Joysticks

Mame Conversion Controls - Joysticks

Unless you are building a dedicated Mame cabinet (driving game for example), every cabinet will need at a bare minimum one joystick. By far and away, MCA Style joysticks were the most popularly used in Australia & New Zealand cabinets. As with all controls, there are a variety of different brands available - each will have a different feel and deciding what brand to use is a personal preference.

As with arcade buttons, joysticks tops which are generally either ball or batton style are available in various colours to match your preferred control panel scheme. Illuminated tops are also available for some brands of joystick.

Most original arcade joysticks make use of a restrictor plate. The restrictor plate is either moved from it's position at the bottom of the joystick or uses a rotation method to change the joystick from being either 2-way (left-right or up-down), 4-way (up, down, left & right) to full 8-way (up, down, left, right plus the diagonal directions).

Changing your joystick between the most common 4-way and 8-way requires easy access to the joystick and this an important attribute to remember if you are making a Mame cabinet from scratch. Newer joysticks coming onto the market specifically for Mame style cabinets now allow the joystick to be easily switched between 4-way and 8-way without the need to open your cabinet.