Part II! In what's becoming a regular feature, Rodney (and buddy
Mark) has yet again updated his project(s). From stand-alone arcade
controls, he's moved to an arcade cabinet project :) It has it's
own page and is linked here for convenience.
Rodney's done it again :) He's built a new joystick he's calling
the Patriot, and it's a thing of beauty. You folks realize everytime
you send me one of these gems I look at my sad-by-comparison popsicle stick
project and go back to knitting?
Rodney emailed me with his joystick project, and it's very well done. He's given me his blessing to share it with everyone, so here tis . . . Thanks Rodney!
Rodney's Original Project Using the info from your pages and links I have built a Arcade Control Panel. The Control Panel used the KE-24 from Hagstrom, with the buttons and joysticks coming from Happ Controls. It is basically a Stargate Control Panel with a second Joystick for playing Robotron, additional buttons are for 1 & 2 Player Games, plus Insert Coin, esc, enter and additional mapped keys until I used up all 24 buttons! I am able to use ONLY the control panel from Windows 98 to launch Mame/w and navigate through the games, this is important because the next move is to mount it in a Arcade Cabinet for a great stand up Mame Machine.
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| Control Panel Front | Control Panel Back |
The Patriot! After his very nice original joystick control panel, most folks might have spent their time playing with the darn thing. Not Rodney! Drafting a buddy into his web of wires and buttons, Rodney and company came up with "the best keyboard layout of any stand alone project (he) has seen." :) Rodney admits to being biased, but when you look at the pictures I don't think you'll argue too much.
On this project, all the arcade parts are from Happ Controls. They gutted a cheap game pad for control of 6 buttons and one joystick, and used the KE-24 keyboard encoder for the rest. With this configuration, Rodney's ready to use MAME and any front end, without ever touching a keyboard or mouse!
Rodney did the design for the control panel, but his friend Mark did most of the wiring and "stuff" -- so a special shout out and thanks goes to Mark! :)
The Patriot in action! The Patriot with labels.
Inside the Patriot. Inside with labels.
