MAMEWorld Forums - News - Re: Cool,arcade controller project on Kickstarter

> > > Not trying to be negative, I'm genuinely curious... is the only difference
> between
> > > this and something like an I-PAC or a Keywiz the LED support? Don't get me wrong,
> > > it's a cool idea and all, but I can't see myself building a cab where the buttons
> > all
> > > light up like a Christmas tree.
> >
> > In conjunction with a compatible front end and maybe a derivative MAME build
> there's
> > a lot you can do with that, like only lighting up buttons that are active for a
> given
> > game. That would really improve usability of some of the denser panels I've seen
> >
> > And of course, additional competition never hurt any product category.
>
> You can already do this with a combo of something like and iPac, LEDWiz and
> LEDBlinky, but what this guy is trying to do is combine all of that into one product
> at a much lower price point. For someone like me who is going down that road with my
> cabinet, it's pretty attractive. The only question will be quality and feature set
> when it's released.
>
> And yes competition is always good.

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but the ipac and all of those devices are kind of over-priced in this day and age. They weren't when they came out, but now you can buy a generic avr board for around 20 dollars. Considering this thing is coming out now, and it retails for 95 bucks, it is waaaaaay overpriced. You'll notice that both Andy and Randy are now offering low-cost boards in response to this.

I actually looked into making a commercially viable product and determined that pre-made avrs are so cheap now it doesn't make any sense as short run batches cost considerably more.

Example:

Get a teensy, they are 16 bucks. Now program it to show up as a mouse, keyboard, joystick or all three and configure the pins to your liking. Ok in terms of inputs you are done.

Not enough inputs? Buy another teensy... they are only 16 bucks afterall.

Want a rgb driver? Buy another teensy!

Yeah that's a lot of teensys but keep in mind this thing is retailing for 95 bucks. You can get 6 teensys for that and if you need more than 6 you need to scale back your control panel.

I'm not endorsing the Teensy btw, it's just the first low-cost avr that popped into my head.

I don't really understand the high cost of the board tbh... he's using solid state chips, which are hard to solder and therefore add expense. Why? Space definitely is NOT a factor in our hobby and the old school gigantic avr chips can be had for a couple bucks a pop these days.