Look out you dirty commie rebels. Your endless fleet of soviet tanks and missile launchers are no match for my seemingly bulletproof helicopter gunship. I have been sent on a ludicrous mission to single handedly destroy nine thousand miles of enemy territory.



After mapping out the key circuits and attaching some of the original arcade buttons to the screw terminal, I fired up my PC and plugged in the keyboard encoder. It was time to test the wiring. SUCCESS. Using my wiring matrix, I was able to test every single arcade control for two players.

With the wiring up and running it was now time to start planning the control panel. I am refurbishing an arcade that is designed to be played by two players. With a loose idea of the games I want to load onto the system, I anticipate needing two eight-way joysticks, six action buttons for each player, two start buttons, an insert coin button, a quit button, a miscellaneous button, and a trackball for games like Centipede and Golden Tee.



I have created a preliminary template of my control layout in Adobe Illustrator. The next step is printing the template and laying it over the original control panel. With the panel positioned at the actual standing height I can get an idea of how the layout will feel to the user and make any necessary adjustments.