A dreamy arcade stick
Over on Racketboy’s forums (or fora if we’re to use the correct plural), user Jesmic has posted details of this awesome home made Dreamcast arcade stick, made with inductry standard arcade components…
Now that’s smoking hot… Although I’m not too keen on the fact that the buttons are right on top of Sonic’s face, but I would say that…
There are a few things that could be done to improve the unit, such as color coordinating the buttons as they were on the original pad and better placement of the ’shoulder’ buttons (which Jesmic says he would change if he were to make it again), but what would make this even cooler would be a dock at the top of the unit for a VMU. That way a little window could be added and any functionality that the screen would be portraying wouldn’t be lost…
I’m puzzled though… It looks to me like the joystick is wired up to the D-Pad circuitry, which makes sense as both are analog input devices, but what about games that require analog input? Don’t get me wrong, I know nothing about electronics and I’ve never been inside an arcade cabinet, but wouldn’t it have been possible to add a second stick with analog functionality?
I’m guessing that the analog triggers are replaced by buttons at the cost of their analog functionality, but I see the loss of the analog stick more troubling… Anyone got any suggestions?
Anyway, great work Jesmic! If you’d be interested in owning such a fine instrument and have $100 spare then get in touch with Jesmic through Racketboy’s message board… He can even create custom themes to put under the plexiglass front… Well worth the cash I’d say!
4 opinions for A dreamy arcade stick
gnome
May 8, 2006 at 17:26
The standard Dreamcast six-button-joystick-thingy definitely looks better and costs quite a bit less… Still, Jesmic’s work is interesting.
Jonic Linley
May 8, 2006 at 17:31
I agree that’s it’s really quite big, but for a home build I think this has a kind of polish to it that you don’t see all that often… Plus the montage under the pexi-glass plate is cool :o)
gnome
May 8, 2006 at 19:28
Admitedly yes. It also has the Samba and the Jet Set radio characters. Kewl!
darkNiGHTS
Apr 7, 2007 at 13:08
Jemsic is also a member of Segahub. He said that he hooked the analog stick up to the D-Pad because he wanted to play games like Street Fighter, and that adding an analog stick would have been a lot of money.
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