Posted by bernard on February 23, 2002 at 22:50:32:
In Reply to: Anyone have control panel pics posted by JackMeekhof on February 22, 2002 at 14:59:16:
My control panel is very small. It's 23 5/8" long by 6 1/2" wide. It's a Dig-Dug cabinet (no, I didn't get it as a Dig-Dug or it still would be), and the control panel doesn't give much room to work with, but I just love the shape of the cabinet, and really wanted to use it for my MAME machine. This machine was built with really only one-person in mind (myself), and therefore the control panel was built to cater to one-player games...though 2 players CAN play comfortably on it. My main concern was that hands could be placed comfortably on the control panel using the appropriate controls as if none of the others were there (so that you wouldn't be bumping into joysticks or buttons etc), and you could still rest like the back of your hand on the control panel (that's the reason the buttons are farily high). I took great care in judging placement for the pieces based on hand positions during play. My configuration also allows left or right handed play with joystick and buttons (to be able to play games as the original control panel layout was. either buttons on left or right of joystick. Use the right joystick with left buttons, or left joystick with right buttons, either is very comfortable. And for two players at the same time you each have buttons on your own side. I don't play many trackball games, so I went without one, and instead installed a spinner (again with enough room so that I wouldn't have to bump the joystick), not too many spinner games I play, but more than trackball games. My navigational buttons are up top. From left to right they are (FUNCTION, 1pl, coin, 2pl, pause). Adding the FUNCTION button was a great idea I got from someone. It pretty much cuts your need for nav buttons in half. I assign RESET to FNCT+1pl (also since I don't want to reset by accident), and the ~ menu is FNCT+coin, Menu is FNCT+2pl, hmmm what did I assign to FNCT+pause? To exit is 1pl+2pl. It works out well. I spent a lot of time in the planning of this control panel, even making paper cutouts to arrange on paper (I highly recommend this), and I'm very pleased with the way that it worked out. Yes, the player buttons are a little cramped because the latch hook for the control panel robbed me of some space that I couldn't drill through. I hope it gives you some ideas, and I hope my pic comes out. Any questions, please feel free to ask me.
-bernard
view the pics at :
http://www.geocities.com/bernard_ooo/machine.html
: Anyone have pics of a small control panel that they were able to jam 2 joysticks, 6 buttons for each j-stick, 2 player select buttons and a track ball on. I'm talking small probably one about 2 feet X 11 inches. That may not be right its not in front of me. But I think you get the picture.