Absolute minimum number of admin buttons?

[Jamesbeat]

I'm trying to plan my control panel etc, and I don't want loads of admin buttons all over the thing.

I've tested the system briefly, and I'm thinking that I can get away with the following:

P1 start
P2 start
P1 coin
P2 coin
Exit game
Exit Mame (which I have set up to shut down the system)

I'm using a Raspberry Pi with Mame4all, so I don't have any fancy settings.
I don't want a pause button, as I want it to be as close to a real arcade machine as possible.

Have I forgotten anything?

[Le Chuck]

Coin and Start can be the same button for just about everything.  Exit mame and Exit game can be the same button too.  Both those buttons can be mapped to other button combos. 

The answer to your question, if you don't count the player start button as an admin - since it really isn't, is zero. 

[Vigo]

I agree with Le Chuck, zero is the answer. Some people prefer to have them, but I find having none is quite simple.

My recommendation:

Set Coin to be Player start + Player button #1
Set Exit in Mame to be P1 start + P2 Start
Set the same P1 Start + P2 Start as a exit command in mame4all, and have it shutdown on exit.

So all you have to do is press the p1 and p2 start buttons once to go to the menu and twice to shut down.

[Jamesbeat]

I actually tried the above combinations when I was testing things out, and encountered problems:

1. Having P1 + P2 to exit a game seemed safe to me until I tried playing fast-paced games with my son.
It didn't happen often, but sometimes we would accidentally both hit our start buttons at the same time during play, and accidentally exit the game.

2. Having the 'quit Mame and shut down' command the same as the 'exit game' command was too risky.
My kids and other non-techie people will be using this machine, and it's too easy to accidentally hit the button combination twice. I found this to be especially true when there is a slight delay between pressing the button and the game exiting. It's too easy to think that you didn't press the button properly and press it again.

I'm going to be using coin mechs, so I'm not going to double up the coin switches and the P1 & P2 start buttons.

Do I need a menu button? (I believe tab is the default)

[yotsuya]

Here's another vote for zero admin buttons.

Add what you want, but don't make MENU obvious. I GUARANTEE you someone will accidentally hose your settings when you aren't looking.

[Vigo]

The only time I ran into the start buttons accidentally shutting down a game is when i had a toddler pounding on the control panel. 

If you were on windows, I would recommend doing a hotkey script so that the key combination will not register unless the keys are held down for 1 second. I would think it would take care of both issues. but I am not sure if there is any way to do that on a Pi.

I have my menu set to P1 Start + P1 Button 1 + Left on the P1 joystick. It's super secret. Shhhh.

[Louis Tully]

.

[Jamesbeat]

Here's another vote for zero admin buttons.

Add what you want, but don't make MENU obvious. I GUARANTEE you someone will accidentally hose your settings when you aren't looking.

Yes, exactly, which is why I'm reluctant to have button combinations that could inadvertantly be pressed.
I'm going to put the 'quit mame and shut down' button on one of the upper rear corners of the cab where it's out of sight, and also out of reach for my darling children!

I have another related question:
Can I make 'quit game and go back to game list' be a different button from 'quit mame and shut down'?
I believe the default is Esc, but I'd like to have them as separate buttons so that I can do the above configuration, ie conceal the shutdown button.