Posted by Agent Davis on 8, 2001 at 6:29 PM:
In Reply to: heres the real picture posted by charlie on 8, 2001 at 4:47 PM:
Let me try and explain this. I'm going to be extremely overly simplistic.
Let's say you have a control panel with one joystick and 6 buttons. The joystick has 4 total inputs (up, down, left, right) plus the 6 buttons. Total of 10 inputs.
Now, you need an interface. This can be a keyboard, an encoder, a hacked joystick, or even a dreamcast controller. Anything that sends your inputs from your control panel to the computer or in case of the dreamcast controller, a dreamcast.
You need to run the wires from the control panel to the interface. However, if you want to use multiple control panels or the same control panel for multiple systems, like a pc or dreamcast then you need to make the things interchangable.
I choose to fit the control panel(s) with "male" plugs and the interface(s) with "female" plugs. Male plugs connect inside of female plugs, just like the birds and the bees.
You could make each individual input on your control panel male and each individual input on your interface female. You could do this by just using regular wires fitted with quick disconnects.
However, this is really inconvenient and a pain. So, people use a group of wires arranged in a cable. Let's say you are going to use a DB25 cable. Now, the best thing to do is get a Male to Female DB25 cable. A DB25 cable has 25 pins on the connector that connect to 25 wires that run through the cable. These individual wires are what we are going to wire to our interface and our control panel.
Cut the M to F DB25 cable in half. You now have two cables... one with a Male end, one with a female end. Now, cut open the male cable to reveal the 25 individual wires inside of the cable. Solder or use disconnects to hook one individual wire to each of your inputs on your control panel. IE: Above we had 10 inputs, so we would take 10 little wires and wire one to each 10 inputs...Red to right, Blue to up....or whatever. Lets say you have two joysticks with 6 buttons per joystick for a two player panel...20 inputs total. You can use just one DB25 connector or you could use two, using one per each player.
Now we have a control panel with a male connector on it. Take your female cable and do the same thing to the interface, this time connecting each individual wire to the input on the interface that represents what input you want it to be on the control panel. IE: If you wired the red wire to right on your control panel then on your female cable wire a red wire to the interface input for "up".
Using this method, you can make any control panel swappable as well as any interface swappable. If you want to wire up a Dreamcast controller then all you have to do is take a female cable and attach the little wires to the input on the DC controller that represents the control on the control panel. Once again, you'd wire red to up on the DC control pad.
NOTE: If you have a permanent button on your cab that you can't make swappable like coin mechs or buttons on the cab itself, then don't connect that input to your connector. Just run a single wire to the input on your interface with a disconnect so that you can still use that interface input for something else if needed.
NOTE: You can use any type of connector that has a male end and a female end. This includes, but not limited to DB9, DB15, DB25, Molex connectors, Floppy ribbon cables...and more.
NOTE: DB25, DB15, etc. may have one less wire then you think. This is due to the fact that one pin is actually instead the frame, which is used for the ground.
CHARLIE: Whatever kind of connector you used to wire up your control panel, all you need to do is use the opposite "sex" cable and hook that to the DC controller. If you can't do that then follow my steps above and redo it. It's extremely easy.