excellent technical articles on his site. Bob believes in jobs done right, so in addition to all the arcade stuff, he always has the proper disconnects, cable ties, spiral wrap, etc.
The only downside is that Bob is a semi-retired operator, and thus doesn't take credit cards or PayPal or anything. You need to send him a check or money order. It's worth the effort.
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Some pics help :D
Here's the CP:
(http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/images/T/nTapper.jpg)
(http://www.arcadeshop.com/pics/bt-goo.jpg)
(http://thebrokenjoystick.com/pictures/albums/tapper/new_tapper_cp.jpg)
And the cab:
(http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/images/T/cTapper.gif)
I'd keep an eye out on Ebay, or post a wanted in any forums you can find. Start here with buy/sell/trade. Also, RGVAC is a large group of arcade collectors, maybe they'll have one at some point:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=rec.games.video.arcade.collecting (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=rec.games.video.arcade.collecting)
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I like the spot on the sides for beer mugs
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If you mean to keep an eye out for a rail, they sell 'repros' at phoenixarcade.com..
Y'know.. if they make replacement rails, why not taps? :/
Weird :P
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It would be really cool to hack a real beer tap and use it. They're much bigger and look cool.
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yeah, and you could use your fav brand! someone could do this with enough ingenuity.
hmmm...
:o
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If you use a bar-type beer tap and it's much longer than those on the actual arcade machine, you might want to give your joysticks some extra support. It looks like a real bar tap might have a lot more leverage than those little ones.
edit: at least if you're using particle board. I know my CP couldn't stand for a 12" + leverarm being smacked up and down real fast. ;) Hardwood might work better, but the Happ joysticks don't have the sturdiest mountings straight out of the box. Maybe two joystick plates, sandwiching the joystick and wood.
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Thank you all for the ideas. Once I receive my I-pac and get that all figured out I'll will be putting in an order to Bob Roberts for some more parts. I just need to figure out where I'm going to put the tapper in my 4-player design. I know I want a trackball down the road so it looks like I might be doing my control panel a couple of times. Oh well....from what I hear around here my cab will never be done......just a work in progress.....
Hmm....Grafixmonkey....good tip for adding extra support. Never thought of that...all my tappers are a quite a bit longer then the originals. I'm hoping I can let me friends screw on whatever brand they prefer. I have many choices to choose from...
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Thank you all for the ideas. Once I receive my I-pac and get that all figured out I'll will be putting in an order to Bob Roberts for some more parts. I just need to figure out where I'm going to put the tapper in my 4-player design. I know I want a trackball down the road so it looks like I might be doing my control panel a couple of times. Oh well....from what I hear around here my cab will never be done......just a work in progress.....
Hmm....Grafixmonkey....good tip for adding extra support. Never thought of that...all my tappers are a quite a bit longer then the originals. I'm hoping I can let me friends screw on whatever brand they prefer. I have many choices to choose from...
I love tapper also and always seem to miss the auctions on eBay.
Just a suggestion, but if you feel like you are going to be using a lot of "special" controls you may want to think about a swappable or
rotating panel.
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I was thinking about a modular control panel since I would like to go with a 4 Player setup, but I'm not quite sure how I'm going to pull it off. I might just have the middle part of the control panel come off (Player 1 & 2) while 3&4 stay put, or just pull out player one. Anyone else have a setup like this?