During my first pass, I got it nearly right. I had two joysticks, six buttons (some buttons were shared to make the second joystick--an acceptable compromise), a trackball, and even a twisty grip spinner. The layout was reasonable. Nearly every game played well, and I had enough buttons to play Stargate. The only 2 player game I was interested in playing was Joust, and it played great. The joysticks were close enough for two stick games like Robotron and Tut.

I also did a lot of things right. Spatially, everything worked pretty well. Here you can see a little bit of how it is wired. I have all the buttons wired to a breadboard (you can get these are Radio Shack). The breadboard is then wired to my keyboard circuit board. I used a keyboard, but I've heard others rave about a the KE24 programmable keyboard.

But, all is not lost. Working on the cabinet is just as much fun as playing a game on it. So, my latest project is building my Control Panel version 2. When I placed my first order with Wico, I did get a catalog. I ordered, and recieved, exactly the joystick I was looking for.

In fact, they didn't have exactly what I ordered. So, the salesperson called me back and asked me if a stick in a different color (blue) was okay. I said it was, but he insisted on sending me two sticks for each assembly--one in the original red color (but not exactly the correct length), and the other in blue. Very nice people.