Posted by Ray Ghanbari on July 16, 1999 at 11:50:08:
In Reply to: Trackball size posted by Jim M on July 15, 1999 at 21:02:50:
:
: Would anyone have any idea. Are A good guess. What size trackball was used in Missile command. are what is the normal size t-ball's used. Thanks Jim
On the classic arcade side, trackballs were traditionally maxi (Missle Command, Atari Football, etc.), midi (Marble Madness, etc.), and mini (Centipede, etc.)
All had very different sized balls and mountings.
Midi balls were basically the same size as pool balls. In fact, you occassionally see arcade games with an 8 ball in as a trackball replacement.
The maxi trackball is HUGE (at least 4" in diameter)
More modern trackballs sometimes have different mounting configurations (Happ-style)
For my mame cabinet project, I have measured drawings for ~30 modular control panels (each ~10"x12") for all the various control configurations with the historical controls and historical layouts. Idea is to drop in a new control panel module for each of up to 4 players as needed.
If/when I ever finish that project, I'll be posting everything (I'm looking into USB microcontroller hacking right now to standardize the interfaces)
Ray
NB anyway to have all the posts to this list gatewayed to e-mail? Having all this good stuff in my inbox each day would be the motivation I need to get going on this project again ;-)