Controls

The joysticks are T-Stiks from Ultimarc, which can switch between 4-way and 8-way modes. If you want to play games like Pacman, you'll want to switch to 4-way mode for realistic feel and accurate control. The new T-Stik Plus from Ultimarc can switch modes without reaching under the control panel, so I'd like to upgrade to those. The buttons are push buttons with horizontal microswitches, which are arranged in Street Fighter formation to cover most games. The trackball is 3-inches in diameter and glows blue when lit underneath. All the buttons and the trackball came from Happ Controls.
You can see the joystick is not flush with the surface, so I'll have to figure out a way to counter sink it before I put an overlay on top.
I got a wiring kit from Ultimarc, which included different colors of wire, crimp connectors, cable ties, and a crimp/strip tool. The crimp connectors will make it easy to disassemble my prototype and reconnect it on the actual control panel. The buttons and joysticks are hooked up to an I-PAC keyboard encoder, which connects to the PC over PS/2 or USB. I like the fast interaction, separate inputs, and programmability of the I-PAC that set it apart from others.
The other circuit board is an Opti-PAC that connects the optical trackball to a PC over serial or USB. Happs has new trackballs with the serial interface built-in, which would be a better choice now.