Help Understanding MiSTer's Dedicated Buttons/Keys

[Rolyen]

Hi all. Working on my 1st arcade build, making a stand-up arcade.

I have two joysticks, each with 8 buttons (two rows, 4 and 4) plus dedicated player 1 and player 2 buttons, all feeding into an I-PAC type controller, which then connects to the MISTER.

What is the minimum # of additional keys/buttons that would be needed to have (mostly) keyboardless MISTER control, for changing games, settings, etc? It looks like the joystick can be used for navigation (slelecting up/down in menus).

Can the gaming buttons (not sure what else to call them) also double for select, back, etc? I don't want to deal with too much use of button combinations (one or two is ok).

I'm thinking of squeezing in a mini 6 key usb keyboard onto the control panel, and mapping those to dedicated MISTER functions. Assuming that works (arriving next wk), what would be the best 6 functions to assign to those keys? What would be left over that would need combo-keys to achieve?

Sorry if this question is redundant - been searching for a few days, and can't find a consolidated explanation/list of the minimum number of "extra" buttons needed for such a setup.

[DevilHunterWolf]

As long as you have one spare button not being used for game play, you can map that as your MiSTer OSD menu button. From there, the directional pad and the standard layout B and A mappings work for navigation and as back and confirm buttons without any extra mapping (the dedicated back and confirm buttons can be skipped during the mapping process). So all you really need is just one extra button in order to run keyboardless. That is, of course, after your initial controller config. Keyboard is a necessity until you map your first controller and then you can use that without needing the keyboard. The OSD covers access to all the other important things including being able to cold reset MiSTer to clear out the RAM if switching games causes issues.

I don't know how many people are using a 6 key keyboard (I know there are at least a few) but from what I've seen, people are using it for navigation and confirm and cancel so they can use controllers without extra buttons and also not need a full keyboard sitting out. I think they're also supplementing it with the IO board buttons so they still have the menu button. But if you're creating an arcade control panel, one button extra on the panel probably makes a lot more sense than custom fitting the 6 key keyboard.

Take a look at the Input Devices page on the wiki to see if either Auto Fire mode or Mouse Emulation modes are worth looking into. Auto fire is done with the OSD mapped button so nothing extra needed for that. And you might have a differing opinion, but I'd rather just have a trackball than worry about a mouse mode. https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_Mi ... ut-devices Just don't forget about a Select or Coin button for each player. I didn't see that mentioned in your post. There's the occasional oddball game that either doesn't have freeplay if it's arcade gaming or needs Select to navigate the title screen menu options if it's console gaming. That is unless you're going pure arcade and also considering a coin door to complete the experience.

[Rolyen]

Thank you very much for the detailed reply, that helps tremendously.

A few follow-op questions:

1) I was thinking of having a coin door wired as a switch when activated, rather than "add coin" buttons, for authenticity. Does this make sense, or is this a bad idea? I do have room to add theses buttons in the future if needed.

2) By "Select" buttons, do you mean a "Payer 1 Start", "Player 2 Start" type button? I do have those (One for each player).

[DevilHunterWolf]

I don't know if I'm understanding the coin door question. Complete coin doors already have switches. They're activated when the coin passes them. They get otherwise get wired up like any other button and configured the same way. I have arcade builds that have coin doors so I can drop actual quarters in to complete the experience. Is that what you're talking about or are you saying you'll do something different?

Select button I mean the button next to Start on a standard controller. Start and Select. Just wanted to make sure to mention it since you didn't say you had them. Someone making an arcade build may not necessarily include them since arcade games don't have one.

[Rolyen]

Ahh, thank you. So some games (particularly console games) need a "select" button for each player, in addition to the start button and "action" buttons (kick, punch, etc)?

And yes, I was going to have a wired coin slot for the arcade (I've seen some builds have a dedicated "coin" button for this purpose, but I wanted to go with a coin slot instead)

So total button tally:

8 action buttons per player (16 total)
1 "Start" button per player (2 total)
1 "Select" button per player (2 total)

Plus one common OSD button to get to the MISTER menu?

[DevilHunterWolf]

If you're looking to cover all basics for console games, that's correct. You could always go through the games you want to use on the build and see if you need any of the extra buttons in the first place. It's possible to not need all of that in the first place. Even for arcade games, 8 action buttons is overkill. 6 button layouts were the max and that was more for Capcom fighting games. I could see maybe one row of 4 just to make a Neo Geo row but a lot of people are fine working within the 6 button layout. The choice is ultimately yours as it's your build.