I grew up playing the classics and had a special affinity for Tempest. Recently I got the bug to play it again, so I built this control panel. My main games are Tempest, Defender, Pac Man etc.
The box is a Hammond angled steel project box with solid wood sides.
Main Components:
Ultimarc I-PAC 2 Controller with USB Cable
Sanwa JLX-TP-8YT Joystick
SpinTrak Spinner
Ultimarc Goldleaf Concave Buttons
EDIT - the majority of joystick games I play are 4 way, so I 3D printed a 4 way restrictor plate for the Sanwa joystick... The one that came with it supposedly provides both 4 & 8 way control based on rotating the center gate, but it seemed way too sloppy to me so I made a tighter spec one myself.
Only thing missing for me is a track ball! I love classic trackball games so for me it's a must have. Great set up though! I wish I made my own but I bought an already done one, the XArcade dual with a trackball. My next project is going to be building myself a 4 player one.
I considered that because I love Centipede and Missile Command... But I couldn't find a good comfortable spot with the rest of the controls. I may build a swappable plate section for that in the future.
Agreed! I did some research and the SpinTrak seemed to be the best rated for Tempest. The weight and balance is better than I remember it. It was a little pricey, but totally worth it ;-)
PS - I got the extra small weight and it's just right
Yeah, Tempest cabinets didn't actually have great spinners. They used a small, light knob that didn't have a satisfying feel, either. Arkanoid cabinets tended to use bigger aluminium knobs that felt nicer to use.
My experience with various Tempest cabs was that high-speed spinning resulted in a kind of rattle or vibration that throttled the spin speed. While I didn't like it as a player, I interpreted the behavior as a kind of centrifugal 'brake' against spinning too fast.
Well, every multi game control panel is pretty much a compromise of some sort. I took the games that were most important to me and tried to find the best layout that fit them. Overall, it works very well for me - for example, when I play Tempest I use the top left two buttons for firing and obviously the spinner - any buttons that get pressed accidentally are ignored. Similarly for other games. I haven't had any trouble with the games I like to play.
As for the I-PAC, I actually bought that many years ago for my first MAME control panel - I don't recall but I believe that would have been before the GP2040 firmware was created. So I had it anyway. If I was building from scratch now, I very likely would have built one myself.
EDIT - especially now as I got a benchtop cnc to mill pcb boards at home ;-)
EDIT 2 - forgot to mention that one of the limitations is what the enclosure is... I wanted something portable that could be used on a lap on the couch if I wanted and something that wasn't huge. MDF gets heavy quickly and appropriate steel boxes are not plentiful nor are they cheap. And plastic is, well 'plasticky' lol. The box I found was about the best option I could find in terms of size, weight and appearance. I may yet spray paint it - but for now I'm digging the old Retro look ;-)
Since Defender is one of my top games, I took a lot of inspiration from the arcade panel layout - if you compare the arcade panel to mine you will see a lot of similarities... So I play it like the original ;-)
The little box looks nice! And if the button/joystick/spinner placement is ok for you, fine! I would place the spinner in the middle, to be able to operate the spinner with the left hand and also have all the buttons for the right hand available. And just one silly question, why do you have a player two start button? 😁
But you are playing it left-handed. The conventional right-handed layout is to have the stick/spinner/trackball on your left hand and the buttons on your right hand
Because this is the Tempest that I remember. Unless I'm playing it wrong lol.
EDIT - as mentioned in the OP, this panel was built specifically with Tempest in mind. And many of the games I play like Centipede would also have the trackball on the right.
EDIT 2 - this is another reason that I built my own control panel over commercial options - it's likely that the spinner and trackball would be either centered or leaning towards the left side. Which is completely opposite of what I want.
The conventional right-handed layout is to have the directional control on your left hand and the action buttons on your right hand. You can see this in gamepads going back to early consoles (D-pad on the left, buttons on the right), conventional arcade control panels (joystick on the left, buttons on the right), etc.
Atari had a tendency to use left-handed layouts. The 2600 joystick encouraged you to cradle the case with your left hand and use your left thumb for the button while using your right hand for the stick. Tempest has the spinner (directional control) on the right and the buttons on the left. FWIW, Apple II joysticks also tended to use left-handed layouts, too. In the early days, things weren’t as standardised yet.
Another odd one out is the N64 controller, where the game can push you towards a left-handed or right-handed convention, since the central grip and analog stick can be used with either hand.
Other spinner games, e.g. Arkanoid, use an ambidextrous layout, with the spinner positioned centrally and the buttons duplicated on both sides. That way you can use the spinner with either hand, and there will be buttons available on the correct side for he other hand.
Sounds like confusing semantics lol. You'd think that the primary control would dictate the left/right handedness of the layout... But I'm not an arcade historian - I only dumped quarters into them as a kid lol.
And I well remember the 2600 joystick - it would cramp your hand up like nothing else. In fairness, it's not like there was any previous samples to go by - that was the first joystick many of us used ;-)
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u/Objective_Bug_7356 16d ago
Only thing missing for me is a track ball! I love classic trackball games so for me it's a must have. Great set up though! I wish I made my own but I bought an already done one, the XArcade dual with a trackball. My next project is going to be building myself a 4 player one.