Defender/Stargate Style Panel

[Grasshopper]

I built this control panel almost a year ago but I've only just got round to posting pictures due to lack of time and access to a digital camera.

I originally intended it to be a prototype for me to practise my carpentry skills on and I thought I'd easily be able to hack it together over a couple of weekends. How wrong I was! The whole project spiralled out of control both in terms of build time, and money spent, so I can't really call it a prototype any more.

It doesn't look much compared with some of the awesome projects on this board. However, I've learnt a great deal from the experience and hopefully my next panel will be bigger and better.

The button layout is very loosely based on Defender/Stargate but I tweaked the layout slightly so that I could play Neo-Geo style games with the 4 rightmost buttons. I also pushed up the hyperspace button (which no one has the time to use anyway!) so that it could be used for a fire button on early left/right shooters such as Galaga. With the benefit of hindsight I would have gone for either a more generic Hodrod style layout or gone for a completely authentic Defender layout.

I limited myself to 6 buttons because I originally intended to hack a PC gamepad (the type that plugs into the midi port) to keep costs down. I'd already bought an Ipac but I didn't want to waste it on what was originally only intended to be a prototype. However, about halfway through the project I realised the it was a bit silly to be doing all this work and limit myself to only 6 buttons, so I abandoned the gamepad hack and hacked a keyboard instead. It was too late to change the top layout so I stuck 4 extra buttons on the side for admin functions.

Hacking a keyboard wasn't as difficult as some people have suggested. However, I really miss having keyboard pass through so I may fit my Ipac to the panel as some point in the future.

I will also hopefully get around to doing some artwork over the next couple of months, probably something along the Multi-Williams lines.

Any feedback (both good and bad) would be welcome.

[Grasshopper]

Another picture.

[Grasshopper]

And another.

[Grasshopper]

And another.

[Grasshopper]

And another.

[Grasshopper]

And another.

[Grasshopper]

And another.

[Grasshopper]

Last one.

[Acids]

Still looks good to me!.
Nice and tidy.