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The regular pac-man joystick has innacurate NOAC-based versions, I checked. The analog stick has 3 pins - perhaps you can implement full left and right?brojamfootball wrote:I am trying to do something similar, just instead of making it portable I want to build a mini home arcade cabinet, like we all dreamed those 1980s Coleco tabletop units would have been. I've got the master plan nearly complete except for one thing--what did you use to represent the twist control for Pole Position/how did you implement it? I have a mini Pac-man tv game that doesn't have Pole Position that I could use, but have the Ms Pac-man and another Pac-man one with several more games including Pole Position that I would rather use. I see it looks like you've got a spinner on the front, but maybe that's an analog stick working as digital. Posted some stuff in forums in other places but got no meaningful responses. PLEASE let me know. Thank you in advance!
I don't care about the accuracy, it's pretty much a good version, and doesn't require hundreds of dollars invested in crashable pc hardware to do it--costs like five bucks, won't crash, and is super easy to hack. Even a person like me with relatively limited electronics knowledge can hack the controls, power, and video/audio out, I just don't know what to do with the analog steering control. I have done the cartridge slot mod to an Atari Flashback 2 and know I can do this, I just don't understand that one little piece of technology.Bibin wrote:The regular pac-man joystick has innacurate NOAC-based versions, I checked. The analog stick has 3 pins - perhaps you can implement full left and right?brojamfootball wrote:I am trying to do something similar, just instead of making it portable I want to build a mini home arcade cabinet, like we all dreamed those 1980s Coleco tabletop units would have been. I've got the master plan nearly complete except for one thing--what did you use to represent the twist control for Pole Position/how did you implement it? I have a mini Pac-man tv game that doesn't have Pole Position that I could use, but have the Ms Pac-man and another Pac-man one with several more games including Pole Position that I would rather use. I see it looks like you've got a spinner on the front, but maybe that's an analog stick working as digital. Posted some stuff in forums in other places but got no meaningful responses. PLEASE let me know. Thank you in advance!
Thank you so much for your reply! I can't yet figure out how to put pics here, but here is a link to them at a forum on Atariage:Triton wrote:my guess would be its probably something like a spring return potentiometer or just a regular potentiometer (like the paddle controllers for the atari 2600) but i havent actually seen the thing your talking about in person so i wouldnt know for sure. this is the most likely thing tho!
Thank you so much for taking your time!Triton wrote:after looking through that thread im pretty sure that it uses a potentiometer (aka pot) for the rotary bit and is spring centered. it MIGHT also be a rotary encoder (like what some computer mice and trackballs use) but i would think the pot would be the more likely choice (probably a lot cheaper) quick way to find out is hook up a multimeter to the center and either left or right pins of it, set the multimeter to ohms and turn the thing, the value should change depending on the position and will possibly be zero when centered
Well, the NOAC-based Pac-Man one has no twist control, and no analog. The Ms. Pac-Man unit is the one you are wondering about.brojamfootball wrote:I don't care about the accuracy, it's pretty much a good version, and doesn't require hundreds of dollars invested in crashable pc hardware to do it--costs like five bucks, won't crash, and is super easy to hack. Even a person like me with relatively limited electronics knowledge can hack the controls, power, and video/audio out, I just don't know what to do with the analog steering control. I have done the cartridge slot mod to an Atari Flashback 2 and know I can do this, I just don't understand that one little piece of technology.Bibin wrote:The regular pac-man joystick has innacurate NOAC-based versions, I checked. The analog stick has 3 pins - perhaps you can implement full left and right?brojamfootball wrote:I am trying to do something similar, just instead of making it portable I want to build a mini home arcade cabinet, like we all dreamed those 1980s Coleco tabletop units would have been. I've got the master plan nearly complete except for one thing--what did you use to represent the twist control for Pole Position/how did you implement it? I have a mini Pac-man tv game that doesn't have Pole Position that I could use, but have the Ms Pac-man and another Pac-man one with several more games including Pole Position that I would rather use. I see it looks like you've got a spinner on the front, but maybe that's an analog stick working as digital. Posted some stuff in forums in other places but got no meaningful responses. PLEASE let me know. Thank you in advance!
Read what I'm trying to do--remember the Coleco home tabletop Units of the 80s? They used some kind of L.E.D. type of technology for the screen and toned the game WAY back, technology-wise. I want to make one that's virtually perfect(not for a purist, just for regular folks), and the plug and play tv games will easily satisfy that requirement. I don't care if my old pattern to clear 100 Pac-man screens works or if the sound is ever-so-slightly different. It looks fantastic compared to the old Coleco tabletops and also far better than anything we had for the home back then. Home console versions of arcade games back in the 80s were rough approximations. Excalibur is(actually was) making what are kind of reissues of a couple of the old home tabletops(Space Invaders and Frogger), but I want a machinethat's the way we all dreamed they would have been, UNLIKE the old Colecos.
Besides, the Ms Pacman Mini shown at the top of this thread is based on a Namco TV plug-and-play game--that's what this thread was talking about, not knocking the game's inaccuracies, but reveling in the lovely hack executed.
Now back to my question at hand, which was the analog twist control. Again, read what I'm trying to do--steering for Pole Position won't work with simple on/off digital control, that's why the TV game has analog steering, the "twist" control, in the first place. IGN.com called it "The best playing Pole Position since the arcade," specifically due to its control. It looked to me like the Ms PacMan Mini has an analog stick and wondered how its creator hacked that part of his TV game.
I essentially want to do what he has done but in the shape of an arcade cabinet. Maybe that says it better.
Someone please respond with something pertinent about the steering "twist" control...
wallydawg wrote:I think we should check to see if you can withstand 220 voltschainfire95 wrote:220V I believe
