MAME control

On Saturday I was sitting around thinking, well, the biggest thing left is to make the pretty control panel. I wish it were done already so we could play games nicely with joysticks and buttons, rather than just a keyboard.

Then it hit me. Why not make a TEMPORARY control panel, so we can experience the real thing, and use that UNTIL the real control panel is done.

So we whipped up a control panel.

First, we cut a piece of 3/4 inch plywood to fit between the cabinet sides...basically the exact same size as the "mockup" panel. Then thought about the games to play. I wanted something that would play a lot of games, but didn't need to play every single one. So I came up with a layout of 8 controls. I marked these and showed my son how to drill them. He did all of the drilling except for 1 hole.


Then we attached the controls.
1 joystick, 2 buttons for actions (red and orange), a 1 and 2 player start, an "escape" (blue) to get out of a game back to the menu, a "pause" (black), and a "coin added" button (green...for money). This is just temporary, mind you.


I attached the wires after consulting a diagram that came with the wiring harness. The only tricky thing is the joystick. When you move a joystick UP, it actually presses a switch in the DOWN orientation...so everything wired on the bottom is reversed. I knew this ahead of time and had no problem.

Then I simply used 4 L-shaped corner braces to screw it in place. Hooked it up to the computer and keyboard and it all worked great!


With a little more reading, I found that the "Escape" and "Pause" functions had no corresponding switch...but they are accomodated by pressing and holding the "Player 1 start" button in combination with another button or joystick movement. So, to that end I put some blue tape in place OVER the top of those buttons (could have removed them) and a couple of strips of tape with writing that reminds us how to activate those 2 functions.

It couldn't work any better. We played the rest of the weekend and had a LOT of fun. A joystick and regular arcade buttons make a HUGE difference, and it eliminates the possibility of mishit keys on a keyboard.

I could live with it like this for a long time, but it would be nice to have the real control panel equipped with trackball, spinner, and controls for 2 players simultaneously. So I'll start to work on that right away.